AAS Week 1: Maze Craze

[Lord Thag]

Welcome to the Atari Appreciation Society!

 

What is it? It's an idea I had to do a kind of weekly review/discussion column focusing on Atari 2600 games that don't get a lot of attention. It's not a competition like the HSC, but rather a place to discuss and review games (especially the kind that the HSC can't use), and to talk about past experiences, opinions, and favorite game variations. Basically it's another reason to go home and plug in a game that you might not have touched otherwise. Clear as mud?

 

Anyone interested in doing a write up for a game, please feel free to PM me, and I'll get back to you on when your turn will be. Otherwise, just PM me or start a thread and vote on what you would like to see next and I'll write it up. Any comments or suggestions on the whole idea are welcome too! So, without further ado, here is this weeks game:

 

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Game: Maze Craze

Players: 1-2 *only some variations support single player

Variations: 16

 

Commentary: I'll be honest, this is one of those games that totally flew in under the radar. It's been sitting on a shelf for years, practically untouched, until a month or so ago when an old friend of mine stopped by. He wanted to play a few atari games, and asked if I had Maze Craze. I told him yes, but that I never played it. He looked at me like I'd grown an extra head, obviously thinking anyone crazy enough to collect 350 2600 games that didn't play maze craze was a twit. He was right too. Two hours later I had a whole new appreciation for it. Heres why:

 

Maze Craze is a wonderful two player game. Each game only takes a minute or two, but you'll find yourself playing dozens before you know it. The basic principle is this: Two people compete in a randomly generated maze, and just like the paper kind, the first person to get out wins. That's fun enough by itself, but it's the clever variations on the theme that make the game fun. Some variations have you chasing 'robbers' down before you can exit the maze, which can require a lot of quick thinking to stay ahead of your opponent. In others, you must AVOID the robbers to escape, making it similar to pac man. Sometimes the robbers will paralyze you, or kill you as well. In other variations, you can plant fake walls to trick your opponent, have invisible mazes, or try to force your opponent to be captured by robbers before you can escaspe.

 

Then, you basically can mix or match any of these variations to create some insanely fun two player games. It can get pretty tense as you race through maze after maze, and victories are often so close you'll find yourself yelling when you win. Freindly insults are the order of the day! A fun way to play with a group is to do a 'hotseat' tournament where the looser gives his controller to the next person waiting. Fun stuff! So do yourself a favor and have a friend over to play this with. You won't regret it!

 

Oh, and skip the 'single' player modes. They lack the intensity of the two player games, and are not as fun.

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Ok! That's my two cents. Lets hear all of your stories, comments, favorite variations and memories of Maze Craze. Or post your experiences with it this week (after you go home and play it this weekend)! Have fun!

[128bytes]

Nice job - much better than the old AAS (which you hopefully don't remember -- the ANTHONY ATARI Series of "AA Game of the week"). What is your favorite variation and difficulty level, sir Thag?

[NE146]

Great competitive game.. One of my favorites and it is indeed pure VCS gaming goodness

 

Doesn't work too well if you play it alone though.

[Lord Thag]

Nice job - much better than the old AAS (which you hopefully don't remember -- the ANTHONY ATARI Series of "AA Game of the week"). What is your favorite variation and difficulty level, sir Thag?

 

Hmm... a tough one. Var 5 is a really fun one, with the robbers being able to freeze you. Lots of fast turnarounds. 8 is strange, but fun. 15 is probably the most hectic and insane. I actually don't play one variation for long, but change up every few games or so. What do you guys play?

[Goochman]

I love this game. Couldnt get anyone to play with me though since I was pretty quick at it

[davepesc]

I never could find anyone who wanted to play this with me, so I missed out on the best part of the game. I never liked the invisible mazes either.

[Red 5]

This game is one of my favorite childhood memories.

 

Remember being a kid an sleeping over your best friend's house ?

My best friend had this game (I did not) and whenever I slept over his house, we

would stay up until all hours of the night playing this game.

Drinking Soda, eating some kind of Ring Dings or Devil Dogs and playing until we just about passed out.

 

I can still hear the noise when someone won, and the flashing screen would hurt our eyes from playing with all the lights out and our faces two feet from the TV.

 

There were a lot of great variations, but the best is the one where you can put up a fake dead end.

 

I still think it's one of the best multiplayer games on the 2600.

 

And now, of course, I own my own copy. (And various label variations, of course.)

 

This thread is a lot of fun! Good idea !

[keilbaca]

Me and my brother used to play the hell out of this game. Its very fun, very fast, intense, defintitely a good choice.

[Lord Thag]

Me and my brother used to play the hell out of this game. Its very fun, very fast, intense, defintitely a good choice.

 

This game is one of my favorite childhood memories.

 

Great competitive game.. One of my favorites and it is indeed pure VCS gaming goodness

 

So here's a question: Why doesn't it get more recognition? My guess is because it's a two player game. Most people don't have someone to play it with so it gets passed over in all those 'best game' threads. The reason I never payed attention to it until recently was because I had no one to play it with. Maybe this thread will get the word out!

[StanJr]

Great fun! A real two-player head-to-head blast! Being an only child, I missed out on a lot of fun with this game, but I still made attempts to play it on my own.

 

Now that I have someone to play with, its a LOT more fun. The more abscure and crazy the maze, the better I like it!

[neotokeo2001]

Save your eyes and play this version. Just changed the Background to Black and changed the contrast of the players and maze.

 

DOWNLOAD BIN:

Maze_Craze_Black.zip

 

Original Version:

 

New Version:

[Big Player]

I love Maze Craze. I didn't have it back then, but when I was in junior high my friend had a birthday party and so about seven of us got together, pooled our money and bought him Maze Craze. Then we played it for hours that night. First one out of the maze keeps playing. Loser goes to the end of the line. There were nine of us. And I still have no idea who decided that Maze Craze was the game to buy.

 

What I love about this game is the great mix of mental challenge and hand-eye coordination that it takes to be successful at the game.

 

It is sad that this game didn't get more recognition. That it requires two players along with the simple graphics (even for the 2600) probably kept people away from it. If they had only played the game, we probably wouldn't need to put it in threads like this.

 

(Great idea for a thread, by the way.)

 

Something I always wondered was how many possible mazes there are. I know that to fit into 4K of ROM, there has to be a very efficient algorithm that generates the maze. Do any of the technical gurus know?

[Lord Thag]

Something I always wondered was how many possible mazes there are. I know that to fit into 4K of ROM, there has to be a very efficient algorithm that generates the maze. Do any of the technical gurus know?

 

I wondered that too. I don't recall playing any duplicate mazes, but they go by so fast that it's impossible to tell. I'm telling you though, this is one of those games that (when you drag it out) sucks up at least an hour. WHat would be cool is if someone programed an 8k version with pathfinding AI so that you could play it solo. The way crazy new tech and homebrews pop up around here, you never know....

[DaveD]

It's an idea I had to do a kind of weekly review/discussion column focusing on Atari 2600 games that don't get a lot of attention.

 

1. Congrats on the new feature. It sounds like it'll be a lot of fun looking forward to which new old games will be featured each week/month/whatever.

 

2. Maze Craze is the prefect underrated game to start with. It's a classic, it has timeless gameplay and it's still fun after all these years. And I agree that it's biggest strength is probably also it's biggest weakness: you need to find an opponent of equal skill in order to have a fair multiplayer game.

 

3. This reminds me of The Games That Time Forgot. TGTTF was a weekly (mostly) feature where members of the MacMAME community wrote about their favorite unknown and underappreciated arcade games. This provided incentive to rediscover old favorites and learn about games we may have overlooked.

[oesii]

Maze Craze was one of my first games and I think my sister and I played it for about two months straight until she got tired of it, I never did get tired of it but by the time I had friends over to play Atari I had moved on to the Atari 800

[neotokeo2001]

The Maze Craze Black version that is posted above has led to a few other Black Hacks that are available in the Hack Forum.

 

In the early days of Atari the upper management wanted to show that the Atari 2600 was a COLOR Video Game System.

 

The result? No game would be released without a colored background. This led to the bright colored backgrounds in most of the early releases. The bright backgrounds can lead to blurred images and eyestrain.

 

The solution? Change the backgrounds to black. The black background gives the game more of an 80's arcade look and makes the graphics stand out better.

 

Welcome to the BLACK SERIES where I will do just that. I will be taking some of the early releases and converting them to black backgrounds while leaving the basic graphics and gameplay unchanged. If you have a game that you would like converted, just drop me an e-mail or reply to this post.

 

Surround Black

 

Combat Black(By Request)

 

Outlaw Black(By Request)

 

Maze Craze Black

[StanJr]

I think the only one that does not work is the Black Outlaw. Background should be tan like the desert.

[neotokeo2001]

I think the only one that does not work is the Black Outlaw.  Background should be tan like the desert.

838593[/snapback]

 

Here are screenshots of Variation 1-4 of the Original Outlaw:

 

 

 

 

[oesii]

That's the desert at night, man.

[StanJr]

 

Here are screenshots of Variation 1-4 of the Original Outlaw:

 

 

 

 

yeah, like #4 but with green cactus and border, not yellow!

[neotokeo2001]

 

Here are screenshots of Variation 1-4 of the Original Outlaw:

 

 

 

 

yeah, like #4 but with green cactus and border, not yellow!

838599[/snapback]

 

[StanJr]

see, neo I knew you could do it.

 

Now can you make the wagon brown and the wall red?

 

[kencrisis]

First of all, I'm glad to see this thing get going. I really missed the Anthony Atari posts. Like this thread, the Anthony posts brought to my attention games I had forgotten or overlooked.

 

Second, thanks for this feature on Maze Craze. I'd seen people posting about how this was a great game but after checking it out in emulation, I didn't see what was so great about it. It wasn't until this thread that I learned how this is a super two-player game -- something my wife and I are always looking for.

 

I just bought this off Ebay tonight, we can't wait to get it. Looking forward to more, keep it up!

[Lord Thag]

First of all, I'm glad to see this thing get going. I really missed the Anthony Atari posts. Like this thread, the Anthony posts brought to my attention games I had forgotten or overlooked.

 

Second, thanks for this feature on Maze Craze. I'd seen people posting about how this was a great game but after checking it out in emulation, I didn't see what was so great about it. It wasn't until this thread that I learned how this is a super two-player game -- something my wife and I are always looking for.

 

I just bought this off Ebay tonight, we can't wait to get it. Looking forward to more, keep it up!

839056[/snapback]

 

You're welcome! The reason I started this thing was for that same reason: A good excuse to play games that I might otherwise have overlooked.

 

All right, here's a question for you all: what do you want to see next? I have several ideas, but feel free to post here or PM me with suggestions. I'll be doing the next thread in a day or so, so let me know!

[maibock]

 

I too have fond memories of playing this game vs buddies late at night. Good game.