Slay the Minotaur: Detailed Map with Chest Locations and Strategy Guide!

For more than 20 hours, hundreds of brave adventurers ventured into the Minotaur’s maze, one by one, and they perished, one by one.

Remember them. We’re the ones who carry on the flames of those who’ve gone, and our comrades will not die in vain.

Little by little, piece by piece, the twisted turns of the labyrinth were charted, and the map is finally complete.

Now, let’s Slay the Minotaur.

The map is comprised of three floors.

Here are four images: one including the full map, and then one for each floor so you can see under sections that are otherwise covered by the second-floor map.

You can view the map either by downloading the images (they are almost 5000×5000) and using the arrow keys to toggle between the floors and pan around, or by using this map.ds file and importing it into Dungeon Scrawl at https://app.dungeonscrawl.com/ and using the layer visibility settings to view the different floors.

• Enemies
  

  From left to right: cyclops, statue, gorgon.

• Chests and Treasure
  
  
  
  
  
  

  In their respective order:
  – Treasure chest containing pearls
  – Level 1 helmet/weapon
  – Chest with contents that are the same every run (you can find the name of the weapon on the map near each icon and a recap of what the item does in the bottom right corner)
  – Hanging corpse that you can destroy or shoot down for some pearls
  – Orb that increases the number of pearls you get from killing zombies

  Level 2 helmets/weapons are annotated as well.

• Decor and Landmarks

  Black squares represent hazards and holes.

  
  Red, yellow, green, and cyan tiles represent the lighting and decorations – torches, wall color, etc. – to help you orient yourself and find your location on the map by looking around.
  

  Statues, arches, and such are to help you identify landmarks.

• Utility
  
  Stairs.

  
  A horn for summoning the Minotaur.

  
  A non-lethal hole that allows you to travel to the floor below the current one.

  

  The one and only, Aphrodite.

Notes:

• The relative distances and sizes of the paths are not necessarily accurate, but the pathways and item placements are accurate!
• The map is always the same, and so are the locations of all the marked chests, orbs, sinkholes, hazards, enemies, etc.
• For most of the chests, whether they will be a treasure chest or a level 1 weapon/helmet chest is random, but there are some exceptions. In this map, I have annotated all the chests as whichever variant I encountered them as, but only some of them are constantly the same variant every time.
• I may be missing some items, and I haven’t annotated any of the hanging corpses that you can’t reach without a ranged weapon.

• Minotaur: 10,000 HP
• Cyclops: 1,000 HP 1,000x
• Large Cyclops: (faster, more damage) 1,000 HP 1,500x
• Gorgon: 600 HP 1,500x
• Purple Gorgon: (much faster) 600 HP 3,000x
• Tank: 350 HP 600x
• Statue: 400 HP 100x
• Zombie: ? HP ?x
• Zombie with sword: (more damage) ? HP ?x
• Zombie with bow: (ranged and close combat) ? HP ?x

Zombies get faster, spawn more often, deal more damage and get more HP with time.
Pearl drop depends on the number of orbs collected.

If you’re trying to get a high rank and beat the Minotaur fast, then naturally, you’ll need to worry about time.

However, what if you’re just looking to have a casual run, to get more comfortable with the game and the enemies?

Since zombies scale with time, you would think you have no choice but to rush. That’s not the case, though.

At around the tenth minute, in my experience, the zombies already reach their maximum capacity. Their maximum HP is 100, no matter how much time passes, and I didn’t notice them growing in numbers or getting faster past the 10th minute.

This means that, unless you’re going to try to beat the Minotaur in under 10 minutes – don’t worry about time.

The zombies will get strong pretty soon, but due to their cap, the benefits you get from collecting as many pearls and orbs as possible and upgrading your skills put you far ahead of the zombies.

Many guides before mine have already covered this: the tower you can see in the top-left side of the map is the best place to start.

You can climb up to the very top and get 1,000 pearls to use on upgrades, and the tower conveniently has the Fire of Prompetheus on the third floor, which will help you melt zombies left and right (and also take care of the gorgons on level 3 for their pearls) until you can save enough for a better weapon. The tower also has Demeter’s Harvest, which should help you stay alive thanks to it’s free regeneration.

The way I like to start a casual run is by going up the tower, spending all my pearls on upgrades (most importantly getting fall damage nullification and the minotaur icon), leaving only 400x for the Fire of Prometheus, and then I clean up the entire tower.

If the Minotaur starts approaching, I wait for the right time when he’s not facing out and jump off the roof, evading him and exploring the rest of the map.

Once the Minotaur has detected you, the only way to lose him is to use the item that Aphrodite sell… which you can only access if you manage to outrun him.

Once the Minotaur has spotted you, he will always have your scent, so you can’t escape him. Until he does spot you though, he will only occasionally get a whiff of you and start approaching your location – as long as you have the upgrade that lets you see his icon when he gets your smell, you will be fine. You can even sneak up behind him and go past!

Even if you don’t intend to lose him, or if you’ve already used the item once, knowing how to outrun him is vital, because accessing Aphrodite’s shop will let you upgrade your abilities and heal (if you don’t have Demeter’s Harvest) even after the Minotaur finds you.

You can outrun the Minotaur in 4 main ways:

• If you have the fall damage nullification – climb up the tower, wait for him to reach the top and jump off. It will take him a while to get all the way to the bottom, giving you enough time to talk to Aphrodite in her nearby stalls (you can see her icons on the map).
• If you have enough movement speed – simply outmaneuver him. You can use the roll -> jump trick to try and gain more momentum (achieved by rolling and timing the jump right at the end of the roll – you’ll notice a small speed boost as you slide through air if done correctly).
• If you have the item that lets you stun the Minotaur once – you can use that.
• If all fails, your last remaining option is to use the SINKHOLES! There are certain spots on the map, annotated with the sinkhole icon, that let you drop down from a higher floor to a lower floor.
• The Minotaur will be forced to take the nearest way down, and by consulting the map (remember – you can pause the game), you can figure out the best route to reach Aphrodite before he can catch up (and avoiding his route).

I hope this map helps someone!

I’ve spent far too many hours on it, but working on the map was part of the fun for me! The game has a lot of charm. I like how it lets you get better at the game by familiarizing yourself with its map, and the deterministic layout of the map has allowed the developer to make the maze just so charming and fun to traverse and get lost in.

I am not too great at the game, and I’m sure this wouldn’t be too useful for most speed-runners as they already know the map well enough.

I’m sure for some people half of the fun is to explore the map on their own and get their own internal understanding of it, but I hope this will help people who are looking to learn more about the map, min-max, or just have a relaxing session exploring the maze!

Thank you to the developer(s) for this fun little adventure, it was quite enjoyable.

P.S, it was quite difficult to resist the urge to put the whole lyrics of Remember Them from Epic the Musical in the intro. I no doubt couldn’t have done this without listening to the Cyclops saga on loop, so, shot-out to Jorge Rivera-Herrans for the amazing musical, as well!

P.P.S, this is my first guide so I wasn’t quite sure how to attach the dungeon-scrawl file (aside from using something like mega.nz), since it’s not an image. Hopefully the images work well enough for everyone! If someone can tell me how to include files in the guide, then I’d be happy to.

Happy Slaying!