[Exclusive Interview] Miguel Vidaure shares details about his work on Blossom Tales II: The Minotaur Prince

After five years of anticipation, fans of adventure games and indie titles are finally able to experience Lily’s latest adventure in Blossom Tales II: The Minotaur Prince. This game, set centuries after the first Blossom Tales, stars a new girl with the same name as the legendary hero of the first game. When Lily makes a regrettable wish, the evil Minotaur Prince appears and kidnaps her brother, Chrys. Armed only with a sword, a shield, and her determination, Lily sets out to rescue her brother from the Minotaur Prince’s clutches.

Yes, Blossom Tales 2 is an epic adventure fit to follow in the first game’s footsteps. It brings back everything fans love from the original Blossom Tales while also introducing new mechanics, characters, and locations. And of course, it’s also packed with the same charm and humor any fan of the first game would come to expect. 

From playing the game, it’s clear that a lot of effort and passion went into creating it. One major aspect of this comes by way of the game’s narrative. The story is told from the perspective of a kindly grandpa telling his granddaughter and grandson a thrilling bedtime story. That’s what Miguel Vidaure, the game’s narrative designer, was going for as he and the whole Castle Pixel team worked on the game. I was curious to learn more about how The Minotaur Prince’s story and characters came to life, and Miguel was kind enough to speak with me about his work on the game.

Getting To Know Miguel Vidaure

To start things off, my first questions were about Miguel, the man behind the fantasy’s tale, himself.

Zac Pricener: To start, can you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get into video games, and what do as a game designer?

Miguel Vidaure: My name is Miguel, and I’m a writer for Castle Pixel. I worked on both Blossom Tales games, and I got started in game development because, since I was a kid, I wanted to make games. I mean, I love playing games, my entire childhood, teenager, everything. So, I went to college for it, and I’ve been fortunate to be making games for almost 13 years now. The writing and story side is one of the parts I liked the most because we’re all storytellers at heart. And it’s fun making experiences that are compelling emotionally, or just fun.

Zac: What kind of games are your favorite to play? I’m sure you’ve worked on a variety, but is there a favorite type of game that you zero in on?

Miguel: I think, at the end of the day, my favorites are action-adventure games. RPGs are probably a close second. Ocarina of Time is my favorite game, and I feel action-adventure has that combination of puzzles, exploration, combat, and story – so many elements that make a game compelling. To this day, I really enjoy action-adventure games and am happy to be making them for the Blossom Tales series.

Talking About The Art Of Storytelling

From here, our conversation turned to what it’s like being a narrative designer and bringing the story to life in Blossom Tales II: The Minotaur Prince. It’s definitely a lot of work, and it relies on Miguel’s team at Castle Pixel being able to collaborate and bring their ideas together.

Zac: You were just talking about the storytelling work you do. Could you go into like detail? What is that work like? To go in-depth into working on the game, I mean. And also working with other people on the game. What’s that like, especially for a game like Blossom Tales? What’s the first step?

Miguel Vidaure: A lot of people probably don’t know that Castle Pixel is just three of us. We get help. We got a lot of help from Playtonic as well with the producers, QA, and everything. And they were awesome. But the core of Castle Pixel is Tyler, who does programming and design; Rob, who does all the art and design, and I do the writing and narrative design.

Usually, it starts with the story. Between us three, it’s like, “Where do we want to go?”  A lot of times, in case the players haven’t noticed, it’s inspired by some of our favorite movies and games from the past. My take is that when we’re old and telling our kids our own made-up stories, we’re definitely going to borrow from our favorite stuff. 

So, one of my main roles, besides writing the cutscenes, dialogue, and all that, is making sure those story elements match the gameplay. So you have an [musical] instrument. Cool. How does that work in the story? How does that work in the game? Who gives it to you? That’s how we came up with the magic bard character. It’s all a lot of fun and very collaborative. The other guy’s also helped do a lot of story and narrative design as well. And that’s usually that’s the process.

Zac: So there’s a lot of cohesion between you three. Are you guys working remotely or do you guys like a studio somewhere?

Miguel: Yeah, we’re remote. Tyler is in Canada, Rob is in Pittsburgh, and I’m in California.

We’ve made three games now, the two Blossom Tales and Rex Rocket. I’ve never met them in person, but we’ll definitely get together. And yeah, it’s cool. Remote work can be effective. You can make projects “from the comfort of your home,” right? (And it’s many distractions.) We’ve worked really well, hopping on Skype or video calls and using online documents.

Zac: So in terms of crafting the actual script, how long does it take to put it together? Once you guys have it hashed out what you want in the game and actually need to make it, what’s that like? And how long does that usually take?

Miguel: For the big scenes like, for example, the tournament at the beginning of Blossom Tales II, since there’s such a big story moment, we have that idea already in mind. and then they asked me to write more or less what happens. What the dialogue is. And I always try to add choice anywhere I can to add a bit of flavor to the dialogue. 

It’s hard to say how long it takes per scene because every scene is different. And I don’t necessarily time myself, but it definitely is an iterative process, one where I’ll write it, and they’ll check it out. So once it’s all set up, I’ll review it. We review it together and end up with something good. It’s kind of a fast process, to be honest. We’re such a small team, we need to get things done and move on to the next thing. I feel no matter what your team size is, that’s usually game development in a nutshell.

Making Lily And Everyone Else Spring To Life

Going deeper into the crafting of The Minotaur Prince’s world, we discussed the development of the characters and how Miguel made them as distinct and endearing as they are.

Zac: How do you go about making characters unique? All the characters have their own personalities (such as the pirate enemies). What makes them stand out with their personalities?

Miguel Vidaure: Since Blossom Tales 2 is a very fantasy-like story for kids because that’s the way it’s set up. It’s being told from an adult to children. They almost write themselves sometimes just because we dive into the obvious themes. You have your pirates, so of course, they’re going to be speaking like swashbucklers. A lot of times it feels like it comes naturally because the characters evoke already the type of character that we’ve heard a lot already.

As for NPCs, I try to write a dialogue that matches what’s going on in their town. What’s happened there will be new dialogue if you’re in a town and then you’ve finished the dungeon or something big happens in the story. So yeah, it’s a lot of fun. Writing dialogue is a lot of fun for this game.

Zac: What was different for you from working on the sequel compared to the first Blossom Tales? What changed for you and what did you learn from working on the first game?

Miguel: One thing we wanted to do was offer more choices. Blossom Tales isn’t deep with branching storylines with different multiple endings, but we didn’t want to offer more choices, which is something that we learned from the first game. The fact that it’s a frame story, the kids interrupt and argue, and we wanted to give players gameplay choices because of the narrative. 

That’s something I took from the first game and said, “What can we do to enhance this?” And that’s what we ended up with: cutscenes with more choices, the choice of different gameplay elements like your rideable companion, or your [choice of] instrument. 

I’d say that was probably the biggest takeaway for me as the writer as well as keeping the voice of grandpa and the kids. Grandpa is still very much trying to tell a story, but he gets interrupted. But he’s not angry about it and tries to calm them down, and the kids are still very much bickering with one another and chiming in. I make them feel like they’re actively listening to the story just like a player.

Bringing The Minotaur Prince To The Masses

As any game designer will tell you, taking a game from concept to product requires a tremendous amount of effort. There’s also a ton to do to actually publish the game. This is all something Miguel knows all about. 

Zac: With it being only the three of you, you’re all going to be deeply involved in everything. What was that like, in terms of the publishing and marketing side of things? What’s your involvement with the publishing team and with the marketer?

Miguel Vidaure: Playtonic was really awesome during this entire thing. Ever since we joined forces, they’ve been very supportive, and not just on the development side. They were able to give a view from outside the box. And they also helped a lot with the marketing for sure. They worked on a website, they’ve done our trailers, and their social media was always sharing stuff. They’ve definitely helped us a lot on that front. 

Since there are only three of us it’s hard to always be doing the social media aspect of marketing. We do have our Castle Pixel page which we take turns peeking in and checking out what people are saying. But Playtonic was really great. They did a lot and it showed that they were genuinely interested in Blossom Tales. They were from start to finish, and they’ve been awesome.

Zac: How long was the development period for Blossom Tales II? How did it compare to the first one?

Miguel: I’m not sure about the first one. But this one, we started around January of last year, so January 2021. So a bit more than a year and a half, and I think for a three-man team, where it’s actually like more like a two-man team with the actual technical and development side with Rob and Tyler, they were able to you know, create content faster than the first time because we had that experience already. And Rob is really awesome at doing all the art. And then Tyler, he’s a self-taught programmer. He’s really amazing. He basically programmed this entire game himself.

Laughing Out Loud With Lily

One of the most enjoyable aspects of The Minotaur Prince’s characters and narrative is its implementation of humor and references. It’s also one of most enjoyable aspects of the game to work on, as Miguel explained. 

Zac: I definitely appreciated all of the references and humor featured throughout the game. What are some of your favorites that you got to add to the game, such as favorite jokes, references, and moments in general? What were some of the highlights for you?

Miguel Vidaure: I like the bard that, spoilers, you help in the Sunkiss Canyon area. The way he rhymes, I was kind of proud of that dialogue. As for references, man, I can’t help myself. I tossed in little references here and there. If I had a list of them, I’d probably it’d be a full page. I mean, definitely Lord of the Rings. I love Lord of the Rings. There are more than a few references there. 

There are also, I snuck in, more personal references. There’s the mad scientist boss. When you walk in and he thinks you’re his new assistant, he talks about his efficiency dropping this much between this much, and the measures are actually my wife’s and son’s birthdays. So, you know, I’ve even sprinkled in little references for myself. 

I know there are plenty that people are catching. I was watching someone’s stream, and the octopus boss screams “Rip. Tear limbs,” and [the stream viewers] are like, “Oh man, that’s a Doom reference.” You know, “rip and tear,” which wasn’t intentional. But that’s funny, that people can still take stuff from their own experience and pick up on that while playing our game.

(As we talked about the jokes and references in the game, Miguel brought up a fun joke between the Castle Pixel team that made its way into the game.)

Miguel: I don’t even know if Rob knows about it, but there’s a character Tyler put in. It’s a reference to something where he asked Rob, “Can you draw a bow for this guy?” who’s actually inside the Colosseum. And that never happened. So the [character] says, “I wish I had a bow. I wish someone drew a bow for me,” or something like that.

The Much-Loved Connections Between Lily and Link

As you might expect, one of my favorite aspects of Blossom Tales II: The Minotaur Prince is its connection to the Legend of Zelda series. Miguel, R, and J all love Zelda games (as everyone should), so, as far as I’m concerned, it was a requirement for them to incorporate as many Zelda elements as they could into Blossom Tales 2.

Zac: With us being Zelda Universe, I have to ask more about how Zelda influenced you guys. In general, this is a very Zelda-like game. So, what’s the story behind the three of you deciding to make a game similar to Zelda? How did the Legend of Zelda influence you?

Miguel Vidaure: I feel like, as a game developer, it’s impossible not to be influenced by the Legend of Zelda series in one way or another. It’s been an iconic and often innovative series that you can always take [inspiration] from. From Ocarina of Time to The Wind Waker to now, obviously, Breath of the Wild, you find amazing ways to keep players engaged and give them that combination of exploration, combat, and puzzles. So, making an action-adventure game inspired by 2D Zelda [happened] because we love those games so much. And it sounded like a really fun game to try to make because of all of those elements. 

These games offer more elements in terms of gameplay, and in making them, we hope that players will enjoy them. Players will hopefully enjoy the combat, learning new combat techniques, exploring every zone, even the little sidequests each with their own little stories, or collecting stuff for potions. We hope that all wraps up together to make a really fun experience for players in the same way that we were totally hooked by Link’s Awakening and A Link to the Past.

Miguel’s Message To The Minotaur Prince’s Fans

As our interview time came to an end, I wanted to give Miguel the opportunity to add any last thoughts he’d like to share. And what he would like to share is his gratitude for everyone who has played and enjoyed his game.

Zac: Was there anything that you wanted to share mentioned on your own or anything you’d like to point out in general?

Miguel Vidaure: From Castle Pixel, I just want to thank everyone who’s playing and sharing their adventures, because we’re happy with what we’re seeing. There are a lot of players having fun. Reviews are pretty good. I wish Metacritic would take more reviews. They only take certain reviews, which aren’t bad, but we’re seeing additional better reviews that are showing up. OpenCritic is good. That one accepts a bit more reviews from sources.

Yeah, we’re really happy people are enjoying the game. We’re working to you know, polish up little things here and there that have popped up, but we wouldn’t be doing this without the fans and everyone who loves Lily’s adventure. We thank you.

Experience Blossom Tale II’s Story For Yourself

I want to again thank Miguel for taking the time to speak with me about The Minotaur Prince. I love learning more about the behind-the-scenes aspects of game development, especially classic adventure games like Blossom Tales II, and I know many other fans do as well. 

If you want to experience Lily’s adventure firsthand, Blossom Tales II: The Minotaur Prince is available on the Nintendo Switch eShop and Steam. If you’re a fan of fantasy, and The Legend of Zelda in particular, this is an indie title you really don’t want to miss out on.