#MinervaLabyrinth made it through the Steam review process. I learned that if you flag your game as having mature content of some type, but it's not immediately visible, Valve will ask for a level skip to be able to check it. Had I known that in the first place, I would have provided it. Or maybe I could have just put a severed head on the title screen and they'd say "yep, violence, check!"
Learnings for next time.
#MinervaLabyrinth has ten character classes, four of which have major healing abilities. Today I'm starting to playtest a party with no healing classes. I've given some thought to how to support this kind of configuration, but the only way to work it out for real is to start playing and see how it goes.
I've made it to the second level of the first dungeon so far. Making progress 👍
One more quick #ScreenshotSaturday, an image of one the older dungeon levels that I've been touching up today. Dungeons need animated faces speaking cryptic rhymes now and then, don't you think?
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A small feature I added this week: disabled (held, stunned, or asleep) combatants will show a red X over their icon in the timeline, which makes it easy to tell at a glance if an upcoming turn will be skipped.
Also, KOed allies now display as a broken gem at the end of the timeline; previously they were just removed from it. I'm not sure if this is strictly useful, but I think it makes sense.
#IndieDev #GameDev #ScreenshotSaturday #MinervaLabyrinth #CRPG #DungeonCrawler #DRPG #IndieGame
I admit, it's kind of fun to come up with achievements and names for them, and it is also motivating me to hide some of my treasures better.
WHAR CHEEVOS
I've done a few passes over the first dungeon, since part of it is included in the demo, but I haven't really revised the second one much since finishing it. I see some things that could use tightening up, and some opportunities to mess with the player.
Just submitted Minerva Labyrinth for Steam release approval. 🤞
It's not 100% ready for release JUST yet (playtesting and balancing in particular are still in progress), but it should be ready enough for Valve. My target release date is coming pretty soon and I have no idea how this is going to go, so I want to leave plenty of time to get it cleared away.
Another thing I wasn't satisfied with was the epilogue, which felt like a pretty abrupt end (I know, games used to just say "Congratulations" at the end, but I know I can do better than that). I was never going to do a fancy ending cutscene or anything, but I'm writing an extended version to give the ending a bit more substance. I'm still not sure if this is what it needs, but I'm leaning towards keeping the longer version.
I wasn't satisfied with one of the late-game levels, since it felt like too much of a blind fumble, so I made some adjustments to the flow and focus. I think I improved the clarity of what you're supposed to be doing while also better encouraging the thought process to get there. In other words, it's more fun now.
This is one of the levels with more complicated geometry, so changing things around is a bit of a hassle, but I think it was worth it.
Today I pushed a pretty big update that I have been working on since before Next Fest, which mostly focuses on QoL improvements. I really could have kept going, but I got my priorities done (including some accessibility items) and I wanted to put it out there.
Honestly my favorite is probably just the block-shaded health bars. The old ones clashed with the portraits, but it took me a while to decide what to do with them.
Midnight Spire Games