What Happens When You Bring Your Family Stories Into the Multiverse?
Some of the best parts of game development happen long before a player steps into a world. They happen in writing rooms, during conversations about a character's personality, or when someone shares a story about something their grandma used to say and the entire room realizes it absolutely needs to be in the game.
That spirit was at the heart of our latest Fireside Chat, Hexas, Hot Stories and How Owlmigos Are Shaping the World of XR, celebrating the end of Hispanic Heritage Month with a look behind the scenes of Dimensional Double Shift's Hexas dimension.
Host Vanessa, Owlchemy’s Director of Marketing, was joined by devs and members of Owlchemy Labs' Owlmigos Employee Resource Group (ERG): technical designer and Owlmigos co-chair Eric, producer Jonathan, and lead concept artist Francisco. Together, they helped bring Hexas to life through writing, dialogue punch-ups, voice acting, character design, and cultural consultation. The result? A fiery, Tex-Mex-inspired dimension full of oversized food, monster trucks, and characters with a whole lot of personality.
But behind all that chaos is something a little more personal: the family memories, cultural references, and lived experiences that helped make Hexas feel like more than just another dimension.
Here are a few highlights from the conversation.
Sometimes, the best character inspiration comes from your family
You can spend hours trying to come up with the perfect line for a character, or you can borrow something your dad has been saying since he was a kid.
During the conversation, Jonathan shared how a nonsense phrase his dad used with his friends growing up in Mexico made its way into the script for the Luchador Bodybuilder. The phrase, which roughly translates to "Oh, his rooster," was so specific that even the team had to stop and ask what on earth it meant.
That's part of what made the collaboration so special. Rather than relying on broad cultural references, the team could draw from the little things that make a family feel like a family: the phrases parents repeat, the jokes grandparents love, and the memories that stick around long after childhood.
For Jonathan, that included bringing in the familiar experience of a Mexican mom who has absolutely had enough of your nonsense. For others, it meant finding ways to weave their own loved ones’ personalities into the characters players meet in Hexas.
And if you've ever heard a family member say something so specific that you can't imagine anyone else saying it, you already understand why these moments work.
Making characters lovable means knowing where the line is
Hexas is a dimension full of demons, ridiculous situations, and characters who can be downright unhinged. But when you're drawing from real cultures and experiences, there's a difference between a joke that feels affectionate and one that crosses a line.
That was one of the reasons Owlmigos was involved early in the development process, the team wanted to make sure Hexas celebrated the culture it was drawing inspiration from, rather than turning it into the punchline.
As Jonathan explained, a core writing philosophy at Owlchemy is to never punch down. Bringing Owlmigos into the writing rooms and dialogue punch-up sessions gave the team a chance to examine the characters closely and make sure the humor came from a place of care.
That didn't mean making the characters less ridiculous. Hexas is still Hexas, after all. It meant making sure their personalities felt authentic, recognizable, and lovingly crafted.
The team also talked about how important it was to leave room for jokes that work specifically for Spanish-speaking players. Not every joke needs to translate for everyone to be worth including. Sometimes, giving a particular audience a moment that feels like it's just for them is exactly the point.
Getting the words right matters just as much as writing them
Writing a funny line is one thing, making sure it sounds right when a character says it is another.
Because Hexas draws from a blend of Texas and Mexican influences, the team needed to pay close attention to dialects, regional expressions, and the little differences in how people speak. Hispanic and Latine communities aren't interchangeable, and neither are their languages and cultural references.
Francisco helped review dialogue and offered suggestions to make the Spanish more accurate to the cultural influences the team was aiming for. He also joined voiceover sessions, helping actors refine pronunciation, emphasis, and delivery.
Sometimes that meant a quick correction. Other times, it meant a little more back-and-forth to get a line just right.
Those sessions gave the team greater confidence that the characters would land the way they were intended to: funny, memorable, and full of personality without losing the cultural details that made them special.
The best characters remind you of someone you know
Ask the team about their favorite Hexas characters, and the conversation quickly turns into a collection of family memories.
For one, Hexican Grandma stood out because she brought together the familiar personality of a Mexican grandmother with the delightfully over-the-top threat of a demon. The character feels recognizable, but the Hexas setting lets that familiar energy go somewhere wonderfully ridiculous.
Others connected with Hellenovela Demon, whose television-loving personality brought back memories of watching shows with their grandmothers growing up.
These aren't just references added to make a character feel culturally specific. They're the kinds of details that help a character feel like somebody you've actually met.
And the team didn't get there by keeping every idea that came up. As with any game development process, the writing started with plenty of possibilities before being narrowed down to the strongest jokes and characters.
The end result is a cast that can be wildly exaggerated while still feeling grounded in real experiences. Turns out, a little family familiarity goes a long way, even when your neighbors happen to be demons.
Forget the multiverse for a second. What's for dinner?
If there's one thing this Fireside Chat made clear, it's that food has a special way of bringing people together.
When Vanessa asked everyone to share a dish that feels like home, the conversation took a very delicious detour. There was mole chicken, pozole, pernil with arroz con gandules, and arroz con leche. And naturally, no discussion of family recipes would be complete without a little friendly debate over where to find the best version.
Jonathan shared a particularly sweet story about his grandmother's guacamole recipe. Passed down through his mom and into his own kitchen, the recipe eventually made its way into a local restaurant's guacamole competition. The result? A win, a novelty check, and a recipe now featured on the restaurant's menu.
That's a pretty incredible legacy for a family recipe.
The stories also touched on the traditions that surround those meals: big family gatherings, music playing in the background, relatives filling the house, and the feeling of being welcomed even when you couldn't follow every conversation happening around the table.
As the team reflected, those traditions don't always stay the same. Families grow, loved ones pass on, and the things that once felt like ordinary parts of childhood can become much more meaningful with time. Sometimes, keeping them alive means passing down a recipe. Sometimes, it means hosting your own gathering and starting a new tradition.
And sometimes, it means putting on the right music, making a big batch of food, and inviting everyone over.
There's no single way to be Hispanic or Latine
As the conversation turned toward the broader meaning of Hispanic Heritage Month, the team shared an important reminder: these communities are incredibly diverse.
There isn't one way to look, speak, eat, celebrate, or connect with your heritage. Even within the broader Hispanic and Latine communities, individual cultures have their own identities, traditions, and histories.
That diversity was part of what made the Hexas collaboration so valuable. The team could draw on different backgrounds and experiences while recognizing that no one person could speak for everyone.
They also talked about the joy of seeing cultural traditions become more widely celebrated, from music that finds new audiences online to performances that bring Latine artists and sounds to a global stage.
For Jonathan, sharing food is one of the ways he celebrates his Mexican heritage and the sense of care he grew up with. For Francisco, it's about staying connected to family and finding community while living far from home. For Eric, supporting Hispanic and Latine game developers, mentoring, and helping create opportunities through Owlmigos are meaningful ways to give back.
Their experiences aren't identical, which is the entire point. Heritage can be something you share with a community while still being deeply personal to you.
Celebrating the people behind the games
The Fireside Chat also offered a chance to reflect on what Owlmigos has built at Owlchemy Labs. Now approaching the end of its third year, the ERG has helped create space for employees to connect, celebrate their backgrounds, and bring more of their lived experiences into the games they make.
The team expressed gratitude for the opportunity to share those experiences, collaborate across disciplines, and help shape characters that reflect the care behind their creation.
And that's something worth celebrating well beyond Hispanic Heritage Month. When people have room to bring their perspectives into the creative process, everyone benefits. The stories become richer, the characters become more memorable, and the worlds we build together become that much more interesting.
If you haven't explored Hexas in Dimensional Double Shift yet, now's a great time to meet the characters for yourself. Just don't be surprised if a few of them remind you of someone in your own family.
Step into Hexas in Dimensional Double Shift and experience the chaos, the characters, and the cultural details that helped bring this dimension to life.
And if this conversation leaves you craving a family recipe, a favorite song, or a gathering with your own people, consider that your invitation and drop your own memories in the comments below.. There's always room for one more at the table.