Minos, let's build dungeons and smash adventurers – PC Preview

With its new Minos, Polish studio Artificer (known for the recent Showgunners and Sumerian Six) offers an intriguing mix of tower defense and real-time strategy. As Asterius, the minotaur of Greek myth, we will have to build and prepare the iconic labyrinth to repel adventurers hunting for our head. We can erect walls, set up traps and pitfalls, with the goal of surviving increasingly pressing waves.

The game adopts roguelite mechanics. Starting with a random and limited number of contraptions, we will have to make the best use of available resources to eliminate as many invaders as possible without endangering Asterius. With the gold and gems collected, we can then purchase traps and accessories to simplify our lives and expand the defensive network. In case of death, we lose everything except the accumulated experience, which can be used to unlock new abilities and improve the minotaur's stats, and the cycle begins again.

Each floor of our “descent” takes us to a new dungeon, and each round is split into two phases. In the first, we can calmly set up an obstacle course for unwanted guests. There are pre-arranged slots for placing common traps, such as spikes or ballistas, which will activate as soon as they have a target in range or above them, while others require pressing a connected pressure plate, which we can strategically place, or even particular conditions, such as bait in dead ends.

To guide adventurers to their doom, we can create and destroy walls at will, as long as we don't block the path, unless there is debris in the way. In that case, we can use Asterius's residual energy to clear the passage. Over time, we will have more and more energy to undertake increasingly ambitious renovations, and skills to convert health into additional energy, energy into experience, or slots for extra trinkets.

Once the work is done, the unsuspecting victims will swarm from the various entrances in single file, following the shortest path to our hiding place, after which they will know Asterius's position and head straight for him. In this phase, we can move wherever we prefer, taking advantage of circumstances to lure pursuers towards other surprises, or engage them in melee. The minotaur has no problems against single enemies, but as their number increases, it becomes difficult to hold out, which is why direct confrontation is the last option to consider.

Also because “manual” kills will provide negligible amounts of experience, while those from external sources will allow the labyrinth to level up, thus providing additional tools. Not taking damage and clearing the area using only traps will also improve the final rating, for greater rewards.

The controls are intuitive (although sometimes the cursor loses focus and doesn't click the desired spot), the interface is clean and tidy, while the tutorials and on-screen texts are quite exhaustive. The resulting experience is immediate and intriguing, lends itself well to quick sessions, and opens the door to numerous interpretations, both based on our playstyle and the power-ups offered during runs.

In my opinion, however, the roguelite component is not particularly suited to Minos, and indeed undermines the pace of a package that (currently) does not have enough content and variety to justify this philosophy. The level-up dynamic could be preserved, but I would move the abilities and power-ups unlocked in this way into the pool of choices between labyrinths and individual waves, or into the shop catalog. In short, I would revise the balance and economy to favor more structured levels, perhaps a bit longer and more malleable.

This way, the player would be more inclined to test traps that require complex synergies or specific setups, and situations like bosses failing at the table because Asterius is not strong enough to tank 10 adventurers in the first round would be avoided. It could be a way to prolong the demo's stay, which clearly lacks pieces, however, it is undeniable that for the first 2-3 floors, the music is always the same. The dungeon layouts are few, the traps are few, and you don't power up at a speed that justifies many iterations.

The foundations, however, are solid and I am sure that by expanding and optimizing the formula, Artificer's title has all it takes to captivate your attention for a long time. I'm just not convinced about the wall crushers, especially when leading large contingents. An enemy unit that bypasses the labyrinth walls, brings half an army with it, and has no immediate counters (or at least I didn't seem to glimpse any) is not at all fun to deal with. Otherwise, Minos is a blast. 

Performance is good, the range of options is robust, and I haven't encountered any bugs or crashes (although some instability emerges from Steam reviews). A few more environments wouldn't be bad, but I imagine they will come with the full version. The sound effects are good, with screams, explosions, and gushes of blood; the soundtrack is fitting for the mythological context, but I admit I turned it off quite quickly, to have the game always ready in the background, where it remained for hours and hours.