Minotaure
(Minotaur)

Project summary

Minotaure (Minotaur in English) is my graduation project at ISART Digital.
It was made in 6 months with Virtools. It is playable with a XBox 360 controller on a computer.

We were five students to work on it:

• Gautier de Souza (Project manager, scripter)
• Aurélien Larue (Game designer, co-manager, sound designer, scripter)
• Fabrice Loubet (Level designer)
• Olivier Lomprez (Character artist)
• Guillaume Datez (Environment artist)

This project won the Grand Prize 2008 at the 3D3 International Competition for Graduation Projects using Virtools.

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Pitch

Players control a powerful character in a fragile environment, like a bull in a china shop.
This character's life is linked to the world. Each time the environment is damaged, the character receives damage too.
The goal is to explore this fragile environment and survive traps to defeat a boss, without damaging the world and thus the character.

Player experience

Players are constantly under pressure, they have to control their moves and actions if they want to stay alive.
To progress, players have to make choices and sometimes voluntarily destroy elements to create paths and avoid more lethal traps.

By playing on the frustration of not being able to destroy freely everything, and being forced to control a great power, this game ensures that players are always facing challenges they can achieve by learning, mastering and self-controlling.

It is quite the opposite of modern gaming in which any rampage is free and mindless.

Story

The legendary Minotaur hasn't died against Theseus. He has survived and started to wander lonely in his labyrinth for years, maybe centuries. His only companions were ceramic vases depicting the legends of great heroes such as Odysseus or Achilleus.
By staring intensely for years at these painted stories, he managed to project himself inside the world of these vases. Realizing that this was his chance to be redeemed, he decided to take the place of those heroes of History by triumphing of their enemies...

Gameplay

Players control the Minotaur in a 3rd person view:

• He can move around and use his axe to strike objects and enemies.
• He can charge in a straight line like a bull, delivering a powerful blow.
• He can destroy walls to create pathway at the cost of being indirectly hurt.

The environment is a temple made of ceramic that can be damaged easily, thus hurting the Minotaur himself.
The game is a continuous play on being smooth and violent with intelligence.

There are feedbacks on the environment about the doings of players:

• Colors desaturate.
  
• The Minotaur and the sky start fissuring.
• Pans of the temple fall apart.
• Sounds become more threatening.

All along their progression, players face different dangers:

The environment itself
Fragile and in a precary state, it can fall and break apart easily if the Minotaur or his enemies are too violent. The 'snowball effect' can be devastating.

Enemies
Hydra babies wander around the level. If the Minotaur comes too close, they stuck on him and slow his movements.
Hydra heads spit ceramic ball on the Minotaur, and can destroy the environment if not thrown back with the axe.

Bosses
The Carcinos is a crab that prevents the Minotaur to reach the final boss: The Hydra.
The final confrontation with the Hydra take place at the top of the temple.


There are also bonus for the Minotaur all around the temple. These bonus are in fact malus for the final boss: by destroying three precise elements the Minotaur can make the final confrontation easier, as they weaken the final boss.