MINOS

They've heard the stories of a monster in the dark, and the fame and riches waiting for whoever slays it. What they don't know is that you built this maze, laid every trap, and are lying in wait. MINOS, Artificer's maze-building roguelite published by Devolver Digital, casts players as the Minotaur of Greek myth rather than the hero hunting one, and this review's research found a review base largely won over by just how unusual that flip feels in practice.

Building the trap, not disarming it

The single most repeated theme across this review's research is how fresh the core loop feels. "This game has no right to have this many mechanics and be this fun," one reviewer wrote, while another called it "one of the most unique concepts I have played, and executed very well." A more detailed review explained the appeal in mechanical terms: on each labyrinth floor, players dig out walls and lay traps to funnel adventurers into a killing ground, then finish off survivors directly with the Minotaur in melee — "it holds a unique space between a tower defense, a puzzle, and brute force," as one reviewer summarised it, praising the freedom to either perfect a run through trap placement or muscle through with combat. One reviewer specifically flagged the game's lineage, noting it comes from the makers of Showgunners, a prior tactics game from the same studio, and praising the audio and visual presentation here as "outstanding" even though the gameplay itself bears little resemblance to that earlier release.

A presentation reviewers keep comparing to Hades

Multiple reviewers reached for the same comparison point when describing MINOS's tone and atmosphere: "From the story, setting and style it reminds me a lot of Hades," one wrote, while others separately praised the "great ancient Greek atmosphere," voice acting, and music. A detailed 100%-completion review awarded the game 9 out of 10 after finishing it fully, specifically praising well-written and designed characters, good voice acting, and music that "fits the ancient Greek theme quite well" — while also noting that the game assumes a working familiarity with the myth of the Minotaur and doesn't do much to establish context for players coming in cold, and that some discoverable in-game writing felt anachronistically modern for the setting.

Where the maze starts to feel repetitive

Set against that praise, a smaller but detailed and specific set of reviewers described real friction with how the game holds up over a full run. One reviewer called it "a rather repetitive and buggy experience," citing labyrinths that "repeat themselves too often" and a lack of meaningful trap variety, with some traps described as "utterly useless." The same review flagged a more concrete issue: the Minotaur character itself being "buggy by being either unresponsive to commands or being unable to attack some enemies entirely" — a specific, reproducible-sounding complaint about the melee half of the game's core loop rather than a vague difficulty gripe. Separately, more than one reviewer reported the game placing a surprisingly heavy load on their PC given its modest, top-down presentation and small enemy counts on screen, with one joking it turned their PC into "a jet engine space heater for seemingly no reason at all."

Multiple endings, and what the achievement data shows

The 100%-completion review found in this review's research confirmed MINOS offers multiple distinct endings, with the first available by default and three further "flavor choice" endings unlocked once a player reaches the end of the labyrinth — a claim this review's research found consistent with a cluster of distinctly grouped achievement identifiers in the game's global stats, suggesting separate late-game branches rather than a single fixed conclusion. That same reviewer clocked full completion at 15 to 20 hours, describing the difficulty as "pretty casual for a puzzle game" and reporting a smooth, bug-free experience throughout — a notable contrast to the bugginess complaints raised elsewhere in this review's research, suggesting the technical issues aren't universal but also aren't rare enough to dismiss.

An actively supported launch

This review's research traced a steady stream of post-launch patches: two bugfix-focused updates in the two weeks after the 9 April 2026 launch addressing specific crash issues and broken achievement tracking, followed roughly two months later by a substantial 1.1 update. That update added an entirely new, opt-in "Roguelite Mode" stripped of story, tutorials, and puzzle content for players who wanted faster, more repeatable runs — explicitly described by the developers as a response to player feedback that the base story experience felt too slow for some. That's a meaningful, structural response to feedback rather than just a bugfix patch, and worth noting for anyone weighing whether this is a studio still actively shaping the game post-launch.

A shop economy and pacing some reviewers found unnecessary

A smaller cluster of complaints in this review's research target the space between labyrinth runs rather than the runs themselves. The same reviewer who flagged trap variety and Minotaur bugginess also described most shop-purchasable items as "rather bad," undercutting one of the game's core progression loops. A separate reviewer raised a more specific pacing complaint about the maps players walk between levels, asking why the game makes players "walk around clicking on blocks and crap on the ground rather than just giving me the rewards and letting me get on with the game" — a criticism aimed squarely at pacing rather than the core trap-building gameplay, and distinct enough from the repetition complaints above to be worth noting on its own. Neither complaint was universal, but both came from reviewers who otherwise engaged with the game seriously enough to finish multiple runs, which lends them some weight.

Where it lands

MINOS earns its Very Positive reception primarily on the strength of an idea reviewers keep describing as genuinely new: building the maze as the monster rather than escaping one. That central hook is strong enough to carry the game through a real, independently documented set of rough edges — bugginess in how the Minotaur responds to commands, labyrinth variety that thins out for some players, and a performance footprint that surprised more than one reviewer. For players drawn to that central premise, this review's research suggests it's well worth pushing through those issues; for anyone expecting a flawlessly polished roguelite, it's fair to go in with tempered expectations.