Runey
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Dev Diary #12
🕑 Added 2025-10-21 13:41:52 +0000 UTCHello everyone!
After listening to your feedback, I heard that what Harem Hotel is lacking most right now is gameplay. The story has received so much attention over the years, that the actual "game" part of this game has begun to suffer. While I've included stuff like the bowling tourney and the farm, these are more like minigames than something we would consider apart of the core gameplay loop. This gameplay loop is what I took a very hard look at after v0.19 completed.
But first, let's back up and look at the game objectively.
In Harem Hotel, there are currently four hub locations. The lobby, 1st floor, 2nd floor, and utility room. These locations are naturally visited often, so let's take advantage of this.
Above, you'll see that our lovely maids are now cleaning on each floor! As well as some signs of life from our residents and guests. Characters will now also leave food outside their door, depending on their personality. You'll see Kali leaving food out her door a lot more than Ashley for example.
After you see a maid cleaning, she'll leave. Food will stick around outside a door for the whole time slot though, until one of the maids gets to it. This way, the flow of gameplay is not possibly interrupted. These are just cosmetic features to add flavor to the gameplay loop.
Introducing Tourism!
Tourism is a new gameplay mechanic coming to v0.20 that allows you to officially open up your hotel for the first time! Optionally.
When you enable tourism, a random unique guest will show up in the lobby and attempt to make a booking. If you choose, you may interact with them, hear a bit of who they are, and accept or reject their booking personally. Otherwise, you can ignore them all day and Ellen will automatically assign a room to them. This system is as passive as you would like it to be.
You may really piss some guests off if you reject them though...
If you played v0.19.1, you may have noticed a strange and unique addition that stood out of place. That being, the addition of the second floor visually being upgraded:
This was also a precursor to the new 3rd floor! The guest floor. Which you probably noticed Lin cleaning above.
The 3rd floor will be a guest only floor containing three guest rooms, and a storage room.
You can even enter each of these rooms with the guests inside and interact with them. And you'll be able to upgrade these rooms as well!
You'll see some familiar and unfamiliar faces.
Which guests visit your hotel is completely determined by your hotel's star rating. Poorer guests will not visit a 5-Star hotel as it exceeds their expectations and finances. You could keep your hotel open to the less fortunate if you'd like, or shoot for 5 stars if you've got that profit motive. Every part of this mechanic is completely optional at every step of the way.
This rotating cast of guests also keeps things fresh. As you naturally progress the game, the hotel will continue to evolve and feel more popular.
This is a system largely only possible due to how big the game has gotten. Over time, I've naturally needed to fill this world and community with all sorts of people and regulars. This has given me a huge cast to play with, cutting down development time by a lot. If you're inclined, you'll also be able to learn more about these people. There will be new characters made for Tourism as well though!
Introducing the star system! Another new gameplay mechanic coming to v0.20.
The new star rating mechanic will tie into the normal progression of the game and give you objectives which would naturally be unlocked in previous updates, such as purchasing the bar being a requirement for a 2-Star hotel. Developing the garden and hiring Jin will provide the kitchen fresh produce, which will allow you to achieve a 5-Star hotel. This system acts in the background and gives you a clear and natural goal at any given time.
Reaching 5 Stars isn't the end of the game though, it's more of an achievement. Your hotel could very much remain locked to your favorite residents forever.
There are many new upgrades as well!
You may have noticed a side character on the left side of the lobby. These are characters getting breakfast! You'll only see side characters and their friends doing this, so the further you are into the story, the more alive the hotel will feel!
To enable the new breakfast buffet amenity, you must first reach a 3-Star hotel. Doing so will not only give you profit, but add life and flavor to your typical gameplay loop. The hotel will never look the same from one moment to another. There will always be something or someone new to see.
And finally, to tie everything together, a new end of week report screen! (Work in progress)
Most of the UI hasn't been fully developed, but you can see what I'm going for. A comprehensive list of all of your passive income, totaled up in one spot (totaling coming soon).
So this is what I've been up to since v0.19 released. Thankfully I've had a lot of time to work recently so I've been taking advantage of that. All of these system are still in development though, so anything you see is subject to change. But it will certainly be some of the first features to be released in v0.20!
There is a lot more technical stuff going on in the background, but I need to keep this post digestible, so thank you all for joining me in this dev diary!
As always, thank you all so much for supporting me and playing Harem Hotel.
If you would like more, you can follow my Twitter and join our Discord
Comments
Runey
Religion in fantasy settings is something that is often explored by writers as it is a great medium to understand how a society thinks and acts, as well as being a narrative force that drives the story. Think of The Force from Star Wars, or The Bene Gesserit from Dune. In these settings religion isn't just "I pray to the sky daddy", they directly influence the world and are more akin to magic than a cult. There are three religions currently in HH. Gaianism, The Seldarine, and Cyneticism. All three explore how different societies function. One is even being formed in real time by a brand new civilization (The Cynari) I totally understand if none of this is your cup of tea, but I absolutely love world building, and that includes the politics and religion of the world (I used to run D&D campaigns). This is why I specify that Harem Hotel is an Adult Visual Novel, not a porn game, to emphasize the focus on story and world building.
Mitsurugi2424
I actually never thought gameplay was lacking as this is a visual novel style "game". I got really invested in Lin's movement, Nia's escapades, Ashley's struggles, Maria's little plot twist, and so on. That, and I REALLY wanted to fuck Autumn and her sister.... Don't get me wrong, more content can be good, and obviously I am the minority. But, I've been kind of waiting for major story updates before jumping back in. I think I recently lowered my pledge, but that's mostly for financial reasons.
Jay Pressley
I can't stress enough how much I wish Autumn's storyline was a sidequest that wasn't intertwined with essential lore. Introducing a subject as controversial as religion into a porn game is one thing, but force feeding it to people runs supporters such as myself away. I love the game overall, but not being able to avoid the cult bullshit keeps me from replaying it. While I'm typically a dialogue farmer that loves to hunt down as many lines/scenes as possible by exploring all the different choice combinations over countless playthroughs, suffering through Autumn's bullshit just. Ain't. Worth. It.
11's and 5's
Wow that was a very in depth update, gotta say very intriguing cant wait to see the finished product
Runey
Harem Hotel is primarily a visual novel, so the focus will always be on the story, and the story will never require more than waiting a bit for the event to appear, and rarely someone else's level. These systems work in the background and are as passive or active as you'd like them to be.
Cley Faye
Hi. I'm the kind of supporter that's not really paying much attention in between updates, but this one caught my eye. It's nice to add actual "game" content, and it obviously stem from feedback, so it's all good. I just want to voice a bit of worry. I hope it won't get too much in the way of actual progression. It seems there's already provisions to make some of these new features not too intrusive, so it's all good. But I've seen some other projects leaning a tiny bit too much on grind and tedious tasks to pad playtime, and there's definitely some players that would enjoy this kind of thing in moderation. What I want to say, basically, is to maybe not overcompensate too much in the other direction. Some engaging features are always welcome, but I know I'm here more for the story (and the visuals… obviously) at this point. I'm also worried about having people show up in the hotel, since some parts of the story really lean on the "not much visitors" trope, but I'll trust you know what you're doing, since it worked well so far :)
