Enter the Labyrinth

Master K
Seriously? If I had a hand, I'd be facepalming right now.

Here's your riddle: give me the name of my companion and you may have your final clue.

You are carrying:
a lightbulb
a ticket

---

Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

I examine my newly aquirred lightbulb.
I then say "Your companion is Ed", in response.

Master K
No. And I wish she wouldn't call me that.

You are holding a 40-watt lightbulb. There's nothing remarkable about it.

---

Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

Seeing as I have a lightbulb, I now don't need the clue, as I have some possibilities with my lightbulb. I then head west, north, then east, then north to the control room. I search around for something portable I could attach my lightbulb to.

I know Ed's real name!
Oedipus and the Sphinx!

Suddenly losing interest in feeding myself to the Grues, I walk back to the room with the TREE and the BIRD EGG.

I try to break a LARGE BRANCH off of the TREE with the intention of making a TORCH

Master K
You don't see anything in the control room that looks portable.


James Paige
*snap*

---

Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

I take my TREE BRANCH around to the GLOVE room. I select the MOST FLAMMABLE looking glove, and pull it down over the top of the branch. Then I proceed to the MAGMA room, and dip just the tiniest corner of the glove, just enough to IGNITE it. Then, with my newly made TORCH, I rush to the GRUE room

James Paige
With stark disregard for the rules of labyrinth navigation, you create a makeshift torch and return to the dark room.

Dark Room (with light)

The dimly-lit room reveals the exit to the labyrinth! If that door is unlocked, then you're home-free.

You have gained 20 points.

---

Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

Huh. Where are the Grues? They must only exist in the dark.

I use the magic fish key which I have been carrying around to try and open the WEST exit door.

James Paige
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grue_%28monster%29

Grues: they are pretty famous!

There is no obvious keyhole in the exit door. However, it slides open as you approach it. Modern technology: is there anything it can't do?

Congratulations! You have escaped the labyrinth!

Thanks to everyone who participated! Special props to ncw64 for his incredible puzzle-solving acumen.


All About the Labyrinth
The labyrinth was inspired partially from my collective experience with interactive fiction (see: Zork, et al.), but mostly from a very similar game run by astute dungeoneer Guild, who joined the fun here after I told him he was responsible for all this. My creative process in designing the labyrinth went something like this:

- Make a room
- Add some puzzly elements
- Brainstorm what to do with those puzzly elements
- Repeat

The rooms and overall solution were completely finished shortly after I started the game (although I was briefly worried that someone would out-explore me, you guys explored depth-first). Many of the dungeon's particulars were invented on the fly, particularly item descriptions. I especially waffled on what to do with the magic keys, which were originally intended to be red herrings (hence the fishy shape). I should've stuck with that; having the control room door unlocked from the start would've been funnier.

In fact, much of the game's content was either window dressing or red herrings; notably, the starting inventory items were probably entirely useless. I was hoping that someone would come up with a creative use for one of their items, but in hindsight I really made the items a bit too useless. Oh well! I still had fun with them, though I probably wouldn't do it again.

The sphinx room made it into the game early on, and at that point I hadn't decided what purpose it would serve. Making it a hint room was probably the best thing I could've done for the game, since it meant I had more control of the game's flow: if the game was stalling, as was the case with the troll, I could give it a shove, but when new ground was still freshly uncovered (the party room and beyond), I could just nudge the game in the right direction. Plus, writing for Oedipus and the sphinx was a lot of fun, and it gave me liberty to make fun of the players with sardonic Ed as the mouthpiece. (See also: the reaper's death messages.) I would definitely include something like this in another game.

The game's cornerstone puzzle was the secret dance. There were two possible solutions to this puzzle: either put four players in the party room or enlist the aid of one of the giant spiders. Regardless, this was a puzzle that would require some collaboration. The monitor's "Enter dance" line strongly hinted that the solution was in the party room, and the Simon puzzle having the same colored lights that appeared in that room was another strong hint. Failing at that, brute-forcing the microphone connection worked too. I'm pretty proud of this puzzle -- hinted at from very early on, spanning multiple rooms of the labyrinth, and multiple methods to arrive at the solution.

Things that went well: The pacing of the game was really smooth for the most part and once everyone started exploring the entire labyrinth, the puzzles were solved at an excellent pace - not so quickly as to trivialize the experience, but not so slowly as to bog things down, either. A few times I felt that a little experience with the genre would really have greased the wheels ("try everything in your inventory" is Adventure Game 101 material, but somehow everyone tried everything but the ticket against the troll), but things resolved themselves in the end.

Things that could've gone better: There was an inordinate amount of confusion regarding cardinal directions. I... don't really know what to do about this. I also felt like the puzzle solutions were sort of bottlenecked, discouraging creativity. This could have been handled by having more puzzles with flexible solutions (the water puzzle or the torch being the best examples) rather than the abundant single-solution puzzles (notably, the troll). Lighting the dark room also took way, way longer than I thought it would.

Many thanks for playing! I'll run another game someday, but perhaps someone else will step up in the meantime.

---

Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

Thanks for making the game and letting us play. It was a fun!

Haha, did not even think about the tree branch used as a torch- that entire room was in the back of my mind. I think specifically telling us it was a dead end was a clever idea to subtly hint at it being useless (false, of course). I know what you mean about the troll, but I thought it was pretty cool how it ended up working out, like every single person analyzed their tickets and yet no-one thought to use them because the other items were trivialized. I thought this was a lot of fun, and while I'd love to be able to host something like this, I wouldn't be able to create something that complex (still a one track minded kid!) and I wouldn't really have the time to keep responding (yet another thing that was awesome, and that was really impressive). That's just my take on some of the things you didn't think went as well personally- I really liked the torch thing using the useless room. Maybe I'm easily impressed, but this was definitely the most fun I've had on SS for a while! Definitely improved my activity by a ton. Thanks so much for hosting this, Mogri- it was too much fun.

---

You can't fix stupidity.

This was fun! I would like to try hosting one of these myself sometime-- although I would probably have trouble keeping up the pace.

I should try and host a game, it might be fun.
Anyways, I very much enjoyed this game.

I also want to host the game because i like the games very much there is the complete fun for me in this games and i want to added the maze.

---

business financing small