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| I might just hate mazes. by Jerry Whorebach 02/14/2026, 9:22pm PST | ||||
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| At least the kind of maze you solve by going left, right, left, left, etc. My preferred kind of maze is one that's constantly reconfiguring itself as the ghosts move around it in response to how I move around it, so it's always presenting me with new bespoke puzzles that I at least have a chance of solving using the information presented on screen. Basically, I like making choices whose consequences are predictable without being obvious, like in a proper strategy-guide game instead of a walkthrough game.
Trying to come up with at least one static maze I actually liked, I recalled a couple of puzzles in the... classic?... FMV adventure Zork: Grand Inquisitor. That game had a selection of spells to collect with obvious uses, but also some secret outside-the-box uses if you could remember you had them later on. For example, you had to get one spell to open a door, then later there was a puzzle to close three doors in a dam by using three buttons which each opened/closed two doors at once in an inconvenient way. So you could either think back to when that same puzzle was in last month's mensa newsletter and go "Eureka! Thank you game for reminding me I am a genius," or think back to an hour ago when you got the spell and cheat. Anyway, that game also had a spell to simplify complex instructions that you had to use on a subway map, but then later could also use on a phone tree audio maze by just casting it on the receiver. I think that was a good maze because phone trees frustrate me in real life so it was nice to stick it to them in the game, and also because I didn't actually have to do it to see more grainy video of Erick Avari shouting nonsense. If an interactive movie is a VCR with a broken play button, then an FMV adventure is a VCR that's been wired to a Denny's placemat. 6/10 not as good as Pac-Man. 
You can tell he's a megalomaniac because he spells Erick with every possible combination of letters at once. |
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