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I have been trying out your latest demo, and it seems to have come a long way since the beginning.  I really like the introduction in the ruin, it is well-paced and does a good job of tutorializing.  I did have trouble completing the old tutorial in the forest, so I ended up skipping it; most of it seems to have already been covered in the ruins, so I'm not sure if it's still needed.

The starting forest is actually quite tough.  I find equipment a bit confusing, since it is percentage-based and so doesn't preview accurately in the shops.  Some equipment also doesn't seem to match the description.

Right, and it affects both the inventory and shop screens.  Reaper's Herald is another good example:

https://imgur.com/a/o7fdECx

Thanks!  Regarding #9, I was referring to the box with special property descriptions like "increases chance to be burned by enemies."  I think I have only seen this happen once, which was on an item with three properties, but I will take a screenshot if I see it again.

Sorry about #4.  It sounds like I hit some very fringe case, so it's probably fine, but I'll try to reproduce it again.  If I do, I'll be sure to keep the save file this time.

If I still can't interact with the statue after the fix, I can provide that save file as well.

Hi, I have a few more bugs to report.

1. The "gamepad buttons" button that shows the control layout cannot be selected with the gamepad.
2. With gamepad controls, after giving Herman a fish, the OK button ignores gamepad input.
3. With gamepad controls, if you select "give fish" and then click Back, and then select "give fish" again, the popup box is invisible.
4. In the mine, I had a quicksave in the lever room, and I later reloaded that save during combat (with the gargoyle in the next room).  All of the levers and the mine cart were now non-interactive, and this continued even after restarting the game.  I had to load an earlier save to fix it.  Unfortunately I lost this save because it was a quicksave and I didn't make an immediate copy of it.
5. When talking to someone in a house, if you cancel out of the dialogue while it is actively scrolling and then talk to them again, the dialogue options don't respond to gamepad input.
6. The bottom popup text cuts off if it is too long (e.g. the +2 projection mutonium refinery does this).
7. I can't scroll the party effects window with the gamepad.
8. The mutonium refinery that vaporizes the user behaves strangely.  It affects two characters and it can either actually vaporize or just kill, depending on which character uses it.
9. Items with multiple affixes (usually 3+) can overflow the display panel.
10. This may not be a bug, but what triggers the statue in the refinery to stop responding?  I got it wrong once, and when I came back later, it didn't respond, but on a different save, I was able to try the riddle multiple times.

How's development going?

Thanks for the quick turnaround, I really appreciate it.  I had gotten stuck on Blargh due to the achievement bug, but I tried again after the fix and was able to move forward.  I will let you know if I find anything else.  Very fun game, I am looking forward to playing more.

Thanks for checking.  Yes, I had no save files in the prologue.  After going into the menu, I couldn't get back out of it (although I might have been misunderstanding the menu controls).

There is one more issue with the gamepad that I forgot to mention, which is that when selecting an item to equip, the highlighted item doesn't display its stats.  Only the currently equipped item displays stats.

All good!  I have played for a few hours and am really enjoying it so far, although the gamepad controls take a lot of getting used to.  I did find a couple more issues:

1) Falling into the fire just inside the Unearthed Pit (right next to the exit to town) crashes the game with Unhandled Exception: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x0000000000000000

2) I was playing with keyboard controls before, but I can't get them to work now, after playing with the gamepad for a while.  My gamepad is not connected and not recognized on the main menu, but after loading my game, the mouse cursor is gone and only gamepad prompts display.  Am I missing something?

(EDIT)

3) Sorry, one more thing.  The learn skills menu doesn't seem to respond to gamepad controls (I can't select any skills).  The gamepad cursor also skips over the gamepad binding screen in the options menu.

Hi, I just started playing, but have run into some strange bugs:

1) The characters in the prologue all started with no equipment. I didn't realize this wasn't intended until I had to restart it, and then everyone was equipped.

2) Going to the save/load menu during the prologue seems to lock up the game.

3) When I first tried to give a fish to the crab, I already had 12 of every type of fish.  Now I have 14.

I just finished the demo in about 1:15.  It's fun, flows pretty well, and is already very well-polished.  Etrian Odyssey seems to be a strong influence.  I'm looking forward to more.  Here's some specific feedback:

- I strongly appreciate that you have designed a hand-crafted dungeon (not procedurally generated) and use no generative AI.

- It might be a good idea to add the "turn-based" and/or "turn-based combat" tags.  I was just looking for games exactly like this on Itch the other day, but it didn't come up, because I was filtering by those tags.  I know we only get ten, but maybe the 3D tag is less necessary.

- Control rebinding would be very helpful.

- The on-screen keyboard threw me at first because it's QWERTY rather than alphabetical, which I think is more common for gamepad-driven input.  I think this probably goes double for players with AZERTY etc., unless it detects that and reconfigures.

- I purchased some starting weapons before assigning skills (as the game directs you to do), but I didn't realize that some skills require specific weapon types.  Everyone just starts with a knife, so for some classes it isn't clear what they are "meant" to use (I gave my sentinel a hatchet, for example).

- Character-specific cursor memory in combat would be helpful.

- The map is a bit hard to read.  Mainly, it's hard to see the walls because they are almost the same color as the floor, so it's hard to tell where I've been.  Making the walls bolder and brighter would help here.  I would also like a bit higher opacity on the floors, although the feature icons are fine.

- I tend to hoard skill points in this type of system, and the starting selections are pretty overwhelming for just starting the game, so I didn't try out too many.  Blood Link could really use a speed boost, since the sentinel is pretty slow in armor and it tends to go off at the end of the round.  I'm not sure about this skill in general, since it only protects one character.  That makes it not very useful for general team protection, but it's also not useful in an emergency, because it's so slow.

- I'd like to be able to pass a movement turn so that the visible encounters (spiders) will move without me having to move, but I understand if your movement puzzles are designed with this limitation in mind.  Because of this, I did get trapped by one while going for a treasure chest, which is probably working as intended.

- I would personally enjoy more "dungeon master" text (aside from the dialogue beacons) in the dungeon to set the scene and flesh out the details, but that is all personal preference.

- I appreciated finding some rare equipment in treasure chests.  I think this is an important part of exploring dungeons, but in some games there isn't anything to find except basic consumables, and that takes some of the fun out of it.

- I was also glad to not have to spend skill points to harvest resources.

Looks great, congrats!

Just checking in!  How is development going?

Thanks for posting.  I didn't know this history, so this was interesting.

Good point, it is a fairly long scene already.  Maybe she could bring it up and Betancourt can just say he'll explain later?  I assume it will come up again at some point anyway, so that could be a way to communicate the party's confusion without inflating the scene very much.

I think this is a great start.  The lo-fi aesthetic works well and the art and music are well-chosen.  I liked the introduction that starts in the middle of the action.  Characters have a fair mix of abilities, though I found combat to be on the easy side so far.  Looking forward to seeing more.

A few things I noticed:

- The font is a little strange.  The lower-case L looks like a 1, and commas and apostrophes look like they are defaulting to the standard font.

- Some skills that target the party like Scrounge and Refresh have a long delay, like they are playing an animation that isn't visible.

- Poultice and Refresh don't heal any more than Rally, which seems odd.

- Betancourt's book flame attack animation feels a bit long.

- When speaking to Grau, Renata says "Let's go tell Nata" instead of referring to Petra.

- The dialogue prompt at the inn is cut off.

- In the canyon cave, the fang decoration on the wall overlaps the player.

- Run is disabled in the canyon cave - not sure if intended, but I would prefer to have it.

- Betancourt says that it would take cult ships 50 years to cross the ocean, and implies that the people here have no concept of such a distance or any familiarity with other lands.  I feel like the obvious followup from the party is to ask how he and Alistair even got there, or maybe shock that there is even anything that far out to sea, but they don't seem fazed by it.

- The party was looking for a cache of metal or something in the magma core, but they leave empty-handed and don't mention it again (unless I just missed it).

I'm checking out your demo, and made it to the second floor.  Very ambitious work so far.  Looking forward to seeing more.

They always had the option of paying for it, they just chose not to.

Congrats!

I came across this after I played On Elder Shores for FBQ8, and really enjoyed it.  I played on Steam and left you a review over there.  Is Aeons Present still in development?  I'm interested to see how the story continues.

For Itch users, I'll cross-post my review from Steam:

First thing: some commands (the compass and, more importantly, the lantern) are not accessible on the gamepad. This isn't game-breaking, but it's very silly. The compass stayed on permanently once I turned it on, but the lantern didn't. I usually just made my way without the lantern, as it's rarely crucial.

Aeons Past brings influences from Brandish and Arx Fatalis into the RPG Maker template. It's charming and well-written, with plenty of side quests and dense, lively dungeon design that rewards poking into every corner. This is clearly intended to be the first of a series, with many lingering plot and character threads and an ending that demands a sequel, but the game is still plenty satisfying on its own and is not an incomplete experience by any means. There is more than enough content and quality here to justify the full price of US $2.99, so if you're interested, don't wait for a sale. Just get it.

The one aspect of the game that I didn't find very compelling was the multiclass system. Since you don't have an abundance of skill points and skills are limited by what armor and weapon you're using, I just stuck to each character's default spec. There didn't seem to be much reason to swap them around.

I played the previous version of the demo a little while back and enjoyed it.  Looking forward to seeing the final game.  How many chapters are you planning?

Atmospheric and sweet.  A nice little winter break game.  The fairy abilities are cute and a creative way to handle traversal.  I did get a little lost a couple of times, but I figured it out.  Great job.

Good progress!

As much as I love RPGs, no, it's not necessary or even beneficial for every game.  For example, there are countless action and arcade games that have no permanent character progression (though many have temporary powerups).  Consider classic games like Ninja Gaiden, Contra, Castlevania, Streets of Rage, or Super Ghouls n' Ghosts.  Gameplay satisfaction in games like these primarily comes from building mastery and overcoming increasingly difficult challenges.  Beating them is memorable and feels great.  Of course some games in this style do have ability / stat progression (e.g. Megaman and especially the X series), but it isn't required.

Some recent AMD video drivers have been causing problems with Vulkan. If you have an AMD video card and the level geometry doesn't render (mostly black or blue field screen), try updating or rolling back your drivers, or playing in OpenGL mode. For me, this seems to be resolved with the latest drivers (25.11.1), but I will update if I encounter any further issues.

Screenshot of the issue:

https://imgur.com/a/3jIZGsh

More details here:

https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/109378

Unfortunately I wasn't able to play this, as it throws a script cache error when I try to open the menu.

Pretty cool arcade crawler with some amusing dialogue and great character art.  It gives me a little bit of a Slayers vibe.  Hoping to see the story continued someday.

This is great!  Clever puzzles with great sprite work and animation and an interesting story on top.  I was a little confused at first and it took me a bit to get the hang of how the shadows work, but once I did it was a really cool mechanic with room for mastery.  I wish there were more levels, but I did go back to get all of the achievements, both to uncover the lore and to test my skills with a better understanding of the game.

The basic style of the game reminds me a bit of Ronin, another action puzzle game, but of course the execution and mechanics here are totally different.

Sorry it took me a little while to check it out, it's been a busy year.

Nice progress!

Hi, one bug I have seen is that when you get game over, enemies stay active, so the firing sound effects still play and you can sometimes see bullets on the game over screen.

I have had to take many months away from game dev to recover from injuries or illness.  If taking care of your health interferes with game dev, prioritize your health in all cases.  Your projects aren't going anywhere.

Ohh OK, thanks.  I think this should be added to the instructions on the game page, like what it says for the weapons.

Hi, I couldn't get the rotation commands to work, either on keyboard or on gamepad.  I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

They didn't say it was only for multiplayer.  They said it was for everyone.

I don't want to add platform DRM to my games.

Thanks so much, I appreciate your feedback and I hope you enjoy the game!

I decided to convert the community section to a message board for better organization.  Apologies to those who have previously posted comments, as enabling the message board automatically hides comments and vice versa.

If needed, all of the above can be found in subdirectories in the following locations.  If you experience a crash, freeze, scripting error, etc., please include any details from the log file.  This will help me identify the issue.

WINDOWS: %AppData%\Midnight Spire Games\Minerva Labyrinth

LINUX: ~/.local/share/Midnight Spire Games/Minerva Labyrinth

Really cool mini crawl.  I like the story and atmosphere, and the mechanic of having to choose to give up specific capabilities as you progress is interesting.  Combat is nice and quick and I liked that I could attack with guns before enemies got close.

The wobbly line effect kind of bothered me because it's pretty extreme, so I would have liked to turn that off, but I did get used to it.  I also never noticed when I picked up supplies.  There's a popup for new weapons, but I didn't notice anything for supplies.

It took me a few tries to get through the fourth level.  By now I didn't have the scout, and it took me a bit to realize what was going on with the bombs.  Once I did, I moved carefully to be able to react when they showed up, and checked every intersection for bombs before moving ahead.

I ended the game with the mapper, since that was the one skill I really didn't want to give up.

Looks cool!

Minerva Labyrinth is a traditional dungeon-crawling RPG in the lineage of Wizardry and The Bard's Tale.  You control a squad of magically-enhanced warriors who must defend your city from an invasion of twisted extradimensional monsters. 

• Interleaved turn-based combat with a party of five characters.
• Create your party from scratch, or get started immediately with the default party.
  
• First-person grid-based dungeons full of traps, secrets, riddles, ambushes, and treasure.
• Full automap! Save anywhere!

It's been a long road to finish this game, but I'm excited to finally release it.  If you've played my previous dungeon crawler, Tower of Metal, the core design will be familiar, but you can expect a much bigger, more complex, more refined experience.

Minerva Labyrinth will be released November 5th, 2025 for Windows and Linux!  The free demo is available right now, and any progress you make in the demo will carry over to the full version.