El Mequetrefe

As teenagers, we briefly helped out with a school newspaper called El Mequetrefe. Surprisingly, “mequetrefe” has the same meaning in Spanish and Portuguese. There are many common elements in Latin American culture that cross borders. We wanted to bring some of them together in a place that felt familiar to us and, at the same time, universal. A local newspaper offered a way to connect the city’s public life with the personal lives of its characters.

What you publish can affect your relationships with people and groups in the city. Favorable coverage can bring money and support to the newspaper, but it can also benefit someone whose interests conflict with those of other people. The consequences depend on the story. Sometimes helping the newspaper means helping someone you would otherwise prefer to keep at a distance.

The player receives a stream of events and rumors. Some of them are basically gossip. You choose what to investigate, which sources to trust, and what to publish. You can publish unverified rumors and risk the public’s trust. You can profit from this: some audiences may engage with misinformation. But publishing only verified facts builds trust and can be another valid survival strategy.

A businessman can offer financial help to the newspaper in exchange for publishing a photograph that involves Ernesto’s family. You can accept the money and help keep the newspaper running, but the family may resent having its private life used that way. After publication, Ernesto has to deal with that reaction. What seemed like a business decision becomes a family problem.

Yes. Knowing that a story is true does not make its consequences easier to accept. You may depend on the support of someone who will be hurt by its publication. Losing that support can put pressure on the newspaper and, through it, on your family. We wanted the player to have reasons to hesitate beyond simply knowing whether something is true or false.

Yes, some stories allow corrections, apologies, and attempts to recover trust. There is a family storyline involving a mistake in the newspaper and a correction that was promised but never published. The player can follow through on that promise. But preparing a correction and actually publishing it are separate decisions, and the characters react to what you do.

We chose a period when limited technology made the community feel even more insular. We also wanted to double down on local passions, like the local band Guitarreadas and the devotion to Los Tiburones soccer team. These are things that bring people together and give them plenty to argue about. We wanted a familiar setting without falling into easy Latin American stereotypes: believe it or not, Puerto Bonanza is not dominated by the military or drug trafficking, for example. Its conflicts also come from ordinary relationships, local interests, and the mundane need to make a living.