Minaurs (by Michael Havlik) https://itunes.apple.com/app/minaurs/id1073362517 Minaurs Michael Havlik A unique adventure game full of exploratory expeditions to the various underground worlds on different planets. Travel w… $4.99 Buy Now Watch Media DetailsA unique adventure game full of exploratory expeditions to the various underground worlds on different planets. Travel with your Minaur through the game universe, discover new worlds, their unique environment and inhabitants. Lead your Minaur safely through underworlds to gain knowledge and collect The Mighty Resource. Complete various quests, develop your character, collect loot from various animals, and rescue your trapped mates. Reunite the Minaur Nation and become a legend! It all depends on your in game decisions. The game has a nonlinear progress unique to each player. Enjoy a blend of adventure, action and logical game with RPG elements. Experience the atmosphere of unknown worlds, underlined by detailed graphic and sound design. Discover hundreds of unique locations with living interactive environments, various animals and many hidden surprises. Get all 147 available knowledge hints. Take advantage of the environment and specific animal behaviour in your favor. Learn, upgrade and use up to 28 special abilities. Try to complete all 57 special Challenges and gain up to 20 Advantages, that enhance different attributes of your Minaur. Avoid the fulfillment of the 14 Failures, that reveal your Weaknesses. Gain up to 72 different Achievements and compete with other players. The game is fully localized in 8 languages (English, German, Czech, Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian). Information Seller:Michael Havlik Genre:Adventure, Puzzle Release:Jun 28, 2018 Updated:Sep 15, 2018 Version:2.0.3 Size:164.5 MB TouchArcade Rating:Unrated User Rating:Unrated Your Rating:unrated Compatibility:HD Universal
Minaurs (by Michael Havlik) *AppStore https://itunes.apple.com/app/minaurs/id1073362517 *GooglePlay https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.IIIDA.Minaurs *Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/763750/Minaurs/
I really like the look and feel of this but it’s a bit confusing to jump into like how the heck do you mine downwards or guide your character down there? So far I’ve tapped around until I fainted while my character auto walked across the surface with no idea of how to control it
So I am getting the hang of exploration but I keep ending up trapping myself in pits... very unique game I am really enjoying it
This game supports 8 languages. Though not enough, the user ratings on Steam for this game are mostly positive. If you are interested, check out this video & image: Minaurs GamePlay (by Crian05) Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
Soooo. Afaict, this is lemmings-style world shaping with an otherwise uninteractive protagonist. In the first handful of levels, I’m in a world made up of hollow squares (with some exceptions for unusual room types). Tapping on a square, so long as I’m not in it, Allows me to build or remove any of the four walls. (top, sides, bottom). Falling causes a degree of injury. So, yeah. So far, it’s intelligent path building. I’m not yet blown away. There appear to be several systems going on, but I’m unsure of the extent to which they’ll alter gameplay. Which so far, doesn’t feel too mindblowing. The game also has a - by now - irritating-as-hell habit of popping up a second screen announcing KNOWLEDGE whenever I click on sth new. It was dinky the first thirty times, I’m kinda over it now.
Gotta be honest, this game is irritating the hell out of me. I keep on coming back to it, but it’s full of - frankly - dirty tricks. I’m pretty sure I’ve come across several levels that are literally uncompletable (2 minaurs on the same level, with a non-mineable barrier between them), and “learning” takes place in ways that are often lethal. “Congratulations! You’ve just learnt about a fast moving flesh eating monster, by encountering it! Better not let it eat your face off!” Oh, I’ve got no way of countering that, oh, I’m dead again. And tbh it would have made no difference anyhows, because I discovered it in literally the only path between two minaurs. Or in my last game, “congratulations! You’ve discovered a friendly flying creature! It can pick you up! Make sure you don’t let it fly too high before it drops you!” Only by the time I’ve seen this screen, I can’t build over it, and it’s lifted my character through the chuffing roof of the sky before slam dunking it to its death. It’s deeply irritating because there’s no learning involved, and no process I can implement that might avoid a tedious and resource-draining unfair death. And because it happens time and time and time again. It isn’t friendly - it feels as if the game is trying to be unreasonably punitive in ways that make it far more tedious to get anywhere. As in, like, one out of every second or third attempted level, there’s some bollocksy new “learning” that shafts me comprehensively, and comes out of nowhere. It’s just not nice. Or enjoyable.
Oh, and having switched to the “small screen” option to see if it made the mining more precise / controllable, I lost the ability to see the lower levels of a given mine. So, great, I can’t see where I’m f***ing heading, or where I’m meant to plan my route to. Oh, never mind, I’ve encountered another arbitrary and unfair death again anyhows. Great. Just great.
And yet this is one of the more enjoyable games to come out for iOS in a while, once you get past the bulk of the learning interruptions. You are correct that they should have made it a sort of achievement popup to let you know what's happening instead of breaking the flow with a full screen. And yes I have noticed unfinishable levels as well, but when the game starts to make sense, it is a kind of relaxing real time puzzler with some clever ideas albeit a little clumsily implemented.
Is it? IMO it’s seriously hampered by some frankly weird design decisions. Repeated, arbitrary, thankless, punishing deaths. “Learning” in ways that kill you, and write off resources & progress without any option but failure. Pop up screens that not only stunt and stumble and stutter your progress; but which re-a-bloody-ppear if you restart. Every single one of them. And that’s, like, 7-10 on the front page *alone*. Controls that are punishingly fiddly (on an 8+) on “large screen” mode, and almost pointless on “small screen” mode - because I CANT SEE MY TARGETS, which is literally the only thing determining my path finding at the outset, and which might lead to level failure if I start out wrong. And “failures” leading to “weaknesses” (with enough failures). Idk. Again, in early game, these just (again) feel like repeated punishment. It’s not at all chuffing obvious what does what, or how rewards reward me. (Semi-obscure symbols attached to the side of vague pictures, and clicking on them does nothing). Oh, I’ve been shafted by three consecutive levels? And that leads to gaining three successive points towards a “failure”? Honestly, I’m BORDERLINE at the point of “f*** you devs. Seriously, wtf?” I’m up for hardcore games, but death in those is purposeful, directional, or cheap. Here, it’s punishing, pointless, unavoidable, and incessant.
I do play the game on an iPad which gives more screen space to accurately target the wall sides you want placed or removed. As mentioned, I'm no fan of interrupting your gameplay with the knowledge screens, that could have been way better with a partial screen popup. You seem to take offense that the game only teaches a new mechanic the moment it happens to you. They could indeed warn you 'not to fall' before you take your first step. Now they tell you about falling and its consequences when you trigger it for the first time, same for swimming, getting stuck, choking on gas, etc. There are no penalties except some prestige point loss for getting those once. You need to accumulate a lot of falls to get the fail achievement associated with a trap. Once you do get a grip on the mechanics and the levels get a little bigger there is enjoyment in poisoning a lake and building a deep shaft to let a critter fall to its death so you can collect the loot. Also, as you gain more abilities you get more control over your environment letting you switch places with animals or take flight so you can regain some levels to get out of situations where you would be stuck. I guess the idea, that I give you that, that is forced on the player is that you will fail levels at first by not knowing, by not being able to escape traps or by level design, but you build up experience in game through abilities and as a player by getting to know the game so as a result you are better equipped once you get about 10-15 expeditions under your belt.