I can see how the Hinterlands 3 can come across as avant-garde to some since it does seem on face value to derail the plot. However I don’t find it that much different from when other writing does it (JRR Tolkien comes to mind) where the author cuts away from the protagonist to look at other pieces set in motion by the plot or to world build in a way. Though personally, I found the Hinterlands far more engaging and entertaining than in something like The Hobbit (I really couldn’t get through Tolkien’s writing). I think the team struck a good balance of creating a mini Minotaur Hotel (MH? Minotaur Hinterlands?) set in the “real world” along with building on how magic in this narrative’s universe works, reiterating on themes and giving the audience an extended introduction into a character or two who will likely be key actors in the main narrative. I would attribute that to keeping it simple for the audience to pick up on and follow the themes. Themes and concepts don’t always have to be couched in heavy symbolism or abstractions since that makes it harder for an audience to engage with but you also don’t lay it out too much in the open as to make it a bore and lose any sense of mystery and wonder. I also think you all did a great job at mixing the right amount of joy, darkness and hope to keep the narrative from becoming devolving into happy-go-lucky or from becoming doom and gloom.
I wouldn’t call the earlier writing in MH bad or lesser, it captivated me immediately the first time I played version 0.1 and I kept on thinking about it for the year before I revisited it. There is, however, a noticeable improvement with the writing with the Hinterlands and I would also say to the rest of the content in 0.5 though I don’t think I could really articulate what it is. Maybe it’s seeing more simple writer’s tools being implicated like the immediate notice in perspective change in the Hinterlands 2 with switch to P as the narrator rather than an omniscient narrator (which I wonder if, given the nature of the world of MH, they’re supposed be diegetic in some way or non-diegetic) to make the events more personal to being more obvious with the mystery aspect of MH and having an actual investigation occurring when in contrast, the MC is passively learning more about Asterion, the Hotel, the past, etc. The later parts are more to do with the nature of VN’s, it’s difficult to not make a player character be more reactive than proactive since you’re writing for a variety of personalities vs writing for a set character with their own motivations and goals. I can really see now how the Hinterlands section did provide more room to flex some writer muscles that may not have been getting enough of a work out with the main narrative. As far as the writing coming of as non-English speaking or American, I did have someone comment in chat during a stream asking if the writer was a non-English speaker because to them, the writing seemed too descriptive. I disagreed with the commenter that being too descriptive with writing is a sign of being of a foreign tongue necessarily. It may be a Visual Novel, but it is a novel and VN’s aren’t that dependent on their visuals like other visual medias. To me, the writing comes off as someone who is not American (or at the very least, someone who didn’t grow up in America or the UK) from small stuff like the themes being explored I’m not really used to seeing in much American media to bigger stuff like a lot of the details in the Hinterlands 3 seemingly coming from a place of personal experience that I feel like can’t really be found in a stereotypical “developed nation.”
One of the reasons why I found the Hinterlands sections so fascinating is because it hits me on a personal level, I’ve been to and grew up in a similar place and seen the same things. While my Mexican hinterlands was geographically thousands of miles away from the Brazilian hinterlands and don’t share the same landscape, they seem to share similar cultural similarities that I can only assume have to do with the effects of Catholic missions in the new world had. And, well, the darker side of humanity has no regional limits. To me, it’s so surprising to see a story set in an environment that I’ve rarely ever seen represented in any form of media, let alone in a furry VN and have it be so poignant especially with the dark themes, double for the theme of recursion. The poverty, the superstitiousness, the political criminals, the bigotry, the overall sense of hopelessness it all has and yet there is a sense of wonder and mystery to the land so isolated from the rest of the world. Even as someone as logical as me, it’s hard not to want to believe there is magic in the world when out under the stars surrounded by fireflies or monsters in the wilderness when you hear the dogs barking at wildlife to keep them away from the farm as you drift to sleep. Though most of the folklore I grew up was pretty much ghost tales and tales influenced by Catholicism, I think the only fantastical creatures in them were el Cucuí and la Llorona, nothing as cool as la Cabra Cabriola. But I digress; the fact that the Hinterlands invoked my Latin American past tells me that you succeeded in telling a Latin American story.
I really appreciate the work that went into creating this section that is more complex than the rest of the chapters. The change from narrator gives it a more personal feel to the stakes and mystery. The small touches are really good without being too on the nose (the sus salt was a good one to get me to go to a place I didn’t see a point to going originally.) The chemistry with P and Storm is so good. I love cuntiness of P mixed with the younger tough acting but very good at heart Storm. They're so much fun to see banter with each other. The take on mystery here is one of my favorite ones in terms of (despite it being a tried phrase) it’s the journey and not the destination. While regular mysteries can be fun, they do get boring and repetitive over time. Usually, the fun is finding out the how and the why something happened, especially if it delves into different themes of humanity. One mystery game that comes to mind with what you described is Her Story. For those who are unaware, Her Story has you look at a police database of various interviews with a woman over her husband’s death which were recorded decades ago and broken up into segments when it was converted digitally. You look up words based on what you might want to learn after watching one segment which will lead to others. Eventually, it becomes less about figuring out if this woman had something to do with her husband’s death and more to do about whom she is, what her history is and why things happened the way things happened. The game doesn’t end in any way either that makes it clear that you found the correct answers, it will just ask you if you understand why she did what she did and end the game when you click yes. It never confirms if the game you played inside your head is correct but it does leave a powerful experience of having interacted with it and the thought you put into it. Minotaur Hotel invokes the same feeling and it’s what makes it so interesting.
Despite reading it on stream, I’m having so much fun re-reading it on my own time at my own pace. It’s so interesting catching things in past chapters that come up again in newer ones and seeing the text from a new perspective. Something was hesitant on exploring is that Ruthless path and though it best to leave it unexplored similar to the genocide path of Undertale but there was quite a bit of interest from chat to have me read it on stream. Having read here that Minotaur Hotel would be incomplete thematically without it has me really wanting to read it. Another thing I’d be interested in reading is some of the cut content from the Hinterlands that didn’t make it in to the game but could still be canonical but not necessary like P’s adventure to the Hinterlands prior to finding Storm as sort of bonus material. Though definitely not if ideas may later be recycled into later chapters.
There is still so much for me to explore at this point with MH but I just had to make my feelings know about how much I love this section and how much it means to me. Thank you to the whole team for bringing a wonderful game like Minotaur Hotel to life.