The Lost Art of Innkeeping

Have you always wanted a gondola for your manor, or well-sculpted bushes in your garden? Or even a poetic sculpture to decorate your lawn? Well, even if you never thought you’d want them, now you can have them! These upgrades are available in late game, when certain conditions are fulfilled, and some very important guests will appreciate your gorgeously upgraded garden!

I also made a few other minor changes, and fixed a couple of bugs and issues.

Both the Steam and Itch.io versions have been updated, and are now on sale for US$4.49 for a limited time (regular price: US$4.99).

The Lost Art of Innkeeping will be released later this summer on Steam!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1327820/The_Lost_Art_of_Innkeeping/

I also updated the trailer for Steam, thanks to feedback from members of the rpgmakerweb forums and after reading a bit more about trailers.*

I’m very glad that I released the game on Itch.io first – I’ve always been fond of the website and its community since I released my first game (The Rock and the Rose), and I really like how people can buy or download games without an account. In addition, it’s so much easier to create a game website and upload the game compared to Steam.

But I have to say that after I set up the Steam store page, I was like, my little baby is all grown up now! :)

Anyway, I'll probably update the game on Itch.io when the game is released on Steam in a couple months' time. So far I've added a new villager and a mini-quest to help someone adopt a pet, and am correcting typos and little bugs as the reports come in. If you have any suggestions, let me know and I'll consider them for future updates!

*If you’re a game developer interested in the lessons I learnt while making the trailers:

• I tried to create more of a “hook” at the beginning of the new trailer to pique the audience's interest.
• I reduced the number of scenes that looked similar (especially menu screens) and replaced them with more varied and visually interesting ones.
  
• I changed the music and tried to match the scenes to the music.
  
• I superimposed text on the scenes themselves rather than on a plain background – this wasn’t always possible though since it was difficult to get the text to show up legibly depending on the scene.

The Lost Art of Innkeeping has just been released on https://seaphoenix.itch.io/LostArt, and will be on sale for $4.49 till May 17!

Can you transform a dilapidated old manor into a 5-star inn that caters even to royalty? Immerse yourself in a fantastic historical setting, where the newly-invented telephone and Charles Dickens novels can coexist with fairies and actual cat burglars, and where people have penguins and turnips as pets.

I plan to release a Steam version as well in the next couple months.

Enjoy!

Without giving too much away, Van Gogh's paintings play an important role in the storyline of my upcoming game The Lost Art of Innkeeping. If you've played The Rock and the Rose, you already know this, but I've added a few more paintings to the mix. Even better, you'll be able to view the paintings at a higher resolution (instead of just tiny thumbnails) in The Lost Art of Innkeeping.

Some of the paintings - including the one shown here - are from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which has stunning images from many artists in their digital database and a very nice open access policy!