I'm happy to announce that you can now try the demo for The Hidden Art of Innkeeping on Steam! You may be able to spot a couple familiar faces from The Lost Art of Innkeeping. :)
If you have any feedback on the demo, I'd love to hear it, and you can post it in this discussion topic on Steam. You can post any bugs you find there as well (I really hope there won't be any!).
Steam Next Fest is coming up next month (Feb 5-12), and I'm sure you're going to see lots of exciting new games in that! I'm participating as well and planning to do a couple livestreams of the demo. I'll also try to do a practice run before that, to test things out. Here's the tentative schedule if you want to check them out (you'll be able to see them on The Hidden Art of Innkeeping's Steam page):
Practice run: 12:00 pm (noon) PT on Sat, Feb 3 (20:00 UTC on Sat, Feb 3)
Steam Next Fest Livestream 1: 7:00 pm PT on Tue, Feb 6 (03:00 UTC on Wed, Feb 7)
Steam Next Fest Livestream 2: 12:00 pm (noon) PT on Sat, Feb 10 (20:00 UTC on Sat, Feb 10)
I'm very nervous because I've not livestreamed before. I would say it'll be more of a casual get-together where I'll play the demo and answer any questions, rather than a slick, professional production (it's totally not going to be anything near that). Anyway, I'd love to chat with players/gamedevs if you can make it!
The upcoming sequel now has a Steam store page!
Elinor is taking on the challenge of transforming an old farmhouse in a small seaside village into a luxurious inn in the upcoming sequel, The Hidden Art of Innkeeping! You can now view the trailer, screenshots, and description on the new game's store page on Steam, and wishlist it if you like.
I'll be posting devlogs there as well, so you'll be able to get a glimpse of some of the new features, places, and people. The estimated release date is sometime in 2024.
I'm excited to announce that I'm working on The Hidden Art of Innkeeping, the sequel to The Lost Art of Innkeeping!
Elinor is taking on the challenge of transforming a dilapidated farmhouse in a small seaside village into a luxurious inn. You'll see a few familiar faces from Lost Art (I'm so glad some of you gave feedback on your favorite guests!) but the new game will have a different setting and storyline, lots of new people, some new features, and can be played without knowing anything about the previous game.
After I released Lost Art, a few people asked for a sequel, which made me happy that they had enjoyed the game enough to want more but I felt that I had other ideas that I wanted to bring to fruition. I was able to work on a few different projects for game jams, including The Ghost Cage in 2020, Forest Star in 2021, and Mayor On The Run (currently available only on Itch.io) in 2022, so I kinda got that out of my system.
I settled on the basic plot for Hidden Art back in 2021 (I usually need an ending in mind before I can start working on a game), and it took me several months to plan out the characters, areas, and gameplay features on a spreadsheet. Having said that, I'm still constantly changing things as new ideas and characters come to mind!
I would say that at this stage, I'm a little more than halfway through the development of the game. I'm hoping to release it in either late 2023 or early 2024, but we'll see... I want to make sure that the game is as polished and bug-free as possible upon release, and playtesting always takes longer than I expect.
It's going to be a while before I create a Steam page for The Hidden Art of Innkeeping, mainly because a trailer's required for one. In the meantime, I'm planning to release updates about the game regularly on Itch.io and Twitter, and I hope you're all as excited as I am! :)
Forest Star is now available as a free game on Steam!
Forest Star is a short adventure game where you help a monkey find a fallen star. Meet and recruit other animals, find useful items, and discover new abilities. Multiple endings available depending on your choices!
I made Forest Star in about a month for the "Touch The Stars" game jam during the summer of 2021, where it ended up winning 3rd prize.
The Ghost Cage is a short and light-hearted pixel art adventure game that won the Spooktober Spooktacular Game Jam last year, though it's not a horror game.
Isabel inadvertently rents a house with a ghost. Should she befriend the ghost, or drive it out of the house? Multiple endings - which may be happy, sad, heartwarming, or amusing - available depending on your choices and the items you find!
Have you always wanted a gondola for your manor, or well-sculpted bushes in your garden? Or even a dramatic sculpture to decorate your lawn? Well, even if you never thought you’d want them, now you can have them! These upgrades are available in late game, when certain conditions are fulfilled, and some very important guests will appreciate your gorgeously upgraded garden!
You can get these upgrades either in a new game or a previously-saved game, even if you’ve already finished the game, as long as the conditions are fulfilled and you go to sleep at least once after loading the game.
In addition, when finding a particular item in Frank’s house, you can now choose to take it or not, and this has an effect on a subsequent event.
I also fixed a couple of bugs (one that can occur when sleeping in one of the guest rooms after getting an item from the tailor, and another that occurred if the player did not make preparations for the celebratory days) and a minor issue with one of the NPC’s movements in the garden.
Thanks once again to various players for their suggestions and feedback!
Summary of changes in version 1.2:
Added new upgrades for the garden.
Added the choice to take an item or not after finding it in Frank’s house.
Fixed a rare bug that could occur upon waking up.
Fixed a bug that could occur if preparations weren’t made for celebratory days.
Fixed a minor issue with one of the NPC’s movements.
