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Don't Die, Minerva!

Platform(s): PC, Xbox One
Genre: Action/Adventure
Developer: Xaviant
Release Date: 2020

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'Don't Die, Minerva!' (ALL) Early Access Roadmap, New Content Details

by Rainier on Jan. 30, 2020 @ 3:13 p.m. PST

Don't Die, Minerva! is a procedurally generated rogue-lite game where you explore a haunted mansion packed with evil spirits as 11-year old Minerva.

In Don’t Die, Minerva!, players explore a haunted mansion packed with evil spirits as 11-year old Minerva. Luckily, her flashlight and stuffed animals have become infused with some of the magic surrounding the house, allowing her to battle ghosts, spooks, and other creepies. 

Don’t Die, Minerva! features challenging combat, permadeath, and a procedurally generated haunted house. A deep stat system allows players to develop new builds on each run, finding synergies through hundreds of combinations of weapons and gear. Permanent upgrades enhance their arsenal and allow them to tackle the game’s higher difficulty levels.

With no two runs the same, death is always right around the corner. 

First of all, we’re pleased to announce that our third content update is coming on Tuesday, February 4th for Steam and Xbox One.

The big items in this update include the following:

  • New features added to the dynamic dungeon generator, allowing for our procedurally generated levels to be more distinct from each other. Our focus for this update is on the Mansion biome and making each floor of the Mansion have its own visual theme. We will continue to expand on this throughout the remainder of Early Access.
  • The Spread Ghost has been replaced with The Hollowed - a wicked pumpkin with a ravenous appetite. We will be expanding and improving his behavior in future updates.
  • The Sprinkler Ghost has been replaced with the Headmaster, an amalgam of nasty spirits that roams the dungeon spitting projectiles.

Along with those big changes we’ve also made lots of bug fixes and improvements, so stay tuned for the full patch notes when the update launches next week, which will include all the details.

This update won’t be quite as large as the first two, and that’s because we’ve begun the heavy lifting for some of the new features that we have on our roadmap. 

Speaking of the roadmap, we’re finally ready to announce our plans for how we’ll be growing and improving Minerva for the rest of Early Access and Game Preview.So without further ado, here are our plans for the coming months. Nothing is set in stone, but we think we will have everything wrapped up before the end of the summer!


New Features

  • Abilities: Abilities are a new category of offensive and defensive actions that Minerva can perform. These are designed to work in concert with Flashlights to create combos that make combat more varied and challenging. Categories include: Melee Attacks, Shields, and Friendly Buffs.
  • Charms: Charms are potions the player finds in the dungeons that offer permanent or temporary bonuses when consumed. They could be as simple as a boost to your base crit chance or as powerful as growing to 3X your normal size and being immune to touch damage for a brief time.
  • Curses: When you are cursed, you are given an objective that you must accomplish or face the consequences. Successfully removing a curse grants a reward. Some curses give you a disability, such as reducing stats or paralyzing one of your weapons until the curse is lifted. Objectives can be simple enough to accomplish in a single room or broad enough to cover multiple floors.
  • Fragments: Fragments are the gateway to unlocking new loot. As we introduce new items and affixes into the game, the player must find them in the dungeon and bring them to an NPC to have them deciphered and unlocked.
  • Achievements: Unlock a wide array of Achievements for Steam and Xbox Live.

Improvements

  • Enemies / Combat
    • Significantly improved and diversified behavior to provide interesting, challenging, and varied combat scenarios across the game.
    • New enemies to replace simple color-shifted visual variants.
    • Improvement passes on existing Flashlights and Friendlies
  • Dungeons
    • Creating sub-biomes so that each level of the dungeon is visually distinct.
    • Expanded procedural dungeon generation systems to further increase visual variety on each run.
  • Loot
    • More legendary variety, including legendary items that impart new effects, attacks, and abilities.
    • Improved synergy opportunities, allowing you to create more distinct and compelling builds.

More, More, More!

We’ll be adding more variety of just about everything that makes Minerva fun.

  • Flashlights
  • Friendlies
  • Legendary affixes and Loot
  • Enemies

Don't Die, Minerva! is available on Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview for $19.99 USD.

Don’t Die, Minerva! is in development for Xbox One and PC, scheduled for full launch summer 2020.


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