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Hello!

Been a little while, huh? My apologies. Work's been kind of a mess. Not long after last update, my work partner had to bow out of the project due to a family emergency. Since our contract was contingent on both of us working on the game and my partner was working remotely anyway, we haven't told our supervisor anything, and I've been covering for him. This essentially means that I've been doing the work of two people for the past month. It was kind of crazy for the first couple weeks, especially since I was relying on my partner's experience on VR (which I'm a rookie at). But all things considered, I think I've done a pretty good job, and things are starting to calm down now.

Overall, I think work has been good for me. Waking up early every morning has been... a transition, to say the least (I still come late most of the time). The work is also (without sharing too many details) not the most meaningful. But structure is good. Working in an actual office at set hours makes it easier for me to "switch off" once I'm home. On the other hand, this means that once I'm back I'm usually too tired to do anything but watch youtube videos and fall asleep, but I have been able to get some work done on the game during the weekends. I don't have much to do those days anyway since I don't know anyone in this city. I've been going on a few Bumble dates every now and then, but none of them has gone anywhere, and I get more joy and fulfillment from working on Theseus anyway.

About the game! I've been dealing with the urge of expanding on the story element, but I've been somewhat limited by Pico-8's interface. In the last update, I tried to convey the game's meaning using as few words as possible, but this time I went in the opposite direction: the game is now a text-only interactive fiction! I also finally made the jump to another platform, Ink, which is perfect for this type of experience.

The game puts you in the shoes of Theseus right as he's about to come upon the Minotaur. Depending on your decisions, the encounter can go many ways. There's maybe a dozen or so endings, so I invite you to try out the game a few times over. I do suggest saving (top right corner) right after the Minotaur gets up and faces you as it can get rather tedious to go through the monologue at the beginning over and over again. Will you kill, spare, or even... romance the Minotaur? The choice is yours!

A big inspiration for this version was some of the songs from Spencer Krug's This One’s For The Dancer & This One’s For The Dancer’s Bouquet album, which I came upon while doing research. I highly recommend listening to some of it, particularly the songs starting with "Minotaur forgiving [...]". They're some of the most devastating take on the Minotaur's myths I've experienced so far, and they're accompanied by some beautiful Marimba music. The lyrics are marked with a strong sense of resignation, which I leaned on for my own version of the Minotaur as he attempts to grapple with the inevitability and absurdity of his predicament.

That's it for now. In the next one, I might add images, or perhaps music. Maybe even transfer it to a proper game engine. I haven't written a lot of prose in the past, so I'm excited to hear what you think! Let me know! Gameplay video below.

Hatim B