Minotaur News

Greetings, our fellow Kyosians!

We're very happy to tell you that Mentor's route is almost ready, and Thea's route is coming soon afterwards.

I realize it took us a year to prepare the next chapter...



Damn, that's a large font. Be that as it may, we hope you'll enjoy the expansions as much as we do! There's a lot of story to uncover (combined script for Mentor + Thea's routes is almost as long as Nod's), many new beautiful locations and character encounters... Oh, and I'm happy to say that for you brave Early Access people, we decided to make the soundtrack expansions free too. Thea's route soundtrack isn't finalized yet, but Mentor's has 15 new tracks!

Speaking of Mentor's route soundtrack, Adam created a really cool cover for it:



It's 3840 x 1080 px, and we rarely do art in this size, so in case someone has a suitable dual monitors setup (and a desire to update their wallpaper), here's a full resolution version:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2256078789

Anyway, we hope to be able to release Mentor's route in November, and Thea's route in Q1 of next year. Please note that these are, or course, estimates, but they're something that we're striving towards.

And that's that! Not much else to say, we just need to grit our teeth and finish Mentor's route as soon as we can. In the meantime, here are some screenshots from it! I tried to pick the least spoilery ones, but if you prefer going in completely blind, just know that we've been hard at work, and that the screenshots are there : )

Cheers and see you soon on Kyos ♡🐧

Nick & u7committee



SCREENSHOTS:












This last one is a work in progress - it's from a movie that Adam is currently working on!

Our fellow Kyosians,

With this update, we'd like to let you know that the development of the remaining routes has been in full force! We're working hard to bring them to you as soon as possible.

We have mostly been busy with Thea's route, but its last third is a bit complicated. Some things that we want to implement are difficult to do, but we don't want to compromise on them, so... we're working on making them happen : )

In the meantime, we have actually finished a huge part of Mentor's route too. I think it's safe to say, without spoiling much, that Thea's and Mentor's routes are connected in a certain way, and working on one meant doing a lot for the other. At a certain point we realized that Mentor's route is mostly playable, and we might even release it before Thea's, so as to shorten the time between major updates.

In either case, we plan to release the next route in the next few months! I'll be able to tell you the exact date in the next update, and you know we never move a release date once we set it. Just kidding... I'm just trying not to get ahead of myself and make sure that at least 90% of the work is done.

Below are several screenshots from the future routes - I'm not telling which screenshot is from which route, because we'd like to keep things as spoiler-free as possible for you.

First, some great Banshee art from Demi (I count this as "spoiler-free" because Banshee encounter has been planned from the start - I think it was even included in one of our earlier trailers):




Why does she look so surprised? Who knows... And here's another new "character", whom I mentioned in one of our previous updates:




Adam did an amazing job with its animations - in fact, he added quite a few animations that bring the level of interactivity up a notch:




What else we got? Lots of new Royce locations:







Maybe someone will finally be able to get to that Hornet... And to top it all off, here's an image of Thea playing tuba (for a change):




So to sum up: we've been working on some pretty exciting stuff, and we can't wait to show it to you. I hope you can bear with us for a little while longer!

By the way, do you remember that new chapter selection screen that I mentioned in our previous update? ("Not sure Nick, so much time has passed since then." Ha-ha...) Well, it's been Hades to make (although it's our fault for not planning ahead in the first place), but it's 100% ready!

***SPOILER ALERT*** I suggest skipping the next GIF if you haven't played Nod's route yet!

Okay, here goes:




Not only can you now start from any chapter of any route (provided you have completed that route at least once), the screen also contains hints on how to obtain different endings, what events and actions contribute to Ollie's energy level in Nod's route (and other similar mechanics in other routes), which of those or other events you have triggered in each save slot, and so on. For Richie's route, you will also be able to set the starting conditions (which endings you got in other routes, did Nod take that strange flower with him, etc.). We put a lot of thought into designing this screen, and I think it turned out to be a very robust system, which makes navigating the game and seeing all that Minotaur has to offer much more convenient!


In addition to that, the elevator sequence has been completely remade, which should address the problems that some players had with it (of the game freezing, Thea's perpetual snoring, and so on).

And that's that! We hope to bring you the next update as soon as possible... In the meantime, cheers and stay safe!




Love ♡🐧

Nick & u7committee

Greetings, fellow Kyosians!

We're happy to let you know that the work on Thea's route has been going well!

Thea's route is the second longest after Nod's, and it can be roughly divided into three big parts. We're currently working on the second part, and we hope to finish the route in the middle of the year... This year : )



I shared another winter screenshot with you in our previous update, and some people expressed their concern about Thea freezing to death. Don't worry, we already tried to kill her once, so this time we got her covered - literally:



Variants of Thea's "winter outfit" by Demi. Can you guess which one we picked?

Other players wondered if the rest of Thea's route will take place in the same locations as Nod's. Not to worry either! Thanks to Adam's relentless work, most of the areas that Thea visits in Royce are either entirely new...



...or can be seen from a new angle, so to speak:



Wait, sorry, that screenshot is missing one important detail:



I wish I could share more screenshots with you, but it's a bit risky - now that Nod's route is out, they're full of spoilers! What I can tell you is that Thea will get her own skill, just like all other playable characters. Originally we didn't intend for her to have one, but since we want to keep the gameplay engaging and diverse, and Thea's route is quite long, we decided to spice things up a bit.

***MINOR SPOILER ALERT***

Without going into too much detail, Thea's skill will allow her to see the location that she's at from the outside (under certain conditions). For example, here's one of the locations that she visits in "normal" mode:



And here's how it looks with Thea's skill in action:



This gives us an opportunity to use some pretty cool (hopefully) concepts visual, puzzle and story-wise.

***END MINOR SPOILERS!***

In parallel, we've been working on the improvements based on the feedback we got so far from our Early Access stage (huge thanks to everyone who provided it!) - like this chapter select screen, which has replaced character selection screen, and which will allow you to start from different parts of the game:



Most of the screen is blocked, of course... huge spoilers! Anyway, in addition to selecting where to start from, we want you to also be able to pick a set of choices that you've unlocked prior to that point. That way you won't need to replay the whole route, or even game, several times just to try various combinations of those choices. Let's try and save some of those poor kittens!



I'll be honest with you, this is NOT an easy screen to make, and it's still a work in progress... But I hope it'll make your navigation throughout the game much more convenient! Ideally, it will be complimented by a manual save system with the same feature, and perhaps later we will also add indicators for missed extras (cards, artwork and music) - this screen seems to be well-suited for that.

Some other things that we're working on based on feedback (that we plan to roll out with Thea's route):

– Proper output of Chinese language (without that horrible extra symbol bug - I'm really sorry that it turned out to be such a problem to fix!)

– Optimized elevator descent scene - some players had issues with it (up to the point of the game becoming unplayable), which is most likely caused by unoptimized assets and animations; we've decided to rebuild this sequence from scratch to address this

– Adjusted post-Bygone puzzle - it turned out to be very confusing, so we're replacing it with visual-based exploration (no text wall!)

– Some other minor bug fixes and improvements

Other requested features that we're keeping in mind (most likely for Mentor's route release or later):

– Gamepad/touch controls support

– Auto-dialogue option

And that's that! As usual, let me know if you have any questions or comments, and we hope that you're looking forward to Thea's adventure!

Love ♡🐧

Nick and u7committee

Hello everyone!

First things first: we're happy to announce that the Russian translation of Nod's route is finally available! It's just an update away from you... We have been working hard on it, and even though it took us a long time, we hope that our Russian players, who have selflessly supported Minotaur at its release, can finally fully enjoy Nod's route! I will go into some more details about the Russian translation in, well, Russian version of this post.

And now - a development update.

First of all, huge thanks to everyone who bought the game, and sometimes even went the extra mile and gifted copies of it and the soundtrack to their friends! All of this really means a lot to us, and you made our Early Access launch extremely exciting. We were all immensely thrilled to watch you play the game, unravel its secrets and discuss the lore and the story. It was especially cool to see that almost no stone was left unturned: sometimes we wondered if someone would actually notice all those references and little details, if they were maybe too vague, but nope - you found them, and it was absolutely amazing.

Now we just need to repeat that four more times.

Luckily (in a way), other routes aren't as long as Nod's - his accounts for about half of the game in terms of its overall length. So you won't have to wait two more years until the release of the next route - rather, we plan to finish the rest of the game in the next two years, with each remaining route taking roughly six months to complete and publish.

We also decided to change the order of releasing the remaining routes, and to stick to the original plan, since we believe it will make more sense story-wise. This means that the next route that we're going to release will be Thea's, followed by Mentor's, then Unter's (sorry, @alone!), and then finally Richie's. I hope this comes as good news to those who became interested in Thea as character, not in the least because of her fantastic voice over by Brittney Karbowski, which was often complimented despite her relatively small role in Nod's route. Those of you who'd like to see and hear more of other remaining main characters (who of course have amazing VAs as well) will have to wait a bit longer : )

We have actually been working on Thea's route for a while now... And just like in other remaining routes, in hers we want to explore the world outside of Royce more. For example, you will travel to Mira DC and visit Thea's old home:



In Mentor's route, you'll drop by one of TFX android factories, among other places, and even meet a new... "character", so to speak:



With Richie, you'll visit Nova Corps station that Nod was so eager to get to, as well as the streets of the Second Rim district:



And as for Unter's route... Unter's route is just going to be bonkers.



Of course, while we're working on the new routes, we will also do our best to implement improvements and fixes based on the feedback that we received (and continue to receive). We made sure to include all of it into our backlog, and we'll be introducing it gradually as new routes come out. Some more important things, such as mysterious Chinese extra symbol bug and optimized elevator descent scene, will get patched up first (the former turned out to be a serious issue that we're still working on fixing), followed by quality-of-life improvements like more convenient saving system (oh yes, oh yes, as Unter would say), better post-Bygone knocked-out Nod puzzle, hopefully an option to auto-advance dialogue, and so on.

Other than that, it's business as usual: we'll post updates about the development and other important things (like that store page with the t-shirts and stuff, finally, or translations into new languages), and keep monitoring Steam for any new messages and questions that pop up - you know we're always happy to answer those : )

Love ♡🐧

Nick and u7committee

Hello everyone! We're so happy to confirm that Nod's route has finally been released!



We honestly can't wait for you to play it... There are many things about it that we'd like to share, but so as not to delay the release anymore, we'll post another, more detailed update in a few hours.

In the meantime, just one thing to keep in mind about the game + OST bundle. We decided to run a 10% launch discount on both the game and the OST. However, the OST will only become available later today or tomorrow, which means that the bundle will too. And the bundle will have a 15% discount... So in case you plan to purchase both the game and the OST (something that we really can't blame you for), and extra 5% sounds like a good deal, you might want to wait until the bundle is out.

Or not ; )

Cheers and see you soon in Royce apartments!

Nick & u7committee