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{{trope}}
[[File:themaze.png|link=Super Mario RPG|
{{quote|<code>You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
> west
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|'''''[[Colossal Cave|Colossal Cave Adventure]]'''''}}
'''The Maze''' is a form of puzzle that consists of a simple series of walls and "rooms", arranged in such a manner that there is a path or collection of paths leading from the entrance to a separate exit, or else to a "goal room" from which the entrant must then find a route back to the entrance. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lead unambiguously through a convoluted layout to a goal. The term "labyrinth" is generally synonymous with "maze", but can also connote specifically a unicursal pattern.
▲'''Mazes usually show several of the following traits:'''
* ''Asymmetric'': Rooms that are geographically adjacent do not necessarily connect; moving east from Room 1 goes to Room 2, but turning around and going west from Room 2 goes to Room 3 instead. Traditionally, this characteristic is indicated by describing the maze as "twisty".
* ''[[Cut and Paste Environments|Homogeneous]]'': Every room in the maze looks identical to every other room, making it difficult to tell which room you are currently in.
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* ''Tricky'': The ''only'' way to reach the desired exit is to follow a specific sequence of directions; taking the wrong path will send you to a random room or straight back to the entrance.
If you're lucky enough, however, you weren't ever intended to navigate the maze blindly in the first place; you're supposed to meet up with an NPC guide and/or acquire directions at some plot point before going in.
A maze is considered a [[Fake Longevity|cheap way]] to make the player spend a lot of time getting to the next bit of game. Aside from a few for whom solving a maze is its own reward, most players absolutely hate mazes, and see them as a pointless way to pad a game. (Actually, most players probably ''always'' felt that way; it's just that now, some designers actually listen.)▼
▲A maze is a [[Fake Longevity|cheap way]] to make the player spend a lot of time getting to the next bit of game. Aside from a few for whom solving a maze is its own reward, most players absolutely hate mazes, and see them as a pointless way to pad a game. (Actually, most players probably ''always'' felt that way; it's just that now, some designers actually listen.)
In ages past, though, a maze was not only considered mandatory, but the number and size of the mazes was a point of pride among developers. Any book on [[Adventure Game]] design written prior to 1990 will simply ''assume'' that you must include a maze. Years later, the creator of the freeware adventure game language ''Inform'' noted in [http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/info/Craft.Of.Adventure.txt his own] [[Adventure Game]] design essay that mazes should probably be omitted entirely, as (unless the maze is ''very'' well-designed) it will only serve to frustrate the player (and thus make him or her unwilling to play the game). {{spoiler|And then he cheerfully puts several mazes into his own games, admitting that like any dictator, he prefers [[Screw the Rules, I Make Them|writing rules to following them.]] }}
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{{examples}}
== [[
* The House of Gemini in ''[[Saint Seiya]]'' is an infinite corridor that warps time and space. If you're lucky, you'll find an "exit" that drops you at the ''entrance'' to the House once again. The only way to escape is to either ignore everything your senses tell you and charge headlong into a wall, or somehow defeat the master of the House—the Gemini Gold Saint himself—so the illusion ends.▼
== [[Film]] ==▼
*
* ''[[The Amazing Race]]'' season 5 finale had the racers go through a maze as one of their tasks.▼
== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], Myths and Legends ==
* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: The Labyrinth of Crete in [[Classical Mythology]]. It was a maze so tricky that even its architect Daedalus himself almost got lost in it. It became the home of the Minotaur, a [[Half-Human Hybrid]] monster, which would eat anyone who entered it. However, it appears that the labyrinth originally was not imagined as consisting as a maze of many passages, but a single long and winding corridor. In fact, single-passage labyrinths have been discovered as carved or painted images or even as physical stone settings in many parts and cultures of the world.▼
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==▼
=== Game Books ===
* The gamebook ''Invaders of Hark'' features a particularly vexing maze as one of the obstacles between you and the [[Damsel in Distress|princess]]▼
** It gets that from its predecessor, ''Badlands of Hark''. That gamebook included a lethal swamp maze so treacherous that even the ''instructions'' warn you about it, and beating it was one of the highest point awards in the game. In fact, both these gamebooks could count as The Maze altogether - in the first one alone, you could die by making a bad choice in ''section 1'', and beating either book requires you to make some seemingly terrible decisions.▼
* While most people don't see it, the spell Maze in ''[[Dungeons
== [[Video Games]] ==
=== [[Action Adventure]] ===
* ''Zelda'' loves this trope:
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda (video game)|The Legend of Zelda]]'' includes [[The Lost Woods]] and The Lost Hills, in which the same map of trees and rocks with four exits will loop until you follow the correct sequence of paths.
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** ''[[Tomb Raider]] 3'' has a maze in the form of the Caves of Kaliya, frequently regarded as a [[Scrappy Level]], although it can at least be gotten out of in about thirty seconds maximum if you know where to go. A later level, Lud's Gate (the definitive [[Scrappy Level]] of the game) has an [[Down the Drain|underwater maze]]. Finally, while the other [[Elements of Nature|elemental chambers]] in Lost City of Tinnos contain interesting and appropriate challenges, the air-themed chamber offers a rather underwhelming conventional labyrinth.
=== [[Action Game]] ===
* The garden in ''[[Brain Dead 13]]'' is an example of this. There's a specific sequence you have to go through or else you ''will'' die. To make matters worse, most of the areas look exactly the same, and sometimes you are allowed to go in the wrong direction, [[Hope Spot|only to be given a choice of new directions which will all kill you.]]
* The Woods in ''[[Friday the 13th (video game)|Friday the 13 th]]'' for the NES ([[Guide Dang It]]).
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* Koei's ''Warriors'' series ([[Dynasty Warriors]], [[Samurai Warriors]], and [[Worriors Orochi]]) have ocassionally featured maze-like areas on certain battlefields. Although static and logically connected, the scenery tends to be homogeneous and the game cripples your ability to steer via the simple and effective step of completely disabling the minimap, and usually putting in enemies for you to get turned around while attacking. Fortunately these tend to be fairly small, fairly brief, and usually allow the map to function as usual once you've made it through the first time.
=== [[Adventure Game]] ===
* The original ''[[Colossal Cave]]'' had at least three mazes and possibly more depending on the version you played (including the woods in the initial outdoor area, the homogeneous maze which provides the quote at the top of this entry, and another in which a similar description was slightly mutated for each room); it also had [http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/b_cave.html Bedquilt], a nondeterministic room at the heart of a mazelike area. The mazes included a vending machine, a wandering pirate who could steal your loot, a wandering mean little dwarf, and a treasure chest (belonging to the pirate).
* The quote was recycled, more or less, for the maze from ''[[Zork]]'': "You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike." Zork's maze included a troll guarding the entrance, a stationary ghost with a bag of gold, several exits leading to different areas, and a wandering thief who would take your valuables if he met you.
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* ''[[Photopia]]'' has a great example of a tricky maze: You're wearing a space suit. After a set length of time, you're told that the cooling unit on the suit has broken down, so you remove the suit to avoid overheating. {{spoiler|As you do so, you feel the cool breeze on the [[Tomato Surprise|feathers of your wings]]. Yep, you could have flown over the maze at any point. And as you take off into the sky now,}} you remark on how complicated the maze is, and how you never would have been able to navigate it on foot.
=== [[Driving Game]] ===
* A rare driving game example from ''[[Mario Kart 64]]'', in the form of Yoshi's Valley. There are a ''lot'' of twisting roads leading to other twisting roads, some longer than others. It gets to the point that the position counter essentially has a seizure trying to keep track of where you are.
** To the point where the position counter doesn't even show anyone. It's replaced with ?'s until racers cross the finish line for the last time.
▲== [[Fighting Game]] ==
=== [[Fighting Game]] ===
* ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]. Brawl'' has The Great Maze as its final Subspace Emissary level. Be thankful you have an auto-mapping feature, as unlike most other mazes you have to explore every nook and cranny and kill every copy character and boss to open the way to the final battle.
=== [[First-Person Shooter]] ===
* The ''[[Doom]]'' [[Mission Pack Sequel]] ''The Plutonia Experiment'' featured a notable level set in a sprawling maze, where the player is hunted down by a pack of thirty or more Arch-Viles....
* In the ''[[Descent]]'' series, ''every single level was a maze,'' and a three dimensional one at that, with all the [[Mind Screw]]iness that implies. Not only was it easy to become lost, these levels were plagued with secret passageways, hidden traps, and frequently entered [[Mobile Maze]] territory. The game did have an automap feature, which filled in rooms as you went, but the later mazes get so complex and twisty that the automap became almost impossible to read. The sequels included a Guide-Bot that could... well, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|guide you,]] although the more hardcore players could ignore that feature to explore on their own.
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** Another maze must be navigated to access the third secret level, which in turn is an [[Homage]] to ''[[Pac-Man]]''.
=== [[Maze Game]] ===
* The ''[[Pac-Man]]'' series of arcade games all take place in mazes filled with food.
** ''[[Pac-Man World]] 2'''s penultimate stage, ''Ghost Bayou'', is a giant environmental maze.
=== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s ===
* Satirised, naturally, by ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]''. One of the optional quests involves a "strange leaflet" which plunges the player into a text-based adventure, in which is a classic forest maze. It doesn't matter which way you go—eventually the game itself gets fed up with the maze and fast-forwards to the bit where you get out.
** But used straight in the Violet Fog and Louvre puzzles. Thankfully, they aren't too annoying.
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* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has numerous mazes: whole zones like the [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer|Sewer Network and Abandoned Sewer Network]], parts of zones like the forests in Perez Park and Eden, and lots of mission maps.
=== [[Platform Game]] ===
* How about Worlds 4-4, 7-4, and 8-4 of ''[[Super Mario Bros. (video game)|Super Mario Bros]].''? 4-4 has you going through a castle that will be endless until you pick the correct fork. 7-4 makes you get a sequence of ''three'' paths right or else you restart the whole sequence. Finally, 8-4 is a complex network of warp pipes that will have you experiencing deja vu if you enter the wrong pipe, or don't enter a pipe by a certain point. And don't get me started with the Japanese ''Super Mario Bros. 2''...
** Which has the "tricky" type in some levels, where you must find a secret beanstalk or warp pipe to escape the infinite loop.
*** The final castle in ''[[New Super Mario Bros.]]'' has alternate paths. Pick the correct path, and you move on. Pick the [[Memetic Mutation|WROOOOOOOOOONG]]!!! paths, and [[Epic Fail|it's back to the beginning of the maze for you]].
* The ''[[Super Metroid]]'' [[ROM Hack]] ''Super Metroid Redesign'' has a Lost Cave area, similar to the original ''The Legend Of Zelda'' 's Lost Woods.
* ''[[Mega Man Star Force]] 2'' has a variant: Each area has four exits, but each room has some kind of clue as to which way to go, and most incorrect exits immediately lead to a dead end, where you get ambushed by viruses then turn back.
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* ''[[Bug!]]!'' features two prominent ones. One in [[Under the Sea|Quaria]] Scene 2 where you had to activate a switch (3-D maze), and another in the final part of [[Lethal Lava Land|Arachnia]] Scene 3 (2-D maze, filled with loads of annoying respawning Mooks).
=== [[Puzzle Game]] ===
* Cliff Johnson's games, ''The Fool's Errand'' and ''At the Carnival'' include a few mazes, some of which are tricky because of the twists provided for each maze (usually hidden passages or invisible walls, but also teleports). At least one was kind enough to show the shortcut after you finished it.
* Who can forget that ''[[Myst]]'' maze that revolved around sound cues? Unfortunately, the solution to the sound cues in question are from a ''different'' age, so it is entirely possible that you've never heard those cues before. If you don't have a save game outside of this age, you have to brute-force the maze.
* The entire game ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'' is essentially a series of mazes, generally within the "labyrinth" format. Subverted in that you get through it by creating your own passages, the eponymous portals. Double subverted by the fact that the portals do not work on all surfaces, especially moving ones.
* Much of ''[[Chip's Challenge]]''.
* The mansion basement in ''[[
=== [[Roguelike]] ===
* The second half of levels in ''[[Nethack]]'' consist largely of mazes. Players are not driven further insane because these are plain labyrinths, easy to navigate because characters at this point tend to be either in rude health or dead, with breakable walls. Each level has at least one minotaur.
** Mazes in ''NetHack'' aren't as much of a problem because of the top-down view. ''Much'' being the operative word. They're still incredibly boring, and go for about 20 long floors. Taking a pickaxe to them is very cathartic.<ref>It's also quite useful for when you go back up. Nobody wants to putz around in a maze with the Wizard of Yendor on their ass.</ref>
=== [[Role
* The '80s ''[[Wizardry]]'' series popularized the [[Dungeon Crawler]], in that it was ''only'' mazes filled with monsters, with a single town at the top. ''[[Ultima]]'' and ''[[The Bard's Tale Trilogy]]'' borrowed from and inspired ''Wizardry''. For a recent addition to the genre, see the ''[[.hack]] games.
** ''[[Wizardry VII]]: Crusaders of the Dark Savant'' features the Isle of Crypts. It's quasi-homogeneous due to the graphics of the time. ''Part'' of the place is a 3-D teleporter maze. There are plenty of [[Guide Dang It]] puzzles. You had best have been thorough exploring some areas previously, or you won't be able to progress past certain points without objects that didn't have any use at the time. Hordes of horrible monsters live here, too, including the [[Bonus Boss]]es. Sure, it's [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]], but good God it's a pain.
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*** Finding the three pillars is not hard. The probability for them to turn up within 30 rooms is relatively high. The problem is trying to get to the three pillars WITHOUT entering a miscellaneous room because you have to do that in order to get the Dusk Shroud to evolve Dusclop into Dusknoir.
** Almost every cave in the Pokemon games is one of these, though there are some that are mercifully short or straightforward.
* ''[[
** Before that is Moonside, a creepy city filled with invisible walls and NPCs who teleport you around.
* And in ''Mother3'', the Mole Crickets live in a ridiculously complex maze of twisty, criss-crossing corridors and ladders leading to multiple levels. Even with a map, solving the maze is virtually impossible (this is even [[Lampshaded]] by the character who gives you the "totally useless" map) until an NPC tells you the secret - whenever you reach a fork in the path with the option of turning or going straight, always turn. That's all there is to it.
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* Mobius Desert in ''[[Digimon World]] 3''.
* ''[[Breath of Fire III]]'' had an interesting variation on this. Instead of all the rooms looking the same, they had a completely featureless desert that spread out in all directions. The key to getting through it was to wait until night and navigate by the stars. If you went the wrong way, you'd just run out of water and teleport back to town before you got anywhere.
* ''[[Wild
* The bonus dungeons in ''[[Wild ARMs 5]]'' are pretty much giant mazes with the exception of Cocytus.
* ''[[Ys]] 1'' has not one, but two asymmetric teleporting mirror mazes in its [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]. Sometimes you have to go back into the mirror you emerged from to proceed. The SFC version of ''Ys IV'' also had a tower with a mirror maze.
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* ''[[Riviera: The Promised Land]]'' has one in chapter 3 with homogynous rooms and a tricky two part puzzle involving changing seasons and following directions on signs which have increasingly more of their lettering worn away. The whole thing is optional and easily missable, and aside from getting a few items the only aim is to get out again, making it an especially frustrating experience even by maze standards.
=== [[Shoot'Em Up]] ===
* [[Gunstar Heroes]]: Black's infamous "dice maze" stage, which plays out like a game board and the players take turns rolling dice to advance in rooms.
=== [[Sports Game]] ===
* Cubyrinth in ''Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games''.
=== [[Survival Horror]] ===
* Salazar's courtyard in ''[[Resident Evil 4]]''.
===
▲* The House of Gemini in ''[[Saint Seiya]]'' is an infinite corridor that warps time and space. If you're lucky, you'll find an "exit" that drops you at the ''entrance'' to the House once again. The only way to escape is to either ignore everything your senses tell you and charge headlong into a wall, or somehow defeat the master of the House—the Gemini Gold Saint himself—so the illusion ends.
▲== [[Film]] ==
▲* Though not a video game, the premise of the ''[[Cube]]'' movies is based on this trope (specifically, of the "tricky" variety). In ''Hypercube'', one of the characters is a game designer, and complains that the makers of the Hypercube stole his "variable time room" idea.
▲* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: The Labyrinth of Crete in [[Classical Mythology]]. It was a maze so tricky that even its architect Daedalus himself almost got lost in it. It became the home of the Minotaur, a [[Half-Human Hybrid]] monster, which would eat anyone who entered it. However, it appears that the labyrinth originally was not imagined as consisting as a maze of many passages, but a single long and winding corridor. In fact, single-passage labyrinths have been discovered as carved or painted images or even as physical stone settings in many parts and cultures of the world.
▲* The gamebook ''Invaders of Hark'' features a particularly vexing maze as one of the obstacles between you and the [[Damsel in Distress|princess]]
▲** It gets that from its predecessor, ''Badlands of Hark''. That gamebook included a lethal swamp maze so treacherous that even the ''instructions'' warn you about it, and beating it was one of the highest point awards in the game. In fact, both these gamebooks could count as The Maze altogether - in the first one alone, you could die by making a bad choice in ''section 1'', and beating either book requires you to make some seemingly terrible decisions.
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
▲* ''[[The Amazing Race]]'' 5 finale had the racers go through a maze as one of their tasks.
* Of course, there are entire games dedicated to solving mazes. [http://www.urticator.net/maze/ This] Java program generates mazes in ''4D''. Expect to spend half an hour solving a 3x3x3x3 maze.
▲== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
▲* While most people don't see it, the spell Maze in ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' imprisons someone in one of these until they can figure their way out. [[Mythology Gag|Minotaurs are immune]].
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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* [[Boston (useful notes)|Boston]] likewise is a maze of streets, but not quite to the extent that London is. The old joke is that all the planners did was to pave over the old cow paths.
* While [[Useful Notes/Seattle|Seattle]] has a fairly straightforward grid layout for most sections of the city; actual nagivation is far less logical. For starters, the city is broken up into 4 seperate sections by terrain features that do not allow traffic to pass, but must be navigated around (often by going through an entirely different part of the city), as well as a major interstate highway bisecting it down the middle. On top of that, the city core is broken into three sections, the streets from each not intersecting normally. This is due to those regions being historically owned by three different people, who all hated each other and refused to cooperate in street layout, leaving later generations to kludge together some way to get drivers from one section to another. And to make matters worse, many areas of the city, particuarly the core, are rife with one-way streets; some of which are one-way permanently, others of which are one-way (or even inaccessible) only during peak commute hours. This makes navigating anywhere in the city severely counter-intuitive for those not familiar with its extremely idiosyncratic layout.
* Ditto for [[New York]]. You ''will'' get lost if you're not familiar with the road and subway layouts.
* Cities in [[Israel]] are like this. Getting around in the country is easy. Getting around in the city is hard. Even if you have a map of the city, street names aren't visible until you're already in the intersection, if they're even there.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Video Game Settings]]
▲[[Category:The Maze]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maze, The}}
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