As you might already know, dear reader, I love a good roguelike. They come in all sorts of genres nowadays, and it means that you can find one that’ll scratch basically any itch you might have. For Minos, that means that you can get your fix if you really want to play as the minotaur as he tries to escape his unique hell, presiding over a shifting, trap-filled labyrinth to guide would be warriors to their doom… and get some upgrades.
Each floor has you trying to defeat the foolish adventurers who are hunting you within the labyrinth. They go through the maze, following the path through to the place you’ve made your home, your sanctuary, but you can rearrange many of the walls to try and guide them down a route that will trigger traps that you lay down, making sure that they never reach you. If they do reach the sanctuary, they will immediately know where you are within the maze, leading to a head-on confrontation.
Before each adventuring party arrives, you can prepare the maze to counteract them, buying traps, placing them, moving them around, and sculpting the space around you to try and keep yourself safe.There are some walls and obstructions that take energy to destroy, of which you only have a limited amount each round, others that can’t be destroyed at all, and some that you can basically do whatever you want with. Thematically, you’re switching between Daedalus to design the maze, and then the Minotaur to roam its corridors.
While traps initially start off pretty simple, like having a spike trap that reliably kill one intruder and ballistae that will fire a single arrow when someone comes into view, they can get a lot more complex if you want them to, like having pressure plates that activate moving walls, or even secret doors that allow you to move around the map re-arming your traps to catch stragglers. You soon have to plan around new enemy types, like fleet-of-foot thieves that won’t trigger spike traps, adventurers that have doubled health when a part of a group, and more. It can lead to some very fun cat-and-mouse style gameplay, even though the idea of being a minotaur that isn’t an overwhelming menace in their own right is a bit odd.
Between the levels you will gradually unravel the story behind the minotaur and the labyrinth, how Daedalus created the place to try and protect Minos, and builds up to the arrival of Theseus. It’s delivered with some good voice acting, and while it’s a less complex web of plot beats compared to Hades and the other high points of the roguelike form, it does wrap nicely around the dungeon keeping.
As you go through your runs, you’ll get some permanent upgrades like new traps you’ve unlocked, stat boosts, and some special abilities too. It’s all fairly standard on that front. In fact, it’s bordering on being a little too safe. I really wish things went beyond the standard “get more health and strength” kind of vibe, though there are options to sacrifice health to change the map or giving up energy to gain more resources, which are fun. It just feels like more could be done with the overarching progression.
You can find artifacts that change up your runs too, like making the rats that scurry around useful, but I didn’t find these to be inspiring enough to warrant multiple runs. In fact, after finishing a run, I found myself feeling a little bit lost on whether I wanted to keep playing. It’s not that Minos is bad – far from it – but it lacks the same kind of hook that a lot of roguelikes manage to have. However, if you’re looking for something a bit more strategic, then this could well be the perfect roguelike for you.
