AMAZING Aris Martinian on the making of two Minecraft mazes
HAYSTACK HALLWAYS
1
“Haystack Hallways, is maybe the
quintessential example of a maze.
In a way, I think this is the worst maze.
It’s boring, long and the volume of dead
ends is something like three times the
length of the critical path. Many of
these dead ends have other dead ends
branching off of them, so it’s hard to
know if you’ve found the right path.”2
“But halfway through, there is a
bridge which you can climb to get a
vantage point over the entire maze.
From here you can plan the rest of your
route. Additionally, there are several
logs interspersed throughout, those
little patches of white, which can either
serve as landmarks or block off routes- sometimes both.”
FOUNTAIN FOOTPATH
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“A two-tiered hedge maze with a
greenhouse inside. While you can
only see the top here, there is another
layer underneath that connects to the
upper layer via ladders. The inclusion
of a secondary maze, Garden
Greenhouse, within the first allows for
a dialogue between two spaces as you
make your way through.2
“Along the critical path, you enter
the greenhouse on two separate
occasions and walk on top of it another
two times. This, along with the
fountains throughout both the top and
bottom layers, makes the space more
interesting overall, and aids in the
sense of progression, even as you
seem to double back multiple times.”game, Final Fantasy VIII, thanks to a
maze section where the same
backdrops are used for different rooms.
“I was in some kind of drain for fucking
ever. I was in a drain that was basically
the same four pictures of a drain
representing 40 different places they
could be in the drain.”
BLIND CORNERS
Mazes and labyrinths might seem
obnoxious in a role-playing game with
random battles, but that claustrophobia
makes them well-suited, of course, to
horror games. Even here, though,
developers can’t afford to bewilder
players too much. “I think there’s
probably a lot of great inspiration to
draw from studying real-life mazes and
labyrinths, but my guess is that most of
it would be connected to aesthetics and
general layout, and not so much about
level design,” comments Fredrik
Olsson, executive producer and creative
lead on Frictional’s Amnesia: Rebirth.
“In fact, most real-life mazes could act
as examples of really poor level design- that’s part of their nature.”
Amnesia: Rebirth contains one of
gaming’s more horrible mazes.
Dropped on you around the halfway
mark, it’s a grid of square pillars with
paths formed by articulated metal gates
linked to pressure panels. As elsewhere
in the game, you can light torches to
quell your character’s mounting panic,
but this risks attracting attention.
There’s a creature in the maze with
you – half-human, like the Minotaur.
As you explore you hear it ranting,
growing more and more enraged as
you near the exit.
Considered from on high, the maze
isn’t too demanding. It’s closer to a
single-path labyrinth than a maze, and
there are unseen fail-safes (which I
won’t spoil) to help you reach the end.
Paradoxically, mazes make it easier to
add such handholds without damaging
the illusion: as Olsson explains,
developers can “capitalise on the
confusion that naturally comes with the
12 21“Most real-life
mazes could act as
examples of really
poor level design
- that’s part of
their nature”
Wandering Not Lost
FE ATURE