Post by cue5c in [SPOILER WARNING] THEORY THREAD

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It's not impossible. I've always interpreted the UI patterns as something intrinsic about their character and unable to be changed. If anything, it's the pattern of the recursion marking them. However, if any of the mythical ended up being a fake-out, it would be the one that arrived with Hermes.

The problem is it would make a lot of the writing come off as plot-driven rather than character-driven. Robert functions both as an insight into Asterion's makeup as well as a means to showcase humanity and how similar he is to the MC, at least as far as whatever makes a soul is concerned. It would be odd for that to be written off. I do think Robert likely has some twists for us. He just very casually switches from vacation away from important job in an extreme version of hell to a full-time hotel worker. His role as a guest/employee is more important than whatever details aren't given to us, but since every other character who has joined has gotten some individual spotlight prior, it's "of note".

However, like the shed being a secret quest, he could just be Minotaur Hotel's version of an optional party member. It's hard to say when you only have to juggle between Asterion, Luke, and Robert for spending free time. When more character side stories are available that balance may well shift.

TrinexxSlayer3 years ago

Yeah, i'm mostly jesting here. If we keep getting more and more identity twists, the trick will run old and devoid of substance, but the plot has conditioned me to not trust that everyone is who they say they are.

cue5c3 years ago

Yeah lol. I'm with you on anyone who doesn't already have a soul pattern. Especially MC.

Nanoff3 years ago(+1)

I won't confirm or deny anything but we've already played the "character reveals their true name" card four times over the course of a handful of chapters. Doing it again with Robert would be overkill, if that isn't already the case. I've seen one survey response call the last act of 0.5 a soap opera and... well, they're not 100% wrong...

It also makes it hard for people to remember the characters if they all have multiple names.

rebyc3 years ago

Plus Robert rules already as he is

TrinexxSlayer3 years ago(+1)

I think it was my review in fact. Being unapologetically over the top can be fun with the proper delivery. It is, however, a delicate balance. At the very least, we may need some breathing room before this move can be played safely again.

Nanoff3 years ago(+1)

Hahaha, so it was you! Thank you for telling us!

Nanoff3 years ago(+3)

Happy to see someone notice the little sleight of hand thing going with the UI patterns.

We didn't use one for Jean because that puts him on par with Greta or Ismael or Nini (who also don't have one), and gives players the first impression that he's just another not too important NPC. He only gets one when he's revealed as Hermes (don't know if it came across well, but his UI pattern is meant to be a caduceus; since the patterns don't have a beginning or end it's hard to convey it).

It also helps that a lot of the npcs also have multiple sprites so him having more than one doesn't look conspicuous right away.

Getting off topic, I guess this is now a vent post related to that last paragraph. I think this a game/narrative design obstacle in general when you're presenting players with a mystery: if you don't want players to pick up on an obvious clue, you kind of have to put the same amount of detail on everything else around it to have a decent number of elements fighting for the players' attention, so discovering the clue feels rewarding.

I bumped into this when making a small D&D campaign in a Resident Evil style puzzlebox mansion: you can't just go "you enter the library. There are books. On one of the tables, there is a silver ring with a scarlet jewel on it". If you want to make the players feel smart you can't half ass your description of the location, you have to give them at least three points of interest with an equal amount of detail. Likewise, in order for Jean to not stand out as a plot relevant NPC, we only show two of his sprites on his first two scenes, and the other NPCs like the trucker, Nini, or Ismael get multiple sprites too. Which can become a scope issue.

rebyc3 years ago (1 edit) (+2)

The flipside to that, or at least how I first interpreted it, is that Hermes' disguise is flimsy and not especially tough to see through. He's an old god with a nearly non-existent following, so he's going to be a little out of touch. Like the MC says, "a 'deliveryman?' Really?"

I never felt like seeing the neon sign behind Jean that reads "by the way I'm Hermes" took anything away from his arc. His motivations were always the bigger part of the mystery. Whether or not you clock him doesn't really have an appreciable impact on the story up until the point that you/Asterion sock him.

Was this all just an excuse for that last sentence? Maaaaaaybe. Suffice it to say, I think Jean was handled very well!

Nanoff3 years ago(+2)

We expected most people to pick up on it right away, so we put in several ways to have the player call out who he was early on.

But you'd be surprised how many people were surprised by the twist. I guess it isn't too obvious if you're not familiar with Greek mythology.

cue5c3 years ago(+1)

I was surprised. I misread his conversation in Chapter 15 pushing Asterion and the MC together as a wink to the audience that Jean was Storm's father and he was working off some debt lmao.

I really should have seen it, because I am someone who notices details...but sometimes my mind sees one thing and starts filling in the blanks before I have time to get the full picture and I end up missing really obvious text.

rebyc3 years ago(+1)

He even makes a subtle self-deprecating joke when he first arrives in the hotel, explaining his name by saying that his family likes to join others' names together when naming their children.

And then, of course, he starts making references to his child Hermaphroditus

cue5c3 years ago

I must have read that, but I have zero memory of that line. Wow.

chapomon3 years ago

It so did not occur to me to use the phone entering name segment to call Jean out on my suspicions. I just thought it was a meant to have some potential funny pay off later in the story since I had no doubt that Jean knows the MC's name despite what he says. "Nice to see you again Mr. Chungus!"

Minoh Workshop3 years ago(+1)

Yes, we didn't want the mystery of Jean being Hermes to be too difficult. If anything it was the introductory mystery that leads to the juicier ones surrounding Argos, which in turn connects to P's.

cue5c3 years ago(+1)

I wrote a longass post about my experiences with scope that I might post tomorrow. I basically got no sleep last night and can't tell if it makes even a lick of sense outside of my head. So outside of that, thank you for including things like the sleight of hand with the UI patterns. It's one of the things I've gushed about to people off-site, actually. They help make the whole package feel dynamic and lively in ways not even full on studio releases do. And yes, Hermes pattern came across immediately.

chapomon3 years ago

I think you did a good job with the mystery of Jean. While one of my initial thoughts was that he is an agent of Hermes, I didn't speculate that he himself would be Hermes until closer to the reveal. I was overanalyzing Jean so much that one of my lesser hypothesis was that Jean might just be a red herring with that fact hidden in plan sight with his red shirt and he would just be a regular human and everything around him would just be a complete coincidence. Another thing I had considered was that maybe Jean was an agent of Aphrodite and he's actually Cupid/Eros playing matchmaker by gathering certain people to the hotel after his poking and prodding of Asterion and the MC's relationship. That conversation now makes me wonder which of his children was Jean talking about? I'm speculating it's Hermaphroditus.

This game has gotten me more into researching ancient Greek literature and mythology than my all of my life's schooling.

Minoh Workshop3 years ago(+3)

I don't want to spoil anything, but there are moments where the story's current state of incompleteness can become a misleading element on its own — more than we would want.

It's safe to say that all the recruitable staff members have some meat to their stories. There's stuff to be discovered there, if you ask the right questions and dig around in the right direction. In the case of Robert I can say that our intention was to have at least one person showing up at the hotel who, deep down, is just a mythical enjoying his vacations. He works as a prosecutor in a hell and you can imagine that's a very stressful job. The prospect of spending a month in a very different location where he can read and laze about is interesting, and if he learns too much about the hotel his inner Law academic is awakened. Any self-respecting lawyer would want to write a paper or two about the contractual shenanigans in the Bedrock.

He has no reason to lie about anything. He is, in fact, quite honest, sincere and compassionate. ~~He's also a red herring in comparison to Hermes, who's the real source of mystery when the two show up at the hotel.~~ But, you know, he hasn't had the time or chance to give the player character his whole life story. If you asked and he trusts you he probably would say a lot.

So... I don't want to spoil anything, but what I want to say is that Robert's story (and twists) are not based on misdirection. Robert is exactly what and who he says he is. The cards are on the table and none of them are lies. Not all of the cards are visible right now, of course, but the game has enough information that people could make reasonably precise guesses.

We might add a lore drop in an upcoming update that adds some more information too. I wish we could have put it in 0.5 but, well, we ran out of time.

rebyc3 years ago(+1)

I think you've written him perfectly in that direction, so long as you're not being tricky here yourself. I genuinely love Robert for all those reasons.

cue5c3 years ago

That all came through 100%, don't worry if you can't get it out until 0.6 or beyond, Mino. You should be taking a break, seriously. Like I said, Robert's story falls apart if it's misdirection and everything I've seen from your writing and my many, many posts on it show that you are extremely thoughtful. A lot of writers tend to freak out when people make connections they didn't want them to, whereas you're giddy people are enjoying and sharing in your work. That's why I specifically said it's quite possible a lack of intended content isn't there and it could change someone's perspective, but it's not the impression I had. That's why I put air quotes into "of note" as by default it's suspicious but considering the information we have it's instead fairly mundane. This was in my very first post here:

I'll give a special shoutout to Robert and what his backstory adds to the mythos. Robert kicks ass.

Whereas Kota wasn't mentioned and I had (now rectified) neutral opinions of the MC, as things that were specific to that route were taken as the same for every route.

I have a feeling you're not just responding to me and instead the idea I presented for anyone reading, but just in case, the tone with "it's not impossible" should be more incredulous than I conveyed.

TrinexxSlayer3 years ago

i suppose i was the one to raise doubt over robert, but i was merely throwing ideas in the air not to be seriously considered. who knew a little joke could spark this conversation

chapomon3 years ago

Heh, Robert was only a red herring for me in a sense that he's a big and intellectual demon who is a hottie. (Pun not intended but totally appropriate).

This topic does make me wonder if one of the themes of Minotaur Hotel, whether intentional or not, how much trust one puts into the social contracts. (Really appropriate term now that I think of it.) While we don't expect everyone to tell us their whole lives story upfront and as honestly from their perspective, we do have an expectation of honest that even the smallest and basic amount of information exchanged is the truth. We see this a few times with names such as with P and Jean but we also see it openly challenged a few times by Asterion, albeit playfully most of the time. Why is Asterion under any obligation to outright tell the MC the whole truth and nothing but the truth unless he's forced by his contract? And even then, he is able to find loopholes to withhold information as he pleases. There's also the story about the pyrite crucifix which reveals a lot about how cunning Asterion is with being able to bend truths which I highly enjoyed.

This narrative makes me question this aspect of our social contract in humans though one does also have to be careful not to fall too hard the other direction and start to question every single thing presented. There is a mystery to the narrative but I haven't been giving a reason to suspect that we have an unreliable narrator (though I do question if the narrator outside of the Hinterlands chapters is just a narrator or an in universe omniscient character) so I don't tend to question every single word presented in that sense. I also don't quite question what the characters present of themselves unless I'm given a reason to (the mysterious vibe and some of the things Jean says or doesn't seem to say makes me question his identity for example.) In addition, just because a character doesn't present the whole truth doesn't mean their actively being deceptive, they could just not have the whole truth themselves. (Something I suspect when it comes to Asterion and the topic of his sentence.)

I'm not sure if I got my thoughts across but I feel like if I go one, I'd just be rambling.

TL;DR: Questioning the humanity's social contract one of the themes? I trust Robert to top him or bottom for him without getting burned. 🙃

itch.io

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