Adventure Gamers - Forums

Hi everyone! We’re a u7committee — a small team of people from different parts of the world with backgrounds in gaming and video industry. We’d like to announce our Kickstarter project on Adventure Gamers.

Minotaur is a crossover between a point and click adventure/puzzle game and a visual novel. The point and click part is obviously inspired by LucasArts/Sierra classics and many other great adventure games (we were fondly remembering The Neverhood just recently), and to those who know their way about visual novels, Zero Escape and Danganronpa series will probably come to mind.

Please take a look at our Kickstarter trailer. It’s pretty short, but it tells a lot about the game:

If you like the trailer, you can actually give Minotaur a try. We have a one hour playable demo (which has a complete voice over from some great actors, by the way) for Windows PC and Mac available. You can download it from:

GameJolt | Indie DB | itch.io | Our website

We’d be happy to hear your feedback about the game. And if you liked it, you can check out our Kickstarter page and consider supporting Minotaur (at the moment of writing this, we’re nearing €20K of our €30K goal):

Our Kickstarter page

Here’s a GIF with some poor Shakespeare reference to explain what to expect from game and demo:

Minotaur is a sci-fi murder mystery set in the world we’ve spent two years creating. The game is now 50% done, and we expect to release at the end of this year.

(If you’re interested in the world of Minotaur, you can read more about it here.)

The game is split into five routes and features nine characters who wake up to find themselves trapped in their own apartment building. Naturally, they try to get out, struggling to understand what had happened in the process.

Here are a few screenshots:

You look at the world through first-person perspective, and narrative happens in visual novel-style

There are many special events, such as boss fights

Cursors

Main characters often interact with various devices and machinery

We have a “smart inventory” system in place — items are used automatically when player interacts with the right object

Each charcater has unique skills they need to use to solve puzzles (this one, for example, is called “Axis vision” — it’s kind of like being able to “see” electricity)

Some puzzles are timed

And that’s that… I hope that you give Minotaur a try. And we would of course appreciate your support on Kickstarter! If you happen to have any questions or feedback, let me know and I’ll be there.

Cheers and thanks for your time

Nick

NightShadowPT - 02 May 2017 11:56 PM

It looks really nice.

This whole first person point and click genre is not for me (I prefer my adventures to be on the 3rd person), but I wish you the best with your campaign.

Thanks, NightShadowPT! I understand what you mean… You avatar speaks for itself, if I may say I remember LBA games fondly, especially the second one (I think I was too young when the first came out).

AFGNCAAP - 04 May 2017 06:43 PM

I am not the biggest fan or either visual novels, or Manga-inspired graphics, but I have nothing against them, too, and screenshots looked good, so I downloaded the demo, and… wow! Okay, I still fear it’s a bit too casual in gameplay for me, but it really oozes quality in every respect. Especially characters, as in: writing, designs, acting — the whole package. At least Nod and Ollie, who are the only ones we spend any substantial time with in the demo — their relationship and bickering brought to mind Gabe and Grace from the Gabriel Knight series. I already like them and want to spend more time with them. Although certainly intrigued by the android music teacher, and the talking (?) penguin, too.

How long do you expect the full game to be?

Will we be able to switch between the characters only at the predetermined points? Do they sometimes need to co-operate to complete challenges?

In what way will Minotaur be non-linear?

Hi AFGNCAAP,

The first thing I thought after reading your reply was: wow! Gabriel and Grace are certainly an exceptional company to be in (Especially Grace…)

Anyway, thank you very much for playing our demo! I’m glad that things you mentioned didn’t stop you I’m sorry that you found it to be too casual for your taste, but it’s great to hear that you were happy with overall quality. We did put a lot of work into the game!

To answer your questions:

- Penguin talks, yes! He’s quite grumpy. And Mentor-15 (the android teacher) is one of the most interesting characters, in my opinion.

- The full game will take 10-15 hours for one ending (you can get 3 out of possible 4 the first time), and additional 3-5 hours for extra endings, all characters’ epilogues and finding collectibles. Total time greatly depends on how fast one reads and solves puzzles, of course.

- You will only be able to switch between characters at predetermined story points, unfortunately, but they will sometimes need to work together to solve puzzles or get out of tough spots.

- About non-linearity: decisions, decisions… Some choices are obvious, others — not so much. But you will make them as you progress, and they will influence how other routes play out (and ultimately, the ending). Here’s a good example: one route literally ends within two minutes if you fail at a certain puzzle long before. So changes aren’t just cosmetic, but I wouldn’t say that by making another choice at some point you will play a whole different game.

Let me know if you have any other questions! And I do hope you’ll check Minotaur out when it’s done

Cheers!

Nick

I’m not really a fan of the art style of a lot of indie adventures these days but yours has a look I can get behind. Excellent voice acting too.

Burge - 06 May 2017 11:16 AM

I’m not really a fan of the art style of a lot of indie adventures these days but yours has a look I can get behind. Excellent voice acting too.

Hi Burge! Thank you very much! I’m very glad that you like the graphics - we really want Minotaur to look good And sound, too! The team which takes care voice over did a fantastic job, I think, and they’ll be happy to know that the result is appreciated.

AFGNCAAP - 15 May 2017 05:31 PM

Congratulations on the campaign success! Looked like an uncertain thing for a while.

u7committee - 06 May 2017 03:04 AM

- About non-linearity: decisions, decisions… Some choices are obvious, others — not so much. But you will make them as you progress, and they will influence how other routes play out (and ultimately, the ending). Here’s a good example: one route literally ends within two minutes if you fail at a certain puzzle long before. So changes aren’t just cosmetic, but I wouldn’t say that by making another choice at some point you will play a whole different game.

So do you plan the choices to be, for lack of better word, “marked” as vital decision points, or will they be more “hidden”? If I get the ending where, say, Character X died, would it be pretty obvious if/when in the game was I able to save them?

Also, being Polish, I couldn’t not notice that Polish is one of the languages potentially available for subtitles in the demo. It’s not an obvious language option, so I was wondering whether it’s something you know the game’ll have, or you are just considering for now?

Hi again, AFGNCAAP! Sorry for the late reply The campaign got even more intense by the end, and we had to deal with a lot of stuff right after it.

To answer your questions:

(1) it’s subjective, of course, but I think vital decision points are going to be pretty obvious. Discovering some of them may require more thinking than the others, but it’s nothing ridiculous (that you can’t possibly find out without a FAQ or a guide). At least we try to make it so

(2) We hope that we will be able to translate Minotaur into Polish, it’s one of our high priority languages on the list (Adam Kuczek, our leading artist who makes Minotaur look like it does and co-creator of U7, is from Poland). But just like we recently announced on Kickstarter, even if we won’t be able to, we’ll open game to fansubs, which will increase chances of having it translated into other languages.

I hope this answers your questions… Let me know if there’s anything else I can tell you about the game or our plans for it!

Cheers,

Nick