With Halloween coming up I've been pestered to write a spooky game. Ok so a 3D Game with lots of jump scares, sure I'll give that a crack.
Do you remember the first door you ever knocked on at Halloween?
Not the knock. The bit after. Standing on a stranger's step in a plastic mask, bag held out, heart going, listening to footsteps come down a hallway you couldn't see. You had no idea who would open it. It was the bravest thing you did all year, and you did it for a fun-size Mars bar.
Haunted Maze is built out of that feeling.
Knock and find out
You're in the dark with a bag and no way of knowing what's behind the next door. Some open on a kind face and a handful of sweets. Some open on a clown. Some don't open at all, and somehow that's worse. You'll knock anyway. Everyone does.
Your life is a candle burning down in the corner of the screen. When something in the dark gets hold of you, it burns down fast. When it goes out, so does your run.
Three keys, and no idea where
The maze is a hotel, nine floors high, and each floor is bigger and meaner than the last. Somewhere inside are three keys. You can't leave the hotel without all of them, and nobody is going to tell you where they are.
So you search. You knock on doors you'd rather leave alone. You go down corridors you've already decided are a bad idea. Every floor you climb without finding one, the question gets louder. Did I walk straight past it? Is it behind the door I was too scared to open?
Die anywhere and you're back at the bottom with empty pockets. Every key you found, gone. Every floor, waiting for you again.
Somewhere in the hotel you'll find a carpet you recognise if you've seen The Shining. A corridor that goes on a little too long. A door with 237 on it. I won't tell you what's inside. You'll open it anyway.
I won't lie, this one is hard, I mean really hard so completing it is going to take some time.
Nobody has finished yet
As I write this, nobody has escaped. The finishers board is empty. There's a space at the top waiting for a name, and I honestly don't know whose it will be.
Maybe someone who plays every night for a week. Maybe a kid who gets lucky on their third go. Maybe you.
The first three people out, in the order they finish, get a secret code. That will be explained on the Scrap Heap Games Instagram once all three are through.
Everyone else still counts. Escape and your name goes up with the finishers. Don't, and the board shows how far your candle took you.
How to play
WASD moves. Arrows or the mouse to look. Shift sprints. E knocks, and calls the lift between floors. M opens the map once you've found it. P pauses.