Hazelnut Latte v0.15 Unity Trailer

YouTube took down the video for Nudity (there was no Nudity), and Patreon doesn't allow 18+ creators to upload videos, so you can watch the trailer on Twitter!

https://x.com/RadLordLewd/status/2023798793809129702

So... let's go over all of that, shall we?

Music!

We showcased the new soundtrack being done by Lolurio! He was the composer we purchased tracks from in the Ren'Py days, via his Itch page here. This music rocks, but anyone can buy it and use it in their game, movie, or whatever. We wanted a soundtrack that was specific to our game. You can still listen to the old soundtrack in-game by toggling the music! We know some people will want to stick with the old music. I mean, it still rules. So you can toggle in the menu!

The music in this trailer is not the final track, and the final music will not be included in the first Alpha for v0.15. You will hear a demo of the new music, which is very close to completion; it just needs final touches. If it loops incorrectly or isn't 100%, please note it's not finished.

Backgrounds

Pamika is updating all existing backgrounds and creating new ones. Every location is being redesigned. When we first started making the game, we didn't think we'd evolve to a game where the backgrounds mattered. A game where you'd be able to click on anything. But now, we know that's what the game will be, so we are baking that into the art style and the environments from the start.

Something else we showcased is the new Cafe Estros! As you can see, it can look pretty different. Part of the plot involves helping to fix the Cafe, but it looked like a well-off Cafe. Now, Estros will start looking like it is about to go out of business, and through your actions, you can help it flourish. This won't be a mechanic until later, but I wanted everyone to know Estros won't look like crap forever. You need to fix it!

User Interface (UI)

Now that we are in a new engine, we had to create a whole new UI! Lotus did an incredible job making everything work, and Pamika illustrated the amazing menus. These will grow and adapt over time as we get feedback. We don't have a gallery yet, but we plan to add one to the game.

These new menus are more cafe-themed to fit the game. You can adjust the volume settings, the display, text speed, and text box transparency.

Character Creator

This has been a feature I've wanted to add for a long time, but there never seemed to be a good time to add it. Early on, I did not have much money, so asking artists to draw the main character (Isaac) in multiple skin tones, face types, and hairstyles, and then to animate all of that, would have been insanely expensive and a nightmare. Now that the game is, essentially, starting over, I can finally add a character creator!

Your Isaac will now be represented in dialogue options and scenes! If we can see Isaac's hair, it will be the hair you picked! We have 3 face types, 3 skin types, 8 hairstyles, and 5 hair color options. We didn't want to give Isaac any hairstyles that were too crazy. (He is a businessman after all) However, we plan to expand hairstyles and colors later in the game.

I want to shout out Pamika for creating the art for the character creator and the various Isaac avatars that appear in the game. Koth for redoing scenes to accommodate the different Isaac variations. And Lotus for making all this stuff actually work!

Isaac, however, will still be a cisgender male character. I know people want options to have Isaac be cisgender female, or a trans woman, trans man, femboy, etc. I understand wanting those options. It would just require the story to be different. Isaac would view the world differently and interact with the characters differently. I would be developing several games simultaneously. I know my game is odd in the adult game space. Most games give you a blank slate protagonist who has some basic traits but is really a surrogate for you. Isaac is that, but part of this story is telling his story. He is a character as much as Hazel or Robbie.

Animated Scenes

Following up character creation, lewd scenes and cinematic scenes are now animated IN ENGINE! No more playing video files on a loop; these scenes are done in the game. This is part of what allowed us to do a character creator. Instead of rendering every variation of Isaac, the game engine now handles that. Thanks to the outstanding work of Koth and Lotus, the game is now more dynamic and appealing. Dialogue no longer cuts to a static image of a character standing there; now they will move and even speak! (lip flaps, no VAs, we're not a AAA studio) For Alpha 1, not all Special Moments will be animated, but they will be!

This also means lewd scenes are way more dynamic as each part of the lewd scenes naturally shifts into the next. There is now a sense of constant movement that should be more engaging than static images. The team really killed it with this one, with Koth and Lotus making this work!

Animated Sprites

This was the "Secret System" we had on the Progress Reports, and probably the biggest new feature we have. Much like the animated scenes, we want the game to feel alive rather than rigid. Now, characters will move, emote, talk, laugh, scowl, etc. This was a lot of work, and much of it is thanks to Koth for making it happen and Lotus for getting it running. Characters will no longer be still images staring at you. As always, this is only possible with Kokman's outstanding art.

In the future, we want to do more with this by letting you play around with the sprites outside of dialogue. As we go on, every new character will need to be done in this way, so some of the production time will go towards this, but we think it looks so fucking awesome. We're also happy our sprites don't just do little movements. Some games we were looking at for comparison have very limited move sets, but our characters really emote!

Release Date and Schedule

As announced in the trailer, v0.15 Alpha 1 will be released on Tuesday, February 24th at 8 AM Pacific Time.

This will be for $20 Latte Tier Members. The build will be in Alpha while players conduct bug and stress testing. Once we believe we have found all bugs and fixed what we can, the game will begin rolling out to lower tiers.

There is no time frame on this. It could come out, no one finds a bug for a week, and we start rolling it out. Or it comes out, people find numerous bugs, and it takes longer. We cannot see the future.

Features that will not be available in v0.15:

• Guided Mode

• SFW Mode

• NSFW Warning

• Gallery

We would have loved to have gotten them done, but alas, there is just no time. We don't want to sit on this forever.

Wrap Up

This has been a long time coming, and as you can imagine, to get the game to this state took a lot of hard work. Blood, sweat, tears, late nights, early mornings, days and days on end of work. But we do this shit because we love it and we want to make the best game we can.

We were able to do this thanks to your support! As long as people want us to make HL and support us in doing so, we will keep on fighting.

I can't wait to see you all break this game on February 24th ;) 

Stay Rad <3

Hazelnut Latte (v0.15 & Unity Upgrade Trailer) (YouTube)