3-D Maze Challenge
In 3-D Maze Challenge, it contains only 4 levels, mazes, battle systems, and time trails.
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Last modified 2019-10-11 11:25:29
3-D Maze Challenge is a maze game with 4 levels to complete, featuring Inmate2993's first-person engine (which he is actually credited for, which is nice) and a couple of gameplay gimmicks on top of that.
Level 1 is fairly straightforward - you explore a maze, find a key, unlock a door and proceed to the exit. The game warns you away from a particular door that happens to be electrified - which is handy, as electrified doors are indistinguishable from regular doors. This gimmick will rear its head later on.
Level 2 changes things up a little. In terms of being a maze, it barely qualifies, instead just being a windy path with no divergences. The gimmick used in this level is RPG battles with random enemies. These battles give you two options- you can attack or defend. Unusually for RPG battles of this nature, defending actually does something- you can win battles with it somehow. The enemies die in one hit and your health is replenished every battle, so your chances of actually dying in one of these battles is quite low. They're mostly just annoying time wasters.
Level 3 is a time trial level, in which you need to get to the inn before a certain amount of time has passed, for reasons unexplained in the game's narrative. This is where your journey will end if you are playing the game normally, as the time provided to get to the inn is not sufficient even if you know the exact route and hit every input perfectly.
...not that it particularly matters, because after Level 3 ends, it just sends you to the completion screen for Level 2 again. If you edit ahead, you're finally treated to a very short story sequence, giving the impression that the player is on a rescue mission of some sort. It's not particularly clear. This story sequence also tries to push you into playing Level 3 again due to another board connection mishap. To play Level 4, it needs to be started manually.
Level 4 is a bit of a combination of the elements from levels 1 and 2. There are locks, doors and monsters to RPG battle. The electrified doors are back, albeit with no warning this time, so if you happen to brush up against the wrong one, you'll lose a life and be sent back to the start of the level. This level layout is straightforward, but quite repetitive. You get to a corner with a locked door in front of you and an electrified door on one side, then take a detour down the other side to fight a monster, grab a key, then return back to the locked door to continue. You'll need to do this 6 times or so, and the positioning of the electrified doors means you can't just fly down the passage when returning after picking up the key. Once you finish that level, you'll be sent to the completion screen for Level 2, which will then send you on to level 3 again.
If you just skip to the Level 4 completion screen, you'll be treated to the ending, which I won't spoil here, but it is truly unforgettable. The credits sequence then proceeds to credit Chaos88 with the creation of a song from Sonic 2, then finally closes on a 30mb WAV file of machine synthesised Spanish.
In terms of pros, a maze game could have easily been even more annoying than this was, and at the very least Chaos addressed the shortcomings of the very low depth of view 3D engine used here by making the level layouts very simple to navigate. However, none of this is particularly fun to play and the game connections are so thoroughly broken that I find it hard to say more nice things about it.
Level 1 is fairly straightforward - you explore a maze, find a key, unlock a door and proceed to the exit. The game warns you away from a particular door that happens to be electrified - which is handy, as electrified doors are indistinguishable from regular doors. This gimmick will rear its head later on.
Level 2 changes things up a little. In terms of being a maze, it barely qualifies, instead just being a windy path with no divergences. The gimmick used in this level is RPG battles with random enemies. These battles give you two options- you can attack or defend. Unusually for RPG battles of this nature, defending actually does something- you can win battles with it somehow. The enemies die in one hit and your health is replenished every battle, so your chances of actually dying in one of these battles is quite low. They're mostly just annoying time wasters.
Level 3 is a time trial level, in which you need to get to the inn before a certain amount of time has passed, for reasons unexplained in the game's narrative. This is where your journey will end if you are playing the game normally, as the time provided to get to the inn is not sufficient even if you know the exact route and hit every input perfectly.
...not that it particularly matters, because after Level 3 ends, it just sends you to the completion screen for Level 2 again. If you edit ahead, you're finally treated to a very short story sequence, giving the impression that the player is on a rescue mission of some sort. It's not particularly clear. This story sequence also tries to push you into playing Level 3 again due to another board connection mishap. To play Level 4, it needs to be started manually.
Level 4 is a bit of a combination of the elements from levels 1 and 2. There are locks, doors and monsters to RPG battle. The electrified doors are back, albeit with no warning this time, so if you happen to brush up against the wrong one, you'll lose a life and be sent back to the start of the level. This level layout is straightforward, but quite repetitive. You get to a corner with a locked door in front of you and an electrified door on one side, then take a detour down the other side to fight a monster, grab a key, then return back to the locked door to continue. You'll need to do this 6 times or so, and the positioning of the electrified doors means you can't just fly down the passage when returning after picking up the key. Once you finish that level, you'll be sent to the completion screen for Level 2, which will then send you on to level 3 again.
If you just skip to the Level 4 completion screen, you'll be treated to the ending, which I won't spoil here, but it is truly unforgettable. The credits sequence then proceeds to credit Chaos88 with the creation of a song from Sonic 2, then finally closes on a 30mb WAV file of machine synthesised Spanish.
In terms of pros, a maze game could have easily been even more annoying than this was, and at the very least Chaos addressed the shortcomings of the very low depth of view 3D engine used here by making the level layouts very simple to navigate. However, none of this is particularly fun to play and the game connections are so thoroughly broken that I find it hard to say more nice things about it.