If you haven\u2019t beaten Mina the Hollower yet and intend to, I\u2019d recommend staying out of this interview until you have, because we\u2019re going full spoilers with it. You\u2019ve been warned.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
[Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.]<\/p>\n
While you can make Astral Orrery the first dungeon you complete in Mina the Hollower, it\u2019s hard to do. Assuming no ridiculous speedrunning tricks (and assuming you\u2019re not playing on New Game+ with modifiers), you can visit Astral Orrery only after exploring three other areas of the game first to find hidden mirrors (there are four, only three are needed to move forward). And of course, you have to actually know the \u201ctrick\u201d of the mirrors: that you can simply walk inside them to find the hidden mirror world where Astral Orrery is located. Most players won\u2019t learn the trick until they\u2019ve seen it performed in front of them a few times, blink-and-you-miss it, when walking into a room with a mirror. Or worst-case scenario, after beating all the other dungeons, when the newspaper just tells you to walk into the mirror.<\/p>\n
But still. If you can figure it out, and if you want to, you can do it. D\u2019Angelo says that\u2019s the point. That\u2019s what Yacht Club wanted to do with the entire game.<\/p>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-15.jpeg\")
\u00a9Yacht Club Games <\/p>\n
\u201cThe ethos of the game from the beginning was we\u2019re going to make an RPG, which is a game where you can control the equipment of the character, the level of the character, you can control where you go, your play style, depending on your weapon,\u201d he says. \u201cSo for us, it was, \u2018let\u2019s push it to the max in every area we can.\u2019 We want to make sure you can go anywhere at any time. You can find any item any time.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026When I played Link to the Past or Link\u2019s Awakening growing up or the original Zelda, I would finish the game, and often you immediately went into Master Quest or just played it again. You played it again because you said, \u2018oh, I bet I could take the hookshot into the other dungeon. That would be neat, right?\u2019 So we just wanted to encourage that as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are dozens of little decisions like this peppered throughout Mina the Hollower. There\u2019s the Pawn Shop, where you can sell literally any item you pick up, including health upgrades or main weapons, for the game\u2019s Bone currency. Then you can spend that to kit yourself out with upgrades from the shops to become super powerful, or cash it all in to repair the train and do Coltrane Peak, another \u201cintended\u201d late-game level, as early as you like. Barriers like the bone cost and the mirrors are in place to discourage casual players who aren\u2019t looking for shortcuts from accidentally stumbling into things too difficult for them, but those determined enough can always find a way through.<\/p>\n
Or turn on the game\u2019s cheats, and barrel on through anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have just been flipping out over these modifiers, and it\u2019s just, like\u2014it\u2019s the same thing,\u201d D\u2019Angelo says. \u201cWe put 300 fun things or whatever in there for you to control the same way we did in the game, right? We\u2019re letting you have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apart from discouraging players from inadvertently tripping into difficult content too early, the mirror entrance to Astral Orrery came about because the team wanted there to be a big \u201cmystery\u201d around its penultimate dungeon, Faulkner says. They wanted a big reveal, a \u201choly shit\u201d moment, where players realize there was something right in front of them the entire time. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s an accident that the big main mirror and the first and only one that we initially put in the game is right there in the foyer of the mansion,\u201d he continues. \u201cIt\u2019s, like, the most obvious thing immediately in front of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Astral Orrery is visually inspired a bit by the color dungeon from Link\u2019s Awakening DX, and a little bit of Super Mario World\u2018s Star Road. There\u2019s a \u201cbonus\u201d-y feel to it, despite it being required to complete the game. That\u2019s because it was technically a Kickstarter stretch goal, even though D\u2019Angelo says Yacht Club always intended to make it, even if it wasn\u2019t funded.<\/p>\n
Faulkner cuts in here to say there was one conversation about cutting it. What happened? \u201cTime and money,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Apparently, Astral Orrery and the final dungeon were \u201cthe crappiest in the game\u201d when Mina the Hollower was delayed from its original Halloween 2025 release date. Neither was even close to being done, he says. When I express surprise, given the incredibly complex mechanics of the four distinct sections of the Orrery, Faulkner clarifies that the base mechanics were already in place. The dungeon just wasn\u2019t fun at the time.<\/p>\n
I bring up my awe at one mechanic in particular: there\u2019s a section where you can flip switches to turn on black holes throughout each room, some of which are actively moving. Mina can jump over the black holes like any other gap, meaning when they intersect with walls, she can leap through walls that would normally block her from proceeding.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still in shock that David was like, \u2018Yeah, we can do that,’\u201d Faulkner said. \u201c\u2018We can disable the collision. You can jump through the wall.’\u201d<\/p>\n
But I\u2019ve gushed enough about the Orrery. Clearing the six main dungeons fully reveals the treachery of Mina\u2019s patron, Lionel, and triggers the beginning of the end. Thorne, the up-till-now presumed villain now driven berserk by Lionel, attacks the town, and you have to fight through him to get to the manor. Or do you? I, like most players, battled him till he grabbed me in his big bat mouth, dropped me, and left. But apparently, I didn\u2019t have to fight him at all. You can ignore him and run straight to the manor. Or you can stand and watch him tear up the town for a bit\u2014if you leave him alone long enough, he\u2019ll eventually just leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want you to feel forced to do something that is bad,\u201d D\u2019Angelo says. \u201cWe played other games like that, and I don\u2019t want to play a game if you\u2019re going to make me do the wrong thing. So like with the generators, you have to fix them all. Part of that, you\u2019re probably thinking, \u2018This isn\u2019t a good idea.\u2019 But part of the plot is that you gotta fix \u2019em all to [shut them down] anyway. No matter what, the good thing is fixing them all. So with [Thorne], we don\u2019t want you to feel forced to fight a good guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mina the Hollower, from the outside, doesn\u2019t seem like a game where complex moral choices might matter in any real way. There are a number of moments throughout the game where Mina has the opportunity to do something morally questionable, like locking a guy in a tomb to suffocate (he asks you to) or murdering a sapient leaf (on accident) or having a battle with her rival that crashes a train into a mountain (oops), or drowning a fisherman (I\u00a0tried to save him)\u00a0or stealing from orphans (okay that one was bad). Many of these moments are played off for laughs, or brushed aside in the way video games frequently do. Mina\u2019s the hero, after all! If a few trains crash and kill a few people, what of it? She\u2019s saving the world! It\u2019s a game! Don\u2019t think too hard about it!<\/p>\n
But Mina the Hollower\u2018s big twist is that these moments\u00a0did matter, a secret that isn\u2019t revealed until Mina reaches Lionel\u2019s banquet hall. D\u2019Angelo tells me Yacht Club envisioned Lionel\u2019s manor as a bit like Hyrule Castle: a hub from which you went out into the world, then at the end returned to where you started for an epic confrontation. Their original idea was very cinematic, with a camera panning down the table highlighting the tension between Lionel and Mina. But then they had to answer the question of what the two former-friends said to one another. Mina, of course, confronts Lionel over the evil he\u2019s perpetuating by keeping the generators lit.<\/p>\n
And in an incredible, Chrono Trigger-evoking moment, Lionel turns the spotlight back on Mina, listing (with the help of the townspeople gathered around) every crime she\u2019s committed up to that point in the game, every murdered leaf, every crashed train, every disconsolate orphan, every fisherman left to drown, every smashed candlestick, every \u201ckick the can\u201d game Mina interrupted. It\u2019s a truly stand-out scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we thought about what he should say, he\u2019s turning you against the people,\u201d D\u2019Angelo says. \u201cAnd how should he turn you against the people? When you say that, the immediate thing that comes to mind is Chrono Trigger, right? It\u2019s just like Chrono Trigger, it\u2019s the one game where you get put in front of a bunch of people and you\u2019re like, \u2018What? I didn\u2019t do that. You\u2019re looking at it wrong.\u2019 Immediately, we were like, \u2018This is gold we\u2019ve struck on,\u2019 because it just matched the theme of the game so well, where the way your actions play out through society are not always in your control and don\u2019t always happen the way you\u2019d expect.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can stop Lionel from continuing after just a few crimes, or push him to keep talking until he\u2019s offered up around 20 different examples if you\u2019ve done enough, and there are even more possible crimes than that possible. Faulkner says the team had to raise the number twice, because players kept asking to hear more. It is, apparently, possible to do no crime. At the time of our interview, D\u2019Angelo wouldn\u2019t tell me what happens, but someone has since found out and it\u2019s fantastic<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAlso that Chrono Trigger sequence is in the first act of the game, it\u2019s referencing the events of that festival, right at the start,\u201d Faulkner adds. \u201cBut when you put that same moment all the way at the end of a 30-hour game and it can reference everything you did during the entire duration, I think it hits a lot harder.\u201d<\/p>\n The actual ending of Mina the Hollower is kind of a downer. Mina shuts down the generators and defeats Lionel, but the entire island falls into chaos in the aftermath. Mina, blamed for the state of things, is chased out of town and forced into hiding with Thorne. D\u2019Angelo says that Mina the Hollower\u2018s plot is based on Victorian stories like Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Charles Dickens\u2019 works. In these stories, the overarching themes of the clash between social classes, the horrors of industrialism and capitalism, and the consequences that come with unchecked \u201cprogress\u201d don\u2019t mysteriously disappear into a happy ending. So it didn\u2019t make sense to do that with Mina, either. Faulkner wants the player to reflect on what they had been doing, and why.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started making a Victorian thing because of what we felt like in Los Angeles,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just flooded with homeless people and housing prices were enormous. And this is in 2020, now I think the whole world is feeling that. I think Victorian stories really resonate. There\u2019s a reason people are calling it a Second Gilded Age now.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, it\u2019s weird in Zelda that you go and break the pots. Everyone notices that. In this game we wanted to say, you\u2019re doing those things and it means something that you\u2019re doing those things. And\u2026the message at the end resonates with the same idea, that power and capital can control a narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mina the Hollower has a total of seven main dungeons. The last dungeon is always the last dungeon,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[16127,118253,74,51185],"class_list":["post-698408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-indie","tag-mina-the-hollower","tag-technology","tag-yacht-club-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}