Greetings everyone! With Episode 1 in the rearview mirror, we want to take this opportunity to look ahead at the future of Hazelnut Latte. 

This is the fourth of a six-part series in which we will discuss the future of Hazelnut Latte. What is changing, and how we will release the game.

In this post, we will discuss the release schedule for Hazelnut Latte.

Releasing the Game

Let's get the most important bit of business out of the way: When will the game come out? That is a very complex question with a very simple answer: We can't possibly know. However! We do have a better idea of what will be shipping and how we will do it.

Release Schedule

While we cannot give dates, we can share our plan for releasing the game. As in the Ren'Py version, Mr. Noto gives the player until New Year's to pay off Cafe Estro's debt. We are keeping this premise but moving the story down by a month, so the player needs to do it in 3 in-game months instead of 4.

Base Game

When Episode 4 ends, that will be the Base Game, aka v1.0. This ends with the big Noto confrontation and the start of the plot in earnest. The end of Act 1. It is the best spot to cap off and create a base game to build upon.

This section will likely be somewhere around 250k words.

Estimating that Episodes 2 and 3 are around 60k words. Episode 1 is just under 40k. Episode 4 is likely around 90k, mainly because a lot happens, and it is the deciding moment. I want to do more things like "Future Hazel," where we explore what happens if you say no to helping Vera. Also, what might happen if you agree to help Mr. Noto?

Episode 4 is so big because I am essentially condensing a lot of things I wanted to do throughout the game into one episode. I originally wanted a path where you double-cross Estro, help Noto take over, and turn it into another front. A cool idea, but actually following that through over 17 Episodes would lead to insane bloat. But the idea is still dope, so I am going to pull a Babylon 5 and just do the finale if I can't do the whole story.

You might be wondering: Wait, Base Game? Well, that is where we talk about:

Expansions

In the wise words of Sir Idris Elba: "It's not a DLC... It's an Expansion! Big! Massive! Monstah!"

The first 4 episodes will serve as the base game, with future episodes released as Expansions. We plan to have 3 Expansions, one for each in-game free-roam month, with each episode focusing on an in-game week.

Expansion 1 - Episodes 5,6,7,8

Expansion 2 - Episodes 9,10,11,12

Expansion 3 -  Episodes 13,14,15,16

Episode 16 is the last week of December in the game, the big Climax where your fate is decided. So Episode 17 is the post-finale denouement, what happens after. It will be released as its own update, so everyone gets the ending at roughly the same time.

These Expansions will be paid. We do not have pricing numbers at this time.

Why Expansions?

Once we release the base game, we will no longer focus solely on our Patreon/Subscribestar audience. We will now have Steam, GoG, and Itch. But we want to cater to both of these audiences. Once we hit Steam, the number of people who know about our game will jump exponentially, and they won't want to leave Steam because of its pretty launcher. 

So the game will develop and be released the same as it always has on Patreon. Every month, we release what we have been working on so you can play it if you support us. But every time we hit a milestone (Episodes 4, 8, 12, and 16), we will release a full batch of Episodes on Steam, giving that player base a ton of content and giving us more funding to keep making the game.

Because Steam sales have the potential to be insane and way more than what we make on Patreon. Not to make it all about money, but this is our job. We need to make money to keep making games. But we also don't want to have one of those Steam storefronts where the DLC section has a million items. (I am looking at you, The Sims.) Keeping the number down to 3 feels like just enough.

We also want to do Expansions because if we wait until all 17 Episodes are completed before releasing on Steam, we may run out of funding. Now, we are doing 4 releases on Steam... with the potential to do post-final-build DLCs for things like a "Beach Episode" or a "Tabletop Episode." This means 4 chances to win a big payout, so the studio can continue making awesome games.

Wrap up

We've been sitting on this for months, thinking about it and making sure it was the right move. This way, we cater to our current audience and our potential Steam audience. We get a massive part of the game released that we can then build on. We get money coming in to keep people paid and, hopefully, to get more staff to help out.

If you think about it, every chunk is basically its own game. But we don't want to be out here making Hazelnut Latte 2 and then need you to transfer your saves between installments. It would also mean making each game semi-stand-alone. Because we all know that someone would hop into Hazelnut Latte 4, utterly confused.

I'm not sure how long this will take. But what I do know is we need people to help make it. The more people, the faster we can move. The only way to get people is to get more funds. I see this as an all-around win... but let us know what you think!

Stay tuned because tomorrow we will be announcing the release schedule for Episode 2!

Don't forget to join us for our YouTube Live Stream on Wednesday, August 12th, at 9 AM Pacific Time, where we will hold a large Q&A about all this information!

https://youtube.com/live/orTdqwcfGeo 

If you are not available to attend, but still want to submit a question (or want to be nice and give us time to prepare), you can fill out this Google Form with your questions so we can read them during the livestream. 

https://forms.gle/SUPhZpjBFUWHJUFK9

Thank you all so much for your continued support! You're the reason we're even making this game. With that said, Stay Rad!