how do you do your research on the cultures the guests are from? the little bits that are discussed and shown in the game are really neat and seem to go deeper than a simple google search
another, sillier question: how would asterion feel about hades or god of war? curious, horrified, amused?
been hyperfixated on the game for the past two weeks, love what you guys do, can't wait for the update! :>
How we do research is a case by case basis, really.
In the case of cultures we're not very familiar with like Themba or Khenbish's we read about the country, its history, watch documentaries and movies, and most important of all, try to talk to locals. We know a guy from South Africa (who's working on Lord of the Manor, an African-inspired visual novel) to consult for Themba, but as hard as we tried we couldn't get a reliable Mongolian person to interview for accuracy. We did have a friend of a friend who studied with a Mongolian guy and he answered a lot of our questions, so that helped.
We didn't really interview Greek or Japanese people for Kota and Asterion since people from the Minoan civilization and Meiji era Japan aren't around to ask (this might change for Nikos since he was actually born and raised in contemporary Greece, though). For them we mostly rely on historical research from a lot of sources. Kangarube (who writes most of the poetry for the game and does a lot of editing) has an arts degree, regularly reads ancient Greek plays and poetry so he's our main consultant. Minoanon also read up on texts like the Homeric Hymns and that helps a lot.
As for Brazil, well, Minoanon is literally Brazilian.
Personally I really like small quotidian aspects of the cultures we portray because they make for fun character interactions. Stuff like Khenbish cooking local recipes for the guests, I love doing research on that. There's a scene that will go into one of the next builds where the main character can pick drinks for Kota to serve him. If Themba is available, one of the shots you can take is a Springbokkie, which has an amusing drinking ritual around it he makes the main character partake in, that's the kind of stuff I love to put in the game.
We answered your first question in another Q&A, so I'll copy/paste it here.
Lan, the Nicest Orc: Regarding the new arrivals, was research into their particular myths/culture hard? What were some of the tools you used for that research?
NANOFF: As usual, our research involves tons of googling and watching videos and movies and consulting with people from the respective countries.
Themba was by far the hardest character to design for the game. Sub-Saharan African mythological creatures aren't as extensively portrayed in Western media so we had to do a lot of research to do. We had another issue: the game already has an abundance of both heavyset characters and reptiles, and a lot of African mythological monsters tend to be giant aquatic mishmashes of reptiles and large mammals (which, you know, considering the kind of stuff you find in African rivers is not surprising). The grootslang was the most fitting creature for Themba's role as the hotel's accountant, considering it's a creature that guards precious gems, and one of the better known ones, we played up the elephant elements of the design. We also did research on Johannesburg since the city influences Themba's personality and backstory.
MINOANON: Zaggy Norse helped us a lot with this. Doing our own research is good and important, but nothing beats having a chat with someone who's actually knowledgeable with the culture itself.
NANOFF: Khenbish was also tricky because A) I swear to god there are no decent public domain/non commercial license pictures of Ulaan Baatar, and B) we couldn't find anyone from Mongolia to personally consult with. The best we got was getting a friend who went to school with a Mongolian classmate to ask him some questions, and we managed to get some information from him. We complemented our research watching two movies: the Eagle Huntress, and the Story of the Weeping Camel. It was an interesting case for us because a lot of Mongolians were upset with Eagle Huntress (produced and narrated by Daisy Ridley) overstating the amount of opposition the protagonist was up against for trying to do a male dominated activity — there's a lot of close ups of old men looking angry while everyone seems chill in the crowd shots, you can tell that it's trying to force a narrative. It was a good reminder to never be satisfied with a single source when doing research on a foreign culture.
MINOANON: Because we couldn't rely on someone to consult with, we had to be more creative in our research. Beyond the sources nanoff mentioned, in the end I'd say one of the biggest inspirations for Khenbish came from us reading Mongolian poetry and studying what structures they use. We tried to incorporate some of it in the writing. I don't expect many people to take note of it but I'm proud of that aspect of his content.
We covered Khenbish and Themba, who come from Mongolia and South Africa respectively. But there's also Storm and P, who both come from Brazil — more specifically, they come from a part of it with which I am very acquainted and from a very specific economic and social situation. For them I was overwhelmingly pulling from the folklore and mythology I was personally familiar with. That's probably the main thing about it — while we tried to explore different cultures with most of our characters, in the Hinterlands I was fully diving into my own and going as far as I could.
Because of this, the Hinterlands probably had the richest mix of sources. For the record, I should add I also read some Câmara Cascudo (a Brazilian folklorist) for ideas, and that really played a role in the story.
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As for Hades and God of War...
Here's a fun story: while visiting a family friend as a teen, I saw his son playing a God of War game where he was killing minotaurs in extremely gruesome and graphic ways. I sometimes get freaked out by extreme video game gore+violence and that's one of the times it happened. I don't think Asterion would like it either.
He'd enjoy Hades' story, kinda. He'd like how Persephone and Zagreus are portrayed, he'd be into the main storyline of them reconnecting, but he'd disagree with how Hades comes across and generally have a hard time verbalizing his thoughts about the portrayal of the Olympians, Asterius and Theseus.
He'd be very annoyed with the in-game lyre not having a minigame associated to it, and he'd be into Orpheus' songs.
To piggyback on the Hades question, what would Asterion think of his Asterius counterpart? Particularly his devotion to Theseus? Even more scandalous, what about the fan shipping of Asterius and Theseus? Personally, I like all the sexy porn (adorning my walls) of it. Though, when I stop to think about it, it is weird to ship Asterius with his killer in the afterlife, who then ran off with Asterius' sister after killing him only to then abandoned her later then Asterius becoming his manservant in the afterlife after Theseus civilized him. Though you could also see it as two enemies becoming lovers and devoted to each other in the afterlife to make sweet man on bullman love for all eternity. Boy, explaining what shipping is to Asterion would be an awkward conversation.
I think Hades' shipping of Asterius and Theseus works very nicely as a sort of metanarrative nod to the fact that the whole games was originally going to be based around people playing as Theseus to, allegedly, fight(?) the Minotaur. With this in mind it can be a cute thing, and I appreciate it.
With that out of the way, yes. Shipping Asterius with Theseus only makes the minimum amount of sense if you disregard everything else: that Asterius' sister told the secret of the labyrinth to Theseus, who in turn possibly left her to die in Naxos. And all of this happened because Athenians murdered Androgeos on the Panathenaic Games. And, later, Asterius father would die in his quest for revenge. Theseus destroyed Asterius' family irreversibly.
Minotaur Hotel's Asterion has an unique take on Theseus. One day we'll have a flashback and see what kind of person he was. I'll just say that Hades' portrayal of Theseus would make Asterion feel alienated. He fundamentally disagrees with it, so much he can't even begin to describe why.
I've been learning little bits and pieces of the mythology revolving around King Minos' rule and when you put it together like that, it does make it sound so much worse.
I need to do more reading on Androgeos' story, I don't believe I've ever heard of Androgeos before this game. I also didn't know that the bull that sire Asterion is also part of Heracles' feats. Did Asterion ever have any interaction with that bull in life?
He saw the bull. Maybe even saw it many times, simply because it didn't live far from the palace, seeing how prized it was. But it was just a regular bull in intellect, and never could have recognized Asterion.
Asterion may have seen the bull often, but may never have gotten close enough to touch it.
