Minotavrs

Minotavrs is the "holy simplicity" of computer games, the genre of which is very difficult to define. Probably, this is not even a rogue-like, but the most top-down-action, but very different from all the usual ones. The only known slightly (a little!) similar thing is the Master of Magic game from Mastertronic for the C64 platform. The game formally has a plot - the hero must defeat an evil vampire - but this is far from the main thing here.

The point of the game is to wander through dungeons and kill creatures. To do this, you need to collect some bottles with, apparently, magic potions - this is what is a weapon against monsters here; Moreover, the same bottle can successfully act on one type of monster and be useless when meeting another.

The game screen is divided into three parts. In the left there is a black square and small dots in it. One of these points is your hero, the others are monsters, various potions and other objects, here you can also mark the walls of the labyrinth that are already "known" (that is, which the hero has encountered); movement in the game is discrete. On the right side, at first, it is generally dark and empty, but when you meet or collide with someone or something, its graphic display appears (a door, a portrait of a monster, a wall, and so on). At the bottom, there is a panel with the current inventory, with which you can choose potions to use.

The battles are quite primitive - when meeting a monster, the hero's life energy begins to decrease, the monster will die the faster the sooner the right object is chosen to destroy it (although the potion may not work on someone for a long time). To move to the next level, you need to find the key to the doors; The levels appear to be randomly generated, but are always quite simple and very similar to each other.

No storylines and other things - only the most "high". As mentioned above, the graphics are practically non-existent. Images of doors and portraits of monsters are made in the CGA palette, but at the same time very clearly and quite beautifully. The result was summed up at the very beginning - despite the simplicity in all respects, this game (a rarity, by the way) is able to insanely captivate and awakens just incredible nostalgia for the good old days.