itch.io

Ooooh, good point, that's a pretty big loophole! (Though it means Clément would need to have met her outside the Realm of the hotel and invited her in.)

…I read your comment before finishing my playthrough. I never finished reading the Odyssey and am totally uneducated on Homeric poetry, but you contextualising repetition in the game this way really improved my appreciation as a reader—thank you!

I started a new playthrough to test a bug and noticed something that slipped my attention before:

"[Clément] had his eyes on a guest, a woman who held his mind in the palm of her hand. I can only believe it went badly. And so he… well, you saw what he did to me."

At first I wondered if this might be Athena, but that seems impossible based on what Hermes says. ("…I kept quiet about [the hotel] and never told any of the others. Only I could come here, you see?") I seem to recall Argos intimating something similar.

Still, I can't help but wonder if there's more to it and if she'll end up being a Chekhov's femme fatal. Who is this mystery woman? She isn't a god, but could she be an agent or descendent of one? Will we see her again? And what was her role in Clément's downfall? (P blamed the former Argos, but I'm not sure how much weight to give that.)

Oh man—thank you for the reminder that there's soooo much great content waiting on the Ruthless route when I have the time and stomach for it! 🙌

Good question! I tried from a fresh game, but unfortunately get the same error. That said, I'm not familiar with Ren'Py or how Itch.io does updates; is it possible there are some other settings/files left over from the previous version aside from save files? Happy to try a reinstall from scratch…

Quick update, however: reading the code, I could see you use a different object (persistent) if Files is accessed from the main menu. I gave it a try and that works just fine. Though I can't see some documents I expected, e.g. the testimonies from the trial that you find/are given; unsure if those are specific to the save or just stored somewhere else.

(Also, totally separate—the proofreading you did for this game is exceptional, so in several thousand words of text I only found a couple of really minor typos. Early on, looking for the wine: "Off to the side, there's a glass case containing a a jagged purple rock…". And after your little wrestling match: "MC: Hello, he-who-stil-won't-use-my-name.")

Finally playing the 0.5 update, and boy. Oh boy. I don't even know where to start, the amount of work you put into this game staggers me. My cap is perpetually doffed in your direction.

Of course, I want to read everything, but I've found a little bug that prevents me from reading documents I find in the valley or… *ahem* receive from other sources. When I try to open the Files menu I get an AttributeError: 'inventory' object has no attribute 'showContracts':

I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.
While running game code:
  File "renpy/common/00gamemenu.rpy", line 173, in script
    $ ui.interact()
  File "renpy/common/00gamemenu.rpy", line 173, in <module>
    $ ui.interact()
  File "game/files.rpy", line 6, in execute
    screen mobileFilesMenu():
  File "game/files.rpy", line 6, in execute
    screen mobileFilesMenu():
  File "game/files.rpy", line 16, in execute
    if main_menu:
  File "game/files.rpy", line 28, in execute
    default showContracts = inventory.showContracts
  File "game/files.rpy", line 28, in <module>
    default showContracts = inventory.showContracts
AttributeError: 'Inventory' object has no attribute 'showContracts'
[Traceback trimmed]
Darwin-20.5.0-x86_64-i386-64bit
Ren'Py 7.4.6.1693
Minotaur Hotel 0.5.1

As you can see, I'm running the 0.5.1 build on macOS.  Updated from the previous version through Itch.io. I've tried starting from a new save, but I still can't access the Files menu.

Can also see that the Inventory class has a showContracts attribute… my blind guess is the (global?) inventory isn't initialised, for some reason? But everything I know about Python could be written on a postcard, so wouldn't know where to start debugging. (Other than just experimenting by setting them all to true and possibly breaking my build more…)

Finally got to play some more and noticed a couple of things:

1. Two passages of extended metaphor around the three-act structure, which was mildly distracting the second time but not majorly.
2. I feel really shy saying anything critical of MH because the writing and attention-to-detail are already, like, 3σ above the mean for VNs in general.

omg wait

I moved house and have a crazy job and haven't had time to finish the update yet and am JUST NOW DISCOVERING that I was (maybe? idek) right about the P = Panoptes guess last update!?!

…okay fine I know it was obvious just let me have this

It's utterly absurd how hard this team works, and the result is extraordinary even in the current golden age of Furry VNs. Really looking forward to the update, which will surely eliminate a good chunk of a weekend come August.

I keep thinking about this too—one of the very best VNs I've played and no way to buy the devs a drink?! But iirc it's a matter of principle, so more power to them.

His clear intelligence, kindness, appreciation for the arts and sensitive soul really do it for me. Love that he plays the lute and writes poetry. Not to mention, I absolutely cannot resist a damoiseau in distress, much less an extremely hunky one.

(I'll be honest, he's a teeny bit too stacked for my preferences? Not that it's unattractive! I just prefer the more modestly buff form he has a couple of days in.)

Rereading this a couple of days later (the ichor hypothesis is just, wow) and caught this:

…that's amazing, if you remember the translation I'd love to check it out! 😁

The highlight of mine was Latreus trash-talking Caeneus—"Caeneus, you bitch!"—making a pun on his original sex and name, Caenis. (I never studied Latin, just had a very long commute, so unsure how big a liberty the translator took.)

No substantive contributions, I just want to interject:

1. Never connected the dots before, but Pasiphaë was 100% BD's target audience, wow.
2. I'm super tickled by "hemi-demi-semi-divine minotaurs".

This was such a fantastic update!

[Minor spoilers ahead]

Aside from the sheer size of it (it felt more like two updates than one—quite a Christmas present!), it was ludicrously satisfying. You introduced several new and interesting characters, gave some existing characters way more depth, had a toothache-inducingly-sweet scene with you both taking a little break…

And above all, it was just plain fun. I really enjoyed it, the good parts and the bad parts. You did a great job of showing-not-telling with how everyone felt and acted in a pretty complex scene full of interactions, subtext and individual motivations at play.

In absolute seriousness, when this first came out I was a bit concerned that it cleaved so very closely to Adastra in many ways. A human in the care of an attractive wolf princeling… His caretaker himself at once flirtatious, but denying his own sexuality because of the regressive sex/gender dynamics of his alien-yet-familiar society… A society that, itself, is isolationist and vaguely supremacist in its attitudes towards other races… Forced to dumb yourself down, staying mute and treated like a second class citizen… Strange, dark dreams of strange, dark watchers…

But, with each update, it's been a pleasure to enjoy this story as its world and characters grow increasingly distinct and fleshed-out. Your voice and approach to storytelling are quite different, and you've woven a tale that's both interesting and broad enough that I've stopped drawing parallels and recognise it as something new, no matter its inspirations.

Finally, the art is really great—not just the characters, but the background art and CGs! You really went to town, making sure every location and significant moment had its very own artwork, from the joy of the meadow scene (so nice!) to the pastries. Massive props for this; I appreciate how long it must have taken, and it all served to make the story that much richer.

Thank you so much for your hard work on this story. I look forward to the next update!

OOOOOOH WHAAAAT

[Spoilers and speculation continue]

I didn't even get close to making the connection with Io being transformed into a heifer! Based on what Asterion heard in Hades, I was guessing minotaur births were just something that *waves hands* just happen every so often in Crete, and that was the source and extent of the lore. Connecting that to Io is quite elegant; perhaps some sort of matrilineal descent from her line?

It's possible that Argos, the "caretaker," is the actual stand-in for Argus Panoptes ("all-seeing"). His name is spelled Argus in my (modern, English) copy of Metamorphoses, but looking on Wikipedia the original Greek name is spelled with an omicron; normally that would be romanised as an o, Argus is just how Ovid Latinised it.

…which is a long-winded way of saying Argus and Argos are variant spellings of the same Greek word. That tempts me to say the P–Panoptes theory is overthinking things, but frankly:

1. the day I stop generating wild hypotheses I want you to take me out back and shoot me; and
2. given the ridiculous volume and quality of content written for the artifacts you can find, the authors are super detail-oriented people who are also overthinking everything—probably more than us. ;)

[More spoilers ahead]

I had a few thoughts about this! Initially, I assumed the peacock had something to do with the myth of Argus Panoptes: acording to Ovid, Juno (Hera) saved Argus's eyes and set them in the peacock's tail after he was slain by Mercury (Hermes). It's also interesting given that, in Hermes's shrine, you can see two peacock feathers on the table whose colouration match P's.

Obvious points against this:

• While it's nice to imagine there's some resonance between Hermes slaying Argus and there being peacock feathers in Hermes's shrine, that was ancient history… and P's grandfather visited the hotel relatively recently. (Though they could be some sort of memento or reference.)
• Argus was a giant, not a peacock; though it's established that in MH, Greek/Roman mythology as we know it is merely a dominant narrative and wildly inaccurate, so perhaps there's a kernel of truth in there.
• It doesn't quite tie in with P's explanation that his name is super complicated—unless he's lying or there's some other name for Argus I don't know?
• Ultimately, the feathers in the shrine might just be a leftover from P's grandfather, no references or deeper significance necessary.
• P is apparently Brazilian, as you mentioned. Obviously, mythological creatures have migrated around the world (Luke has Greek ancestry), but still makes it less likely they have some deep familial connection with Greek mythology.