Now that it's been a few weeks since the release of Minotaur Hotel 0.7, I think it's time we have a proper talk about the new projects I've been teasing for so long and, most importantly, their release dates. That's right, we're ready to show our cards and we're doing it all in a single go. Strap in.

The Sex Drive Demo comes out this Thursday, November 9th.

For those of you who haven't followed our previous DevLogs, here's a quick recap: Sex Drive is a little experimental project Eddio and I have been cooking for a bit. It is, first and foremost, a collection of gay interactive erotica revolving around truckers.

My line of thinking was that there's plenty of great furry visual novels with in-depth stories, but not that much high quality stuff if you just want something quick and simple to let out steam. With that in mind we tried to really go all out with the production values on this one — stories written with love, incredible UI and illustrations by Eddio, a banging soundtrack by Eymon and each story comes with a selection of kinks you can turn on and off to your heart's content.

Here's what you need to know:

• The Sex Drive Demo comes out this Thursday, November 9th.
• The game is planned to have at least ten stories, two of which will be released now.
• The Demo will remain free forever, but you'll need to buy the game to get access to everything that comes after the first two stories we're publishing now. New versions of the game will add one or two stories each.
• Sex Drive will have a price tag of 9.99USD. We decided to go with that after a friend told me that a Big Mac Combo goes for about ten bucks where he lives. I thought that making my readers cum ten times for the price of a burger, fries and soda would be good bang for the buck. Yes, really.
• You'll also get the game just the same by pledging to Eddio's Patreon with 10USD or more. You'll get early access to story drafts if you pledge 25USD or higher. This route also gives access to the latest build of Killigan's Treasure, of course.
• If we ever decide to add more stories to Sex Drive after release, you'll get those for free. There won't be any paid DLC. In other words, if you pay for the game (either through Itch or through Eddio's Patreon) you'll get all of the content for it, no ifs or buts.
• The Sex Drive page will come with donations enabled, and will remain like that until we publish the first update. If you donate you'll get access to the paid version of the game.

Considering this will be our first paid game, and a very non-standard kind of visual novel at that, this demo will let us collect input and criticism before the paid chapters. We look forward to hearing your thoughts about the game.

Now, on to our second excellent announcement...

Devil's Gambit, a Mystery Romance Visual Novel, comes out on November 20th.

I'm proud to reveal a project I've been collaborating on with my two good friends Roddo, the author of Nerus and Harvest Lab, and Alpha0, who you may recognize from the Minotaur Hotel pinups we've posted recently. They are exceptional beasts, the both of them. An immense amount of work went into this project, and I'm confident that we'll impress you with what we have.

Here's what we can give you as a summary:

Devil's Gambit is a mystery romance visual novel following Hector, a badger healer who returns to Rannai, a town which inspires only the fondest memories in him. The mischievous yet friendly people, the stories they told, the fertile forest east of town, the mist that heralded every sunrise. But above all he remembers Cadgan, a wolf a bit younger and smaller than himself, yet so much braver.
But that was nine years ago. Upon his return, Hector returns to find the town transformed by the new duke's reign, and a Cadgan that has grown into a mountain of a man. As he works as a healer and reignites a passion he forgot long ago, Hector notices something in the air.
The trees' roots stir with his every step.

The first build of Devil's Gambit comes out on November 20th and contains over 30.000 words, 20 CGs and 74 fully realized sprites. Though not in the exact same way as Sex Drive, Devil's Gambit is yet another impressively polished game, brimming with content and love. There's so much more I want to talk about, but so little I can reveal.

What I can promise is that Devil's Gambit is, much like Minotaur Hotel, a visual novel that blends together a literary touch, a very uncompromising gay romance and the kind of mystery storytelling you've seen from us before. In a way it's reminiscent of the Hinterlands in feel and tone — a love story surrounded by mystery, with very well defined characters struggling together — despite not having the sort of exploration mechanics you saw in Minotaur Hotel.

Perhaps I can boast about some of the influences stamped on this project. We took notes from Toni Morrison's Beloved (a real favorite Roddo and I share), FromSoft's Bloodborne (an absolute must-have for every project I'm involved with), multiple mystery novels... And we made good use of Alpha0's carefully crafted art, coming from his long career in furry erotica.

This project also took many notes from my time exploring the Mediterranean, both on my own and with Alpha0. In fact, some of the earlier ideas that Alpha0 and Roddo fell in love with originate from a trip to Naples — the architecture of Herculaneum and Pompeii, the last embers of paganism and, in particular, the history of medical research with the anatomical machines in the Capella San Severo.

It's a visual novel full of appreciation for the love the characters struggle with and with the kind of anthropological mystery that people like in Minotaur Hotel so much. It's also very sex positive, in accordance with our usual approach of mixing together characterization with homoeroticism.

~~~

I hope this has convinced to give both Sex Drive and Devil's Gambit a chance. These two projects were made with love, and we're so happy to share it with everyone.

Sex Drive comes out on November 9th and Devil's Gambit on November 20th. Don't forget it.