Really highly reccomend this interview of Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, head writer for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. In it she corrects the misconception that Monoco was named after their office dog (56:44), and confirms that they intended for players to view Monoco as a potential romance-able character (52:42, transcribed below)
Interviewer: Initially when I realized there was a romance system, I was like, 'why can't I romance Monoco?' And then I realized he was a dog. So...
JSY: Well you can romance him. I don't know if you picked up on that, but, you know, he does invite you to cuddle at the end.
Interviewer: Yeah little spoon!
JSY: You can be little spoon, yeah. There is that. It's implied. We didn't want to go too ham on it, but, you know, it's a...it's up to player interpretation, right? If players want to interpret it as a cuddle, it is. If players want to interpret it as more than a cuddle, that's also possible.
