BUILT TO LAST
DeuxiemeCarlin from Louisiana is the
holder (at the time of writing) of the
world record for Minecraft’s largest
published maze. His magnum opus,
Warped Trails, is a stratospheric
endeavour that took around a month to
create and has been successfully
traversed by just seven out of thousands
of players – the fastest run is around
seven hours. DeuxiemeCarlin has been
captivated by mazes since infancy, and
is happy to make them out of anything.
“Any material that can be twisted to
form paths, I can develop a maze
through: everything from a stack of
DVDs to a Discord server to white
furniture!” He enjoys mazes both for
the joy of solving them and for their
visual intricacy. “One theory I’m
leaning towards in recent months is
that it has something to do with the
way my brain works, with high-
functioning autism. And who says it has
HUNTING GROUNDS
Fredrik Olsson on the making of Amnesia: Rebirth’s fear labyrinth
1
“In an ideal scenario most
players would know about the
fear production aspect going
into the maze [...] having that fresh
in your head as you take your first
trembling steps into the maze adds
another layer to the tension [but]
the atmosphere in that section
needs to be visceral enough to
stand on its own.”2
“We tried a lot of different
versions of a more generic
maze approach but we didn’t
really have a strong structure to
follow, not until the idea of the
column structure and gating
system emerged. From that point it
felt like things started to progress
without any major obstacles and it
was more about tweaking areas.”3
“Some testers were too
occupied with watching their
surroundings, looking out for
whatever made the noises around
them, to notice the pressure plates.
That led us to blocking off the
player early on and having them
move some debris off a pressure
plate to progress – just to force the
understanding of that mechanic.”with a blindfold. Sisi Jiang’s Theseus
seizes upon this comparison, while also
embracing the mixed feelings mazes
and labyrinths attract. In this retelling
of myth, the Greek hero Theseus and
the Minotaur are estranged partners
rather than foes. Cast as Theseus, you
must find your way out of a garishly
painted labyrinth while playing out an
imaginary argument with your beau.
The maze embodies the parental
abuse experienced by both characters
(the Minotaur, aka Asterion, is the
sort-of-foster son of the king who
imprisoned him). “It was meant to give
the player tunnel vision, a feeling of a
loss of control, and claustrophobia,”
Jiang explains. “It was important to me
that a bad relationship did not solely
involve the actors in the play, but the
conditions under which they were
meant to forge a connection.”
But the game also presents its
labyrinth as “a space for emotional
exploration” and “an emotionally
secure place for failure”. Each path
corresponds to a branch of Theseus’
internal wrangle with the Minotaur,
displayed as floating text. ‘Wrong’
paths uncover the tenderness each
character still has for the other,
together with futile efforts at
reconciliation. In the process,
something essential is revealed about
both human beings and the things we
build. “[There are] no consequences for
‘picking incorrectly’ the first time,”
Jiang says. “And I think that accurately
reflects a lot of our human internal
processes – we have to hit tons of dead
ends before reaching our truth.”to be one [reason], but not the others?
It could be a multitude of things!”
DeuxiemeCarlin considers maze-
making an artform. “The same feeling
people get when finishing a painting, or
when composing music? That’s the
feeling I get when I make mazes.” He
emphasises the importance of variety- Warped Trails consists of 100 regions
with different colour palettes and
materials – and also advocates against
repeating patterns or stretching out
hallways for the sake of filling space.
“Each region must be crafted with care,
and attention to detail.”
ELUSIVE WORDING
Mazes don’t have to be physical
structures or representations, of course.
Some of the best are text-based. Itch.io
is full of Twine games that are
inherently labyrinthine, composed of
many branching strands, and playing
them is like fumbling around a maze13 2Wandering Not Lost
FE ATURE
Amnesia: Rebirth’s
scaled-down maze
model – foreshadowing
at its grimmest.