Epic Maze Review

Although I have not played Epic Maze for many hours; I look forward to being able to play it more in the future. If you enjoy mazes of any type I think that you will find this game very enjoyable. It is very repayable offering several different options to change the game from a basic third person maze to a third person shooter or even a limited time/steps maze. With the offered options offered in the game and the incredible variety of sizes the maze can be; there is a huge array of repeatability and challenges to the game.

Although there are very obviously several rooms (interior décor) that are reused throughout the maze it very well may be done to keep the maze difficult to remember your path and not for lack of design as I have heard a few other mention. I do believe that with all the positives in this game; I can see that just a few changes that could be done as updates could freshen it up to almost a 'new game' feel. The additions of being able to change the female protagonist's looks (offering hair/eye colors, hair style changes, or even outfits) or offering a male alternative (perhaps with the same options in looks) alone could give the game new interest to some. Even eventually giving things other than spiders to kill (zombies, ghosts, monsters, etc) could as well.

Yet, with that said the game is great and can be played whether you are looking for a coffee break game or something that will take you a much longer period of time. I would (and have) recommended this game to several friends already and look forward to time to investigate each of the options further.

Epic Maze:

Brightness & Crosshair Size

Overview:
Epic Maze is quite a complex 3D maze game with loads of options and configurability, not to mention that every level is different because each maze is procedurally generated. It has two modes of play i.e. Campaign & Custom; plus, a massive number of configurability options in both modes. It's also a third-person shooter.

The aim of the game is to find your way to the gramophone in the maze by following the music, turning it off and then returning to your start point.

The game would normally cost £30 to purchase on Steam. Kylix Studio have kindly donated 100 keys (that's potentially £3000 of revenue given away) plus one for me for reviewing the game (thank you to the giveaway team and Kylix for the key, really appreciated.

Tips:
1) ... The trick is to remember the path you took, so as not to get lost in the witches’ mansion.
2) ... Decent graphics using the Unreal engine 4 (UE4) from Epic Games and Quixel's megascans.
3) ... The in-game music is by the composer Nicolas Gasparini (Myuu); a dark foreboding piano music
4) ... It is advisable to use either stereo speakers or decent headphones.
5) ... The levels are procedurally generated which gives you virtually unlimited game play opportunities because no two levels are alike even if you use the same options and settings..
6) ... The size of each maze can be adjusted from a small (4x4x1) to very large (15x15X15) maze.

Keyboard Bindings & Mouse Sensitivity
Keyboard Bindings & Mouse Sensitivity

You can see some videos of game play HERE, HERE and four videos via the Steam store page HERE.

Introduction:
Epic Maze is a third-person shooter game in which you must find your way to a gramophone playing classical piano music in a procedurally generated 3d maze by following its music, turning it off once found then returning to the start point.

There are two modes of play Campaign and Custom, each with a lot of options to configure the game to make it easy or extremely hard. You can create mazes with anything from 16 to well over three thousand rooms; as well as adding spiders that can damage or kill you and even poisonous gas.

Use tools such as guns, glow sticks and map tacks to assist in finding your way back to the start once you've accomplished your goal. When no tools are available, you'll need to remember your path; otherwise, you'll get lost in maze. Some modes are times, others give you a limited number of steps to complete the maze.

Stephen Brown aka Whiterabbit-UK 10th February 2022.

Headphone and Speaker Sound Settings
Video Settings

The Game:
Epic Maze has a lot of configurable options that allow you to create 3D mazes. These start from an easy 4 x 4 rooms on one floor to 15 x 15 rooms on 15 floors and all permutations in between. Also, you can add spiders to the mix; these can be configured in various way described below that add more difficulty to the game. Selecting options without spiders or an assortment of other things such as poisonous gas will make the mazes you create easier to beat, but it's also a lot of fun to mix everything up and try to beat the maze.

There are two modes of play Campaign or custom; choosing the latter mode allows you some configurability, but nowhere near as much as the custom mode.

Controller Button Bindings
Controller Button Bindings

Campaign Mode:
Within the campaign mode there are four options i.e. Gramophone, Should Return, Spiders and badges. ; for example, if you select gramophone, which is the easiest to beat, and tasks you to find the gramophone and turn it off. However, you can make the campaign harder by selecting one of the other options included within the gramophone option i.e. 'Follow the Sound', which increases the size of the maze to a 6 x 6 set of rooms on one floor; that's 36 rooms. Each time you play this set-up you'll always get the 6 x 6 x1 rooms, but they will be randomly generated into a different pattern each time you play it. When playing the mode, you need to focus on where the sound is coming from; if it fades you are going the wrong way, if it's getting louder, you are on the right track. For this game a stereo system at the very least is advisable and even better are headphones.

Custom Game - Mode Settings
Custom Game - Spiders Speed Settings

If you select to use headphones as an option, the maze will automatically increase in size to 8x8x1, making 64 rooms to explore. . If you've chosen to play a custom game you can increase the difficulty by choosing two floors, increasing the room numbers to 128; or even more up to a staggering 15 floors.. You can then ramp up the campaign difficulty by choosing the next option which is 'Boomerang' (just click on the box with a boomerang on it). When choosing this option not only do you have to find and turn off the gramophone, you have to return to your starting point; ramping up the difficulty even further you can select Remember You Path from the selection boxes below the boomerang box and return the same way you came. You can make this easier by selecting Glowstick Trail from the small boxes. This option gives you glow sticks which you can mark your path (to throw a glow stick press the F key or if you are using a controller use the left shoulder button. There are two options for Glowsticks; the second enables you to throw the glowsticks further, but you are then required to pick them up on your return to the starting point. You can also use map tacks to leave a trail using Q to place and R to remove if you've chosen the second option. There are game pad controls listed in the settings.

Custom Game - 4x4x1 Maze with Protagonist Outfit
Custom Game - 8x5x2 Maze with Protagonist Outfit

There are also two recall options where you use no markers. In the campaign mode these give you two different sized mazes i.e. 7x7x7 and 9x9x9 finally there are two more options in the boomerang mode one using glowsticks and one using map tacks. In these two modes you are not allowed to stray from your path and get a limited number of steps to complete the maze. You will see a running figure in the top right corner of the screen with the number of meters you are allowed to travel. In the glowstick mode you get 1,151 meters, in the map tack mode you get 1,414meters because it's a larger maze. In these two modes you have to avoid unnecessary wandering around the mase and use your markers judiciously because they are not unlimited.

On top of all these options you can select two further modes called 'Spiders' and 'Badges' Adding Spiders gives you more options such as killing a specific number of spiders. with this option you get a pistol which is fired using the left mouse button, or the right trigger button if using a controller.. You can change the number of times the weapon shoots from a single shot to a triple shot (the triple shot is useful against the larger spiders). Choosing the option 'Exploding Bullet means you have to kill 25 spiders in a 6x6x6 maze There's also a healing option where you can heal yourself by bumping into a spider you've previously scared. or you can create slow time to slow down the movement of spiders and make it easier to shoot them by pressing the left or right shift keys or the controllers left trigger axis. The following options when choosing the Spider mode are obvious so I'm not going to go into any detail. You can see what each does by clicking on the small boxes below the four main modes (gramophone, Should Return Spider & Badges)

Custom Game - 6x6x6 Maze with Mode selection
Custom Game - 4x4x1 Maze with Protagonist Outfit

Key:
G = Glowstick
M = Map Tack
L. = Large
S. = Small

Spiders Mode
Semi-Automatic Pistol - 6x6x6 maze - kill 5 L. spiders
Exploding Bullet - 6x6x6 maze - kill 25 S. spiders
Healing - 6x6x6 maze + 6G
Poisonous Air - 7x7x7 maze - 5G +5M
Watch Your Step - 7x7x7 maze + 4G - S. spiders
Watch You Back - 7x7x7 maze - - 4G +4M - L. spiders
Watch your Step & Back - 7x7x7 maze - 4G +4M - L. & S. spiders
Rescue Golden Spider - 8x8x8 +5 G +4M - Gold spider + L. & S. spiders
Kill more than Golden 6x6x6 maze Gold spider + L. & S. spider
Bring back all Glowsticks - 9x9x9 +9 G - L. spiders

Statistic Board showing number of games Won
Statistics showing Total Game Time, Distance Travelled

Badges Mode
This mode awards you a badge each for completing several different options which I've listed below:

Untouched - 6x6x6 maze - 4G +4M - L. & S. spiders
Keen Eye - 4x4x1 kill 10 spiders for every one that attacks you - 4G +4M S. spiders
Cinderella - +6 G Time limited - all types of spiders
Strength 7x7x7 kill 100 spiders without healing - 4G +4M - L. & S. spiders
Resilient 7x7x7 - +4G +4M + poisonous air - survive 20 minutes.
Breadcrumbs - 8x8x8 - +6G +6M must use at least one G or M
Calf Memory - 5x5x5 - Limited Steps
Elephant Memory - 7x7x7 - limited Steps
Matriarch Memory - 10x10x10 - limited Steps

Statistics - Spiders Killed
Statistics - Badges Won

Custom Mode:

The Custom Game allows you to create mazes from a small 16 room maze on one floor i.e. 4x4x1 to a massive 15x15x15 i.e. 3375 rooms, or 225 rooms on each floor. Floors are connected by various stairs depending on how the random generation of the rooms works out. When a level is being generated, you will see it start to appear with a glass of beer to the left of the maze. When the glass is full, the maze is completed. The larger the maze, the longer it takes to complete.

On top of that you can select any one of the options that are included in the campaign mode such as Watch Your Step, Poisonous Air, No Straying and five more settings. You can also toggle Should Return and Time Limit via the check boxes in the options menu to create an even harder level set. You can also select the number of Glowsticks and Map tacks from 0 to 20 each.

Campaign Mode - Gramophone Mode with Options
Campaign Mode - Spiders Mode with Options

There are five different spider categories and you can adjust each spider types quantity and speed using the plus and minus buttons to the left and right of the icons representing the spiders. There are three settings for each spider.

On the custom page set up there's a button that opens up the games Statistics on the lower left of the screen, that lists lots of different statistics, such as the number of games played, how many you have won or lost for all the different categories that are available, resulting in a very long list of results. It will also give you the total game time, total distance travelled to the gramophone, the number of glow sticks and map tacks you've used, the number of times you've healed yourself, the number of each species of spider you've killed or attacked and the number of spiders killed by the golden spider. It also lists each of the 11 awards you can win and the number of times you've won those awards. You'll see some of those in the images included with this review (see below). These include Mother Teresa for not killing any spiders, Resilient for surviving 20 minutes in poisonous air and Breadcrumb trail and keen eye. You can reset the statistics any time by pressing the button at the bottom of the statistics page.

The Options menu includes five categories (see the images for greater detail) for setting Brightness and Crosshair, Headphone Volume, 3D Sounds etc, Full Screen toggle with anti-aliasing and Vsync plus a toggle for fps. Keyboard and Mouse and Controller options where you can change the Button or Key Bindings to your own preference.. You can even change the outfit of the female protagonist using six different outfits, including a witches outfit that reminds me of the witch in The Wizard of Oz.

When starting a maze, a small box flashes up in the top right of the screen telling you the name of the music. At the end of a game, you are shown your statistics.

Conclusion:
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed playing Epic Maze; I used to create mazes for my children when they were young. The ability to configure the game so many ways and the fact that no two levels with the same settings will ever be the same du to procedurally generated levels add to the re-playability.
The only negative I have to say about this game is that there is little to differentiate between each room. I'd like to see different decorative schemes that would give the appearance of difference mansions; still the aim of the game is to solve mazes, so it's only a minor gripe.

If you are one to solve maze puzzles, this is definitely one limited game giveaway to enter. Those lucky 100 community members will get a Steam key worth £30.

Campaign Mode - Badges Mode with Options
Campaign Mode Boomerang Mode with Options
Loading Screen for Procedurally Generated 6x6x6 Maze
Loading Screen for Procedurally Generated 4x4x1 Maze
In Game - Start Point 0 meters travelled
In Game - Found Gramophone 56 meters travelled
In Game - Start Point - Witches Outfit
In Game - Found Gramophone with Spiders
In Game - Start showing Music track
In Game - shooting Spider
In Game - Start showing Music track


In Game - Approaching Stairs - travelled 297meters
In Game Statistics Panel
In Game Statistics Panel
In Game Statistics Panel
In Game Statistics Panel - Spiders Killed
In Game Statistics Panel - Badges Earned
In Game Statistics Panel - Badges Earned
End of Single Level Results
In Game - Found Gramophone
In Game - Throwing Glow Stick - distance travelled 114 meters
In Game - Timer Countdown - distance travelled 499 meters
Exiting the Game.