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 third 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 content we are cutting from Hazelnut Latte.

What is being cut?

To reduce bloat, that meant we needed to cut things. As you saw at the end of Episode 1 with the introduction of Jamie, some stories will be told quite differently. There are new introductions planned for some other characters, like Vera and Robbie.

No main love interests or side characters are being cut from the game. Most of their planned content will still be in the game, aside from what we have cut from Hazel, the retooling of Jeze, and some character introductions.

Reducing the episode count just means those free-roam episodes will be tighter, with less meandering.

The biggest thing we are cutting is Hireable Servers at Noto's Restaurant.

Why we added Noto's Servers.

We originally wanted to add this mode as a way for players who wanted more lewd scenes to have a location they could visit when a new update was light on, or devoid of, new lewd scenes. This was a feature we started implementing back in the Ren'Py era of the free roam, where the player can hire out servers from Mr. Noto's for sexual favors.

It was also fun because, instead of inventing cool new characters that are just vehicles for sex, we teamed up with actual OnlyFans models to bring them to life. This was something we wanted to continue, both to avoid creating new characters and to cross-promote. Why make a whole cool new character if they weren't going to do anything?

Why are we cutting Noto's Servers?

While this seems like a cool idea, when you zoom out and think about it... It's a lot of work. How many servers would we see in the final build? How many scenes would there be? Would there be scenes with multiple servers? How often would we get new scenes?

Every server would need to have a sprite drawn (now animated), then the lewd scenes drawn and animated. Then I'd have to write the scenes. Which, I'll be honest, writing lewd scenes can be a bit monotonous as a writer. Especially if it is with characters who only exist to sleep with, and that's it.

Not to mention collaborating with models. When real people are involved, there’s more to worry about. What if a model decides to quit the industry and wants to scrub their presence, including taking their character out of our game? We'd have to honor that, and then we'd lose all that work. What if, for some reason, the model gets canceled? You can only get lucky so many times.

But the biggest reason? It takes time and energy away from the characters you care about. Every time we write/draw/animate a scene for some random server, that is time we aren't spending on Hazel, Robbie, or Vera. We would rather spend time with the characters we care about.

Also, if you're beefing with Mr. Noto, but also partaking in his goods, wouldn't he hide a camera in there and use that footage as blackmail?

Is any of that stuff being kept?

On the other hand, we have already done some work. So we are going to keep those scenes, but retooled and added to Episode 2, where Noto will try to tempt you, and you can fall for it. These scenes won't lead to a game over, but to a "Dark Side" ending in Ep 4.

What else is different?

Some stuff I have revealed here, but a lot of stuff I want to keep a surprise. The biggest cut is having Noto's Restaurant as a free-roam location where you dump money. But much is being kept. This could also change as I write. I might get to a scene and find a better way to do it, or I don't want to do it at all.

That is what I plan on doing with Vera's introduction. I dislike the webcam call she uses, so it is being scrapped. But what if Vera invited you out to drinks to discuss her failing business? What kind of dress would she wear?

The biggest real difference, as you can imagine, is Jamie and his story. This version of Jeze won't do many of the same things, because it just wouldn't make sense anymore.

Wrap up

I know losing out on content sucks. Believe me, if it were viable to include everything, I would. But the reality is, making a game takes a very long time. Some ideas are just too big for your budget and team size. Some ideas sounded cool, but then didn't work out. The amount of content cut from games regularly is shocking, but it's the way it goes.

This was originally part of an even longer post, but I decided to move the rest of that to its own post, so stay tuned; soon, we will talk about the new Release Schedule for the game!

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/NWMb9mxZ6c4KvLLT9

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