Hey, everybody! It’s been a week, and boy did y’all have some questions for me (and Morgi)! It’s my goal here to have an answer to every question asked… no matter how, ah… special. If you submitted a question and I skipped it, let me know and I will add it to this post!
So let’s see what burning questions everyone has…
Totes Not (various things) on Discord asks…
- Would you consider a crossover with another dev?
I mean a speaking part for one of your character’s in their game and vice versa.
Nine: So this question was asked before the Reba interview and the Waitress’ cameo in Panacea, humorously enough. However, there are some more crossovers happening soon! Someone from Mythos has a speaking part in another game, and someone from that same game is going to have a speaking part in Chapter Three! I’m also always, always open to discuss crossovers with other devs. I love that shit.
Taellosse on Discord asks…
- WhEre dO yOu GeT YoUr iDeAs?! (this is not a serious question and you don’t have to answer it if you don’t have a funny answer, I swear)
Nine: While it may not be a serious question, I think it’s actually worth answering! I think all creations are at least a little bit derivative, so I have no shame in saying that some ideas are taken from other media. Some have noticed Sophia’s powers are a little similar to the Archive (“Ivy”) from the Dresden Files, though the two characters’ similarities (and the origins of their powers) certainly ends there. The Convocation and the Bureau are both inspired by the Order of Hermes and the Technocracy (respectively) from Mage: the Ascension, with some significant differences. Sometimes someone will just tell a joke and my mind gets to work thinking “wait, yeah… what if I did something like that…?” In fact, one of the characters — not saying who — is based on a conversation Morgi and I had that started with “it’d be funny if…”
HanzoI356 on Discord asks…
- How do you feel about the political situation in the Middle East and Asian Pacific countries.
Also, what is the Cat doing?
Nine: I, um… don’t know enough to understand and give a proper answer. About either of those things.
Taellosse on Discord asks…
- Ooh! Is the Cat lactose intolerant, or is it one of the lucky ones that can have a saucer of milk?
Nine: Like most cats, the Cat does basically whatever the hell she wants. As of yet, I’ve not seen her throw anything up… but that could just mean she has a good hiding spot.
BC on Discord asks…
- Okay, I have a question for wifey, it’s super important and I’m sure everyone is dying to know:
Would you rather fight one elephant-sized mouse or one hundred mouse-sized elephants?
Morgi: (Visibly distraught) I don’t want to fight either of those! They all sound too adorable!!! I want them as pets!
- Oh and one question for Nine:
Scrungy Cat or Blurry Cat?
Nine: I just did a Google on both of those to see if I could figure out what you’re talking about… but I’m still lost, so I’ll just say Scrungy Cat!
Silver Ninetails on Discord asks…
- What is the meaning of life?
Nine: A 1983 film by Monty Python.
- What is your all-time favorite superhero?
Nine: I’m gonna have to go with Moon Knight. That was one of the comic subscriptions I had as a kid. Just give him back his fuckin’ money, Dracula!!!
Trixie on Discord asks…
- What was some of your influences or inspirations that lead you into writing?
Nine: Writing is something I’ve kinda been doing for as long as I can remember. I was always making up little stories, writing them down, and trying to get people to read them. I guess my earliest inspiration came in 1985 when my uncle took me to my first D&D session. I’m pretty sure that group of teenagers wasn’t thrilled to have a 5-year-old hanging around all night, but I think that lit the spark under me. Like I’d realized that I didn’t have to just take in other people’s stories; I could make my own! And since I’m sure someone is gonna ask, it was D&D 1st edition and I was a Gnomish fighter.
- If not Mythos what other format or genre would have gone into besides doing a mystery erotic adult game?
Nine: Well, Mythos wasn’t supposed to be a game to begin with; nor was there any eroticism at all. It was a novel about an asexual young lady named Jodi Nelson who found out about the death of her friend Lisa Harrison but felt compelled to find out more. The main character changed so much from her original concept that I felt like she wasn’t even “Jodi” anymore; thus I changed her name to Kylie (or Kyle, if you play the male variant).
- What are or were some of your favorite writers?
Nine: Douglas Adams, Piers Anthony, and Stephen King (yes, my anti-horror weakling ass used to read Stephen King) were my favorites back in high school. I later on got into Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson, Gail Carriger, and Jim Butcher. I’ve read Good Omens and American Gods, though I don’t know anything about Neil Gaiman’s other works — I feel like I can’t really call myself a “fan” without knowing Sandman!
- Having worked or having your character being used by a dev like RJ in Come Home and others. Are there any other developers, artists or writers in this community that you would like to collaborate with or a game you would have your characters cameo in?
Nine: Oh, god so many, but I feel like I’m just so irrelevant in the larger adult gaming community that I’d be insulting other devs to even approach them with the idea! I think a crossover with Droid’s Love of Magic would be great fun — we both have red-headed MacLachlan girls (that’s a coincidence, I swear), and both games are modern fantasies that start in Maryland (Mythos just stays there). Glacerose’s Sylphine and PTGames’ Lunar’s Chosen would be a nice fit, too. Hell, just the hilarity that would come from crossing over with Power Vacuum (What? Why? Games) would make it worth the effort! Like I said before — I’ll work with (almost) any dev for crossovers because I love them so much. There’s some others I’ve brought up the idea of collaborating with, too!
- Coming from a fantasy background as yours, what is some of your all time favorite fantasy or scifi work that you still enjoy today?
Nine: I’m not really big on Sci-Fi, but the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will forever hold a place in my heart. As far as Fantasy goes, I’m a big Star Wars nerd (I will fight to the death that Star Wars is Fantasy and not Science Fiction), but there’s also the Dresden Files, the World of Darkness… I’m kinda obsessed with Final Fantasy 14, if that counts? And then there’s the MCU, whatever that’s classified as. I tend to gravitate toward “lighter” things; I try not to get into anything that takes itself too seriously.
fine on Discord asks…
- Yes or no?
Nine: Let me sleep on it. Baby, baby, let me sleep on it. Let me sleep on it, I’ll give you an answer in the morning.
Solstorm on Patreon asks…
- When does the “beacon’s” spark manifest? What age? Is it before puberty?
Nine: Not a lot is actually known about Beacons, in the current Mythos world. They can’t be detected by most supernatural means, so one of the few ways to detect anything is amiss would be for a Soulsculptor to investigate someone specifically. Guess how Rain found out?
Taellosse on Discord asks…
- In the existing lore, you note that the “spark” of a Beacon can be caused by a number of different sources in a human’s background. Is a Beacon necessarily an otherwise normal human? I.E. – Can a Beacon ever find themselves manifesting any sort of supernatural abilities of their own, beyond being unconsciously attractive to other supernaturals?
Nine: One important thing to remember — about everything in Mythos, really — is that nobody knows everything, even if they think they do. So any “truths” about the world that you see are going to be conveyed through the lens of who’s saying it. As far as Beacons like Kylie/Kyle go, they seem to be regular humans, totally undetectable except by very specific scrutiny (as noted in Solstorm’s answer above). Mages that haven’t fully manifested their powers can have that same ability to attract weird shit that Beacons have, but that’s a side-effect of what they are fully to become. The function and purpose of Beacons is one of the overarching themes of Mythos (not just Book One!), and there’s even a little hint about this in “Rain’s Promise”. 😉
DamnedFrog on Discord asks…
- What is… your favorite color?
What is… your quest?
What is… the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Nine:
-
- Purple (right?)
- To get everyone talking about my stories like they’re MCU titles, and…
- Um… yeah, throw me off the bridge, ’cause I can’t think of anything wittier than “African or European?”
- More seriously, one for Morgi: how it is to share your life with someone involve in a such time consuming project?
And by the way, thank you to let Nine work on Mythos. And I really hope this will never have any impact on your relationship.
Morgi: I mean… it’s fine. We have days where we plan stuff for each other, but you know… they do their thing, I do my thing. That’s how relationships work. If we were on top of each other all the time we’d get sick of each other!
Tobias_Knight on Discord asks…
- If you could have any musician or band pen the soundtrack to Mythos, who would you want?
Nine: That’s kinda tough, since Mythos has so many genres mixed in! Like Tara’s music would be Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kylie’s would be the Fratellis, Mara’s would be Motörhead, etc. I guess for an overall score, Danny Elfman could work!
Kuke on Patreon asks…
- How long have you been coding? Is it something you went to school for, or just decided to self-study?
Nine: Technically I started coding in the mid-80s on an Adam computer with “SmartBASIC”. I’ve always generally futzed around with computers, but I have no formal training — I teach myself as much as I can, and ask for help when I don’t even know where to look for answers.
Skye on Discord asks…
- Will the soundtracks be on sale as downloadable content?
Nine: I’d never actually considered that! Is my music really that good? I could put them as separate files for people to listen to, but other than the main theme, most of them are just really short looping bits of music to stay in the background.
Tobias_Knight on Discord asks…
- In the movie version who would you want to play the MC/FeMC and any choices for any of the other characters?
Nine: First, I love how this question seemed to be phrased like there will be a film version of Mythos. But for casting it? Hmm…
- Kylie Nelson – Lily James
- Kyle Nelson – Tom Holland
- Lisa Harrison – Erin Moriarty
- Tara Norwood – Florence Pugh
- Sophia – Tessa Thompson
- B – Anna Kendrick
- Rain Sunbeam – Naomi Scott
- Mara MacLachlan – Karen Gillan
- Monica Schwartz – Milla Jovovich (she’s actually who I designed Monica to look like!)
- Nadia Ensor – Isabela Merced
- Garland Chaos – Dave Bautista
- Sylvia DuBois – Keke Palmer
- Rin – Brenda Song
kinklylove on Patreon asks…
- Are you planning to write a walkthrough for Book One when it’s finished (for the lazy ones like me)?
Nine: I actually don’t really see the point. The paths you take through the game are to give you different information to solve the case. At the end, it still comes down to you looking at all the characters and picking who you think the murderer is. The walkthrough would just be “pick this one”. As far as the relationships go, not much need for a walkthrough there, either — since they’re not the important part of the story, all you have to do is show interest in a girl and you got her (for now). Yes, there are relationship variables, but those are for later things to be referred back to.
Ash on Discord asks…
- Does MM (Mystic Morgi) have a fav character and if yes which one?
Morgi: First of all, I like that nickname, and now everybody must refer to me as that. Favorite character… Aiden. He’s just so cringy it’s perfect.
Amund on Patreon asks…
- I seem to recall that you mentioned that Mythos started out as an idea for a novel (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), so my questions is: Are there any similarities bethween that origial idea and the current version of the game, beside the murder and I asume some of the characters?
What made you decide to make a game out of it instead of writing the novel?
Was it planed to include sex even before you decided to make an AVN?
Nine: The second two questions are already covered elsewhere in this post, but there are a few differences! I think the differences are easier to point out than the similarities.
- A lot of the novel was spent with trying to find out more about Monica and who she was — it was even assumed that Monica was the murderer. I decided to change Monica’s reveal (as a Bureau Agent and Lisa’s ex) to much, much earlier to establish more of the world’s lore.
- Rain looked like she was in her 50s and ran a consignment shop. I changed it to smoothie bar when I started the game, because I couldn’t find a greenhouse asset at first. There’s still a render of Rain’s first draft model (which looked way younger than current Rain) standing in the smoothie version of Gaia’s Cradle.
- B was non-binary — neutral pronouns would be used for them through the whole book. It’s not that B made a conscious choice to be agender; they just looked androgynous and nobody wanted to seem rude by asking (this was originally written long before it became more customary to provide or ask for pronouns). What gender was the original B? Not telling!
- Tara was a minor character. Her entire part in the original story was to pass on the information that Lisa was dead. When I did the first render of her character, I kinda fell in love with the design, so I gave her an actual personality and backstory. Now she’s arguably the “second lead” of the whole story.
- Mara… didn’t exist. She was completely made up just for the game. Early outlines of the game had Monica as the fifth love interest (after I decided to make her not seem like the villain earlier on), but I had to change that after considering that her girlfriend just died. Thankfully, some other plot points I needed to be covered fell nicely onto Mara, where they wouldn’t have made sense with Monica.
- Some other things were changed, but that could potentially spoil who is (and isn’t) the murderer.
Enthar on Discord asks…
- Morgi – I loved Lore-chan and the music, is there a part of the game development you most enjoy or least enjoy?
(Note: In the current 2.0.2 build, none of the music was done by Morgi — this may change in later chapters.)
Morgi: Um… most enjoy? When it’s done. Least enjoy? When you draw on the wrong layer, or you’re just a few pixels off on the dimensions. Fuck that noise.
Christa on Discord asks…
- Can you share what was some of the inspiration behind some or all the main characters and the inspiration to take this from just a story into the game it is now.
Nine: I think I’ve told these stories in various places over time, but it’ll be good to put it all down here for people who aren’t everywhere that I am!
- Tara is inspired by (primarily) two people; one is Silver Ninetails, who is one of my Discord mods now (pickup truck, German Shepherd, terrible puns), and the other a person I’m good friends with in real life (a tiny girl with big hair that can switch between extreme moods).
- I can’t go over all of my Sophia inspirations because there’s more to be revealed about her, but her hatred of contractions and abbreviations is from me — I hate ambiguity, so people talking in acronyms always annoys me. I took that facet of my personality to the extreme with Sophia. There’s also a character in a mobile game I’ve played (Tulip from Hogwarts Mystery) that always uses the main character’s full name, which I thought would make sense for Sophia to do.
- Rain’s appearance is based on Morgi, actually — note that the model I use for Rain and the model in Morgi’s renders is the same, just different hair and makeup!
- Not really an inspiration for the character, but Mara’s last name (MacLachlan) is a tribue to Kyle MacLachlan, who played Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks — a regular guy coming to investigate a murder that has a bunch of strange supernatural elements.
- Violet (the “Eager Apprentice” in the Convocation) is a very close real-life friend. I’m not saying Violet is inspired by that friend. I’m saying she is Violet. The things she says in Mythos are things she actually says in real life, and she worked with me to get her appearance into Daz.
- General note – most of the “normal” names I use (Norwood, Harrison, Davenport, etc) are just the last names of people I went to school with. I flipped through my yearbook to find mundane-sounding names.
- Rin is heavily based on Rin Ninetails (who, like Silver, is now one of my Discord mods). Rin, Silver, and I used to do roleplaying on Second Life, so a lot of aspects of her character have been put into Mythos Rin.
- Why did I make Mythos’ story into the game it is now? Firstly, I thought making it a game and adding sex would get more people interested in the story, rather than me just trying to get published (or self-publish). It was going to be only the female protagonist (Kylie), but I know many will dismiss a game without giving it a chance if they can’t play a male, so I put in that alternate option. But female is the path I keep in mind when I write, so that’s canon one. 😉