Much like the average law-abiding citizen, the noble Minotaur would like nothing more than to settle down in a nice quiet home, marry a cow, and own lots of fine china. Alas, cruel fate has cursed this poor semi-bovine with severe anger management issues – we'll be using that to our advantage.
In Minotaur China Shop, the Minotaur (recently released from the labyrinth) has decided to open up a store of his own, selling fragile, pricey porcelain goods to his fellow citizens. It's a Diner Dash-type affair: customers enter, request an item, and you've got to walk over to the particular glowing shelf and fetch it for them, with five days to amass as much wealth as possible.
But this is a Minotaur we're dealing with, so there are caveats.
For starters, he's painfully slow (at first), and hobbles along with an awkward gait. He's also incredibly strong. The gameplay is centered around woefully accurate physics modeling, requiring you to carefully maneuver the rather large beast – even the slightest tap from his body or an outstretched arm can destroy thousands of dollars in goods.
At the start of each day, you'll be able to use some of your income to purchase new abilities, including increased advertising to attract more customers, more inventory, or speed boosts. And this Minotaur is no fool – you'll also be able to purchase attack moves, and stock up on Minotaur Rage Insurance.
Breaking things is inevitable, especially as you increase your speed and advertising to serve more customers. Once you've broken a few items, the Minotaur will fly into a rage, triggering his insurance. And then it's time to partake in a bit of good old fashioned fraud: objects that are broken will now generate revenue, with multipliers rewarded for breaking multiple objects in rapid succession. Customers will flee, and if your rage is especially violent, security forces will be called in to subdue you with arrows, pelting you until your rage has subsided, or you've collapsed.
The trick to earning the most profit is to balance being a good shopkeep with taking advantage of your generous insurance package. One of the abilities available for purchase will allow you to calm down, essentially letting you cancel your rage a bit faster than simply waiting it out. If you can keep the guards at bay, you should be able to juggle placating customers and cashing in on insurance fraud. At least, I assume as much, as I was having far too much fun alternating between attempting to navigate through a shop packed with flimsy shelves, and just tearing the place apart.
Minotaur China Shop was developed by the wonderfully bizarre minds at Flashbang studios, the folks who brought us Velociraptor Safari and Jetpack Brontosaurus. The game was developed with the Unity development tool, so you'll need to grab the plugin if you don't have it already. It should work fine in most browsers, though Google Chrome users will have to play the game in fullscreen mode to get the keys to respond properly.
Minotaur China Shop [Flashbang]
