Adventure Gamers: Rhiannon is grounded in stories from the collection of Welsh historical legends called the Mabinogion, and the Four Branches in particular. What can you tell us about the cultural significance of these tales?

Noel Bruton: Karen and I live in the Welsh-speaking part of Wales and there the kids learn about the Mabinogion in school. There are plays and songs dedicated to it. It’s all over the tourist shops of course in many forms. There is a distinct deference to its significance in Welsh culture. The Mabinogion is to Wales as the Arthurian legends are to England. We have been mindful throughout that we three are English people making use of a Welsh icon and that as such, we should treat it with utmost respect.


AG: Why did you choose the Four Branches as the basis for your game?

NB: We thought we could use the Mabinogion, because if you strip it back, the Four Branches – four tales at the heart of the Mabinogion collection of legends - can be seen as four ages of man, which leads nicely to a chapter structure. There’s a lot going on in the stories as well, oodles of symbolism that would translate nicely into a computer game. It also appeared that it had never been used for a PC adventure. We extrapolated for the sake of story how the legends may still be having an effect on the present. The Four Branches gave us a protagonist, antagonist and collateral victims. Then we added an environment for it to take place in and plotted in characters who had encountered the hauntings before the player gets there.

AG: How integral is this literary foundation to the events of the game?

NB: I’ve got to be careful here. It’s a lot more than a backdrop. We use the symbols in the Mabinogion so closely that if I were to tell you their relationship to the story, I’d spoil the plot.

AG: So will those not familiar with the Mabinogion be at any disadvantage coming into the game?

NB: If the player has never heard of the Mabinogion, no worries. The game has its own identity. There are useful synopses to guide the player though the significance of the Mabinogion, where it matters to gaming. And if you want to read a slightly more detailed synopsis, take a look at the bookshelves in Malcolm Sullivan’s study.

AG: The game's subtitle has already been changed from ‘Beyond the Mabinogion’ to ‘Curse of the Four Branches’, undoubtedly to ward off the many "Beyond the WHAT??'s" sure to have met the former. Is there any concern for you that people outside Wales won't have the same level of interest in the game due to an unfamiliarity with the subject matter?

NB: I doubt that unfamiliarity itself will exclude players. Adventure gamers are curious by nature, they like intrigue and mystery. We’re hopeful that if the promise of a good game is sound enough, the unfamiliarity is more likely to attract than exclude because explorers thrive on what they don’t know. I think that’s why so many adventure games have intrigue built into the title. Unfamiliar words and mysterious titles are all over the adventure genre.

AG: The early story outline (and the game's title, obviously) center around a teenaged girl named Rhiannon, who experiences a traumatic, haunting experience after moving into an ancient rural Welsh farmstead. And yet in the game, Rhiannon's parents have taken her away and the central figure is historian and mythologist Jon Southworth. Is this really Jon's story or Rhiannon's, or a little of both? And who exactly is the player in Rhiannon?

NB: You play yourself in the first-person, although we've given you a name – Chris – because the game needs a way to address you in messages you'll get as you play. You’ll encounter Jon Southworth and he’ll provide you with guidance, tools, hints and backstory. He thinks he’s communicating with Rhiannon about events at a place hundreds of miles from where he is. But he’s more wrapped up in this than he knows, which you will reveal. And it is not about Rhiannon as such – her work is done by the time the player gets there – it’s more about the significance of Rhiannon in the mind of our villain, Llwyd , and where she fits into the history of Ty Pryderi. The player will come to understand the importance of Rhiannon and use that to defeat Llwyd.

AG: The house is named Ty Pryderi, or the "House of Pryderi", who is a character featured in the Four Branches. Can you explain what relevance Pryderi has to the game's story, without giving away too much?

NB: In the Four Branches legends, Pryderi and his family make an enemy out of a devious and psychopathic sorcerer, Llwyd Cil Coed (pronounced HL-oo-id-Kill-Koyd). Throughout the Four Branches – and so throughout Pryderi’s life – these two come up against one another and some of the exchanges are pretty nasty. But they reach a kind of stalemate. So we extrapolated, what if that battle went on beyond the events described in the Mabinogion (hence the original working title), yet could be resolved by understanding it? What if Llwyd, having been forced to swear not to take his revenge during Pryderi’s life, sticks to the letter but not the spirit of that undertaking and takes his revenge in the afterlife instead? What form would that revenge take? And how might it be unraveled? The story of our game is how you go about understanding what Llwyd has done, and turning his intent back on him to undo it. But how do you defeat the afterlife? The clue is in the four ages of Pryderi's life, as they are described in the Four Branches of the Mabinogion. Don't worry – you don't have to read the Mabinogion to play this game!