Announcing Minerva Labyrinth, a magical girl dungeon crawl

2021 did not go as planned.  I had to put game development on hold for the first half of the year to recover from RSI in my wrists.  I was able to get back to it around June, but after working on my new project for a few months, I needed to take another break to work out some design issues I was struggling with.  

My new project is Minerva Labyrinth, a magical girl-themed dungeon crawler based on the core framework I built for Magic and Metal Zero and very similar in gameplay style.  The game is still early in development, so I'm not ready to share too many details yet, but I wanted to talk about some of the  main enhancements I've made since MM0.  I'm still pretty happy with how MM0 turned out, but it was made for a game jam in only two months, so there's a lot of room for improvement.  Please keep in mind that these are preliminary screenshots.  The final version may differ.

Improved GUI

The GUI in MM0 isn't great; it's bare-bones functional, it's a little hard to read, and it takes up a lot of space.  For ML, I've upgraded the entire GUI to a higher resolution with a more readable font, given it a cleaner look, and compressed a lot of it to take up less screen space.  The screenshots  below represent a broad first pass, so there's more fine-tuning I want to do, but I think it's already a huge improvement.

Full Character Creation

The biggest "missing" feature in MM0 was party creation, which I just didn't have time to implement and balance, so it's a top priority for ML.  You can quick-start with a balanced default party of five, if you like, or you can create your own, with full control over their stats, skill set, and appearance.  I'm still working on some of the details, but each character will have one "aspect", or active skill set (replacing the spell schools from MM0), as well as a secondary skill that provides passive benefits or extra triggered abilities.  This means that all characters will have active skills to use, including dedicated physical fighters.

Improved Combat

The basic structure of combat is the same as MM0, but I've tried to improve the pacing and readability.  This is better played than shown as some of it comes down to the action timing and overall flow, but one big new feature is the turn graph, which shows the order of upcoming turns.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to give this much information to the player for a relatively simple combat system, but after trying it out, I really like it and think it makes combat feel less haphazard.  I've also added target indicators to make it more clear who you've selected, as this could be confusing in MM0.

Home Base

MM0 took place entirely in hostile territory; there were no shops, and resting your party carried the risk of being ambushed.  This was partly for thematic reasons, but also partly because I just didn't have time to implement town and shop features anyway.  In Minerva Labyrinth, your squad operates out of a safe location in the city.  You can return here at (almost) any time to heal, converse with friendly NPCs, and purchase new equipment with the magical residue you collect from the labyrinths.  On the other hand, you'll have to use your resources wisely when traveling deep into a labyrinth, as you can't simply rest and recover after every fight.

More and Bigger Dungeons

Instead of a single dungeon for the entire campaign, Minerva Labyrinth will have several dungeons, each with multiple blocks.  Dungeons are set in real-world locations, such as a subway station or hospital, that have been twisted into deadly otherworldly labyrinths.  Blocks will be 16x16, compared to MM0's 12x12 (256 squares per block vs. 144 - almost twice the size).  These blocks may fit together in any configuration, not just straight up and down.  12x12 was a good size for a jam game, but it was also a bit cramped from a design perspective.  Bigger maps give me more room to design bigger and more complex mazes.  16x16 is still not as big as some classic dungeon crawlers, but as this is only my second RPG, I don't want to bite off too much at once.

Gentler Introduction

MM0 was a little bit harsh at the beginning, as it threw you directly into danger with minimal equipment and without any guidance or safety net.  This was partly intentional and was also a nod to how Wizardry VI started out, but I got a lot of feedback that I might have gone a little too far, especially for players who are new to dungeon crawls.  I eventually smoothed this out somewhat with a tutorial feature, but ML has a dedicated introductory dungeon that is designed to flow with the (still optional) tutorial and let the player acclimate to the gameplay in a less overwhelming way.  This short dungeon also serves as a first chapter of sorts and sets up the scenario for the rest of the game.

That covers the highlights.  I'm excited about this project and I'm trying to make something bigger and better than my last game.  I don't know yet when a demo or final release will be ready, but I should have more to share in 2022.