Maze video games

Cafe Society
1

Here’s a cool idea - maze games!

I’d love to see a maze video game where you are in the foyer of a high rise building, and you have to get to (e.g.) the roof, but there is only one way to get there, that involves loads of trips up and down elevators to different floors, through rooms, down corridors, up stairwells, into vents, onto balconies.

It’s a totally free explorable environment, but only one way to reach your goal. On the way you have to find certain tools to achieve it, like keys and security cards and wrenches and maps, which aren’t easy to find. Secret areas should be crucially important, not just bonuses.

And then imagine setting new mazes in a system of caves, or on an oil rig, or in a submarine, or in a park, or outdoors around several city blocks and alleys, or through an airport, or on Alcatraz, or the Golden Gate Bridge, or or or…

It would be in full 3D, with realistic graphics, with no zombies to kill or CIA agents to avoid, just a challenging maze full of obstacles.

So tell me, are there any games like that for PC? I imagine the 3D-ised platform games for kiddies are sometimes similar, though you tend to be an anthropomorphised animal who leaps around collecting rotating stars and bouncing on trampolines, which isn’t really what I want…

Anyone know of anything like this?

2

Just Tomb Raider, and even that has a lot of shootin’, more often than not. Sorry. :frowning:

Maybe…some of the levels in one of the recent “Spider-Man” games?
[bitter sarcasm not directed at OP] You could always ask a certain software designer I know of…HE specializes in resource-hog sim games with a pacifistic bent.[/bitter sarcasm not directed at OP]

3

Okay, you talked me into it. I made a maze video game that I think you’ll enjoy immensely. Have fun!

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~cpilman/maze/01.html

4

Achernar, you are my hero for the day.

5

Achernar, that game was just too hard, it took me a while to find the secret room. I did enjoy the helcopter ride though.

6

Wow! We should go into business together - with results like this in record time, we’ll be billionaires by Wednesday lunchtime!

7

That game was really neat but I was confused about the scene in the strip club. It seemed like I was supposed to pick up the martini olive for later use but then the reverse vampires attacked and I only had time to pick up a cocktail napkin. Granted the napkin played a crucial role in allowing me to hotwire the speedboat, but I still think the olive would have been a nice thing to have when I faced the 3 headed dog of Cerberus.

8

The olive was a red herring. What you actually should have picked up was the red herring.

9

Achernar, you just made my day. Thanks! :slight_smile:

10

Dammit Achernar!

Now all my freakin’ co-workers are wondering what the hell I was doin’ on the floor gasping for breath!

11

Awww, you people are the best. I showed it to some of my friends, and they didn’t get it.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the question in the OP, and here’s what I’ve concluded: mazes are boring. I get Games magazine, and you’d think that mazes would be perfect for that. But there’s really only one every other issue or so. And here’s the big deal - no two are ever alike. They’re all fiendishly clever constructions that bear little resemblance to classical mazes. One of the last ones involved time travel; that was really hard. I don’t think you can make just a normal old maze interesting, even if it is as pretty as mine.

So you have to add something to it; the maze is not going to be the funnest aspect of the game. If you add skill, in the form of phalangeal dexterity, either you’ve got the anthropomorphized animals and rotating stars, or you’ve got a FPS. How fun would Doom be if there were no monsters in it?

If you add creative puzzle-solving, and this is puzzles beyond mazes, then you’ve got something like Myst. This may be the closest thing on the market to what you have in mind.

If you add storyline, you’ve got something like King’s Quest.

In these three examples, mazes take a back seat. And I’m worried that if you focused on the maze itself, it would be very hard to keep it interesting. Not impossible, I think, if you’re up to it, but hard enough to keep any game companies from doing it.

12

Years ago, back in my Atari 800 days, there was a game called Wayout that was essentially nothing but a maze; you wandered around until you found the exit. There was an opponent which occasionally showed up (it looked like a rotating square; the whole game was like 8-color polygon graphics) and stole your automap, forcing you to chase it to get it back. Otherwise, that was it.

I did see a product a few years back that was a recreation of famous mazes from around the world; English garden mazes, the Labryinth of Crete and so on. Didn’t pick it up so I don’t know anything about it beyond that though.

13

If you’re willing to settle for very few zombies, there’s an old game called Dungeon Hack. Locked doors, fake walls, teleporters, and hidden switches are all there. The dungeon’s settings can be customized to limit the number and quality of monsters on each level.

14

Achernar, you’re probably right about a Maze in itself is a bit boring to be successful as a game, and it would need some kind of physical obstacle. I wouldn’t mind if there was one or two, as long as it made sense.

I’m utterly sick to death of zombies. And excessive violence as entertainment can get alarmingly desensitizing too.

Puzzles are fine - technically a maze is a puzzle game anyway, so I’d be more than happy to have things like having to repair the escalator before it can work, or figuring out how to get the ladder to reach the vent so I can get to it, or whatever. I’d love that.

It’s close to an adventure game, I suppose, in an incredibly simplistic way, but it’d use a 3D engine of the Quake variety, rather than something like Grim Fandango. And it wouldn’t try to pretend to be an adventure game either, it would just be a maze game.

I think if they sold it at a lower price, say half or a third of what the big games usually cost (because I figure it wouldn’t be that difficult to make, all things considered) then maybe it would work and sell well.

Or maybe it wouldn’t. Anybody know a game developer for a small company who might be looking for an idea?

15

Achernar, you’re probably right about a Maze in itself is a bit boring to be successful as a game, and it would need some kind of physical obstacle. I wouldn’t mind if there was one or two, as long as it made sense.

I’m utterly sick to death of zombies. And excessive violence as entertainment can get alarmingly desensitizing too.

Puzzles are fine - technically a maze is a puzzle game anyway, so I’d be more than happy to have things like having to repair the escalator before it can work, or figuring out how to get the ladder to reach the vent so I can get to it, or whatever. I’d love that.

It’s close to an adventure game, I suppose, in an incredibly simplistic way, but it’d use a 3D engine of the Quake variety, rather than something like Grim Fandango. And it wouldn’t try to pretend to be an adventure game either, it would just be a maze game.

I think if they sold it at a lower price, say half or a third of what the big games usually cost (because I figure it wouldn’t be that difficult to make, all things considered) then maybe it would work and sell well.

Or maybe it wouldn’t. Anybody know a game developer for a small company who might be looking for an idea?

16

I remember Thief being rather confusing in certain levels, having guards and supernatural creatures, as well as a lot of freedom of movement. **System Shock ** did something similar(you had to keep switching elevators).

17

All of that and much MUCH more: MAZE CRAZE for the Atari 2600

18

GuanoLad, you might be intersted in a game called Shivers. It came out in the mid 90s. Basically the plot was you enter this house of an archaeologist that went missing. It’s not so much a maze but there are lots of puzzles and the only other interaction is collecting ghosts, that are actually pretty easy. You do have to figure out how to operate the elevators, there are plenty of secret passages. I found only a few really hard puzzles and finished the game and really enjoyed it.

There was also another game that I played at that time called Qin. You were an archaeologist going through a tomb in China. There were no ghosts or anything, mostly just puzzles to find your way out. I didn’t like this one as much as Shivers but it was still good.

19

I have to second Shivers. It’s got atmosphere, puzzles, engaging clues, and definite suspense potential, without having to actually shoot at or kill anything. You have to figure out which artifacts hold which spirits and then figure out which jar (scattered throughout the museum) will capture which spirit. If you get it wrong, you lose life energy, which is limited. It’s not really fast-paced, but I don’t think I was ever bored the whole time I was playing it.

Besides, the game looks incredible. The museum is full of detailed artifacts and exhibits, and the atmosphere definitely contributes to the feeling of creepiness.

Shivers 2 was also good, but not as good as the original, I think. It’s setting is much wider in scope (an entire New Mexico town and nearby Native American sacred ground) and the atmosphere much creepier. And there are several places in it which are timed puzzles, which I hate on general principles.

20

If you have a game like Unreal, or some other game with an editor feature, you could create a world without monsters or such. Or more interestingly, you could have a friend create a world for you (ask him or her to make it interesting). Then return the favour. I expect it will make for great “see if you can find your way out of this” moments.