## Description
_MadMaze_ first hit the Prodigy online service in 1989 with its NAPLPS
graphics illustrating a plethora of palette-shifted first-person corridor
junctions. But the artwork, logic puzzles and story conveyed at the maze
“goals”, called Places of Power, proved sufficiently compelling for well over
a million players to divert their paid connection time into wandering its
labyrinthine corridors. It went down along with the rest of _Prodigy Classic_
in 1999, but thanks to this exceedingly faithful web re-implementation (only
for Internet Explorer), it remained inaccessible for only two years!
The player controls a young denizen of Weith Village, sent by Wellan, the
Village Elder, to become a Runner. This means entering the maze outside the
village in hopes to overcome the sinister plots of The Mad One (aka He Whose
Name Is Not Spoken). Across a series of mazes the player encounters logic
puzzles — sometimes solvable through trial and error or blind guessing,
othertimes facilitated through hints and wisdom imparted by other maze
denizens. The first maze sees the Runner complying with the wishes of both the
Sage Tsoreen and Crone Matilda in her chicken-legged hut to remove an onerous
troll from a nearby magical well. Subsequent maze levels see the player
advancing toward the Maze Purpore containing the Castle Perilous — formerly
the seat of power of the legendary King Carlon, who now slumbers beneath,
guarded by the giant scorpion Ogrok while The Mad One’s lieutenant Timozel
lords above. Eventually the player overcomes even these obstacles and proceeds
through further, stranger mazes journeying on an increasingly epic scale,
wielding Carlon’s sword Valterre and astride Veillantif the fairy horse. All
the advancement is indicated solely through the story and puzzles shared at
the Places of Power — true to its title, gameplay largely remains a matter of
navigating mazes head-on.
MadMaze-II