cw: drugging, murder, general trashy rpgmaker horror
In between different realities and universes, sits The Maze. Managed by a mysterious Creator, the Maze holds a beautiful estate with a wealth of magic and opportunity. The Creator assigns the Overseer to watch over four nominees, all from different worlds. Pick one nominee to be King, to gain all that power. All they have to do is understand their fellow nominees, and then they'll be worthy.
The loop of the game is pretty straight-forward. Pick one of the four nominees, watch what they do, problems ensue. Time resets, try the next one. Its a little tedious, but the process works. In terms of gameplay, you're largely walking from location to location and observing scenes or avoiding death traps.
The four nominees fixate heavily on one personal flaw, all related to a deck of cards. Heart is fixated on love and loyalty. This makes him a steadfast ally in most routes, but a dangerous person to give power if he determines loyalty to one means another must be lost. Clover is fixated on happiness, regardless of where it comes from. The most efficient use of acquiring happiness in her mind is aggressively drugging the people around her. Becoming King of the Maze is primarily a method of gaining more Happiness Tools to her. She's a little jokerfied. Speaking of, Spade likes death. His superpower is insta-kill by touch. People suffering too long? They should die to be at peace. People in love? Love always ends, so they should die to avoid suffering. People eating some popcorn? Better die, so they don't have to live with running out of food. He's got a one-track mind.
But my stand-out favorite was Dia, queen bitch of queen bitch kingdom. Dia believes in power and greed. Take what you want so no one can take it from you. No matter which routes you take, Dia holds onto some importance. In Heart's route, their growing affection for each other directly correlates to Heart's defensive murder paranoia. In Spade's route, she keeps up a good fight against the man's rampage before she gets got. In Clover's route, the Overseer/player character is put out of commission by Clover's drug frenzy. The game swerves into Dia taking center stage. During her frequent temper tantrums, she's displayed her ability to turn anything into gold. As Clover starts throwing syringes left and right, Dia becomes the best equipped to instantly block Clover's Joker Medicine from breaking skin. She's the one that makes sure no one gets permanently Jokerfied and she's the one who's making the moves to save the day.
She also delivers incredible asshole lines, such as:
Dia: "I'm tired of your bullshit. Give me answers, now!"
Overseer, chained up and mute:
Dia: "I can't hear you, you're chained up."
I went into Dia's route expecting her to spiral into her own neurosis, presumably turning everyone into gold or some such. Instead... she makes real progress. She help in the kitchen, she finds lost items, and she does it all while being the Meanest Mean Girl ever. Even if her motives are purely to gain more power, she at least attempts to make a real effort that no one else manages.
Then Spade gets bored, starts killing people, and the Overseer declares this one was a wash too and Dia can't be king either.
Twerp.
I'm giving away the whole plot here, but the fact is that I'm probably one of five people on the planet who got this far. The game is... buggy. When each loop resets, the Overseer takes the nominees to a dinner table, where the player gets to select the next King. Except, the game bugs out and the screen goes black. The player has to fumble around in the dark to find where the nominees were sitting at the table, and then select them as the next king. Its not as difficult as it sounds, but to anyone with a lack of patience, that's kind of a major dealbreaker. Most players probably shut the game off forever, convinced there was no way to progress at all. I only discovered the truth through random clicking on the black screen, startled by the sudden "Select Dia for King?" prompt. Choosing yes brings the world back into focus and the game back on track. This happened every single loop.
What truly caught me off guard was the end result of finishing all the loops. After 20-30 minute episodes of murder rampages, I was expecting the final route to be a short affair rewarding your commitment.
Instead, the entire second (?) half of the game opens up.
The scope expands beyond the mansion I've spent 90 minutes in, as the squad outlines how the loops went and where to progress. Just talking to each other isn't working. The Overseer needs to personally travel to their worlds to understand their personal lives.
We jump from the 10 or so screens of the Maze to entire new settings with new aesthetics. Dia's money obsessed, debt riddled world where profit and proper IDs rule everything. Clover's quiet, miserable world where happiness is a commodity very few people can afford. And Spade's empty wasteland, utterly lacking in any future by the simple presence of Spade's existence.
And... well, hard to say what comes after that. After Spade placed me into a surprise boss battle, the game glitched. Spade's just gone. His timer to kill me vanished. I don't know where that kid is. My last non-current fight save was back in one of the loops. That's a good two hours of unskippable progress I'd need to get back.
This game is truly fascinating. There's so many odd, fun ideas thrown at the wall, many of them not properly considered. The core loop of learning about what each character will do for power, followed by learning what they do with their lives at home, is an arc that both succeeds and fails in the same breath. The character work is a bit edgy and silly, but in such a way that I can't help but find it endearing. And wrapping this package up is a tight little bow of game-breaking bugs.
I would love to return to this fascinating little passion project. This murky, broken little treasure that Blue Hour put their heart and soul into, even if reality and experience couldn't match their ambitions. No updates in years since the game's 2021 release. No YouTube video recapping the entire game, only one that covers the Clover route. I hope they still like the game they worked on. I doubt it. The profits don't look good and the passion seems to have wilted away. And there's only so much to defend when the game has this many problems.
Still. Maybe I like the mess.
Edit: I couldn't stop thinking about it, a final reload attempt fixed the issue and I hit credits five minutes later. Complaining works.
There's so many other bugs I didn't even think to mention. Dia's walking model wouldn't work in one room, leaving her gliding across the floor in her "sitting" pose. There's text in other languages that comes out as "JJJJJJJJJJJJJJ." And the final act's focus on the Overseer, a character I truly did not care about at any point compared to the other endearing weirdos, soured me at times. The Overseer's sudden ability to talk in the second act significantly hurts the writing, as he suddenly becomes the character who has to vocalize The Problem Solving. So much of the game's strength was characters futilely bashing heads as they fundamentally ignored the interior lives of the people around them. Suddenly, around Problem Solver Overseer, communication gets a lot easier and characters can recognize their own flaws in ways they couldn't before.
But I think what really hurts the game's finale is that Overseer is somehow blocked off from the game's central thesis. We are asked to understand these messy, flawed murderers. The game encourages us to see beyond their worst behavior and accept the nominees in spite of their flaws. But the Overseer is... dull. There's nothing messy to interrogate. His past is a mystery, the identity of the Creator is unclear. Its a story asking for empathy and understanding, and then it never provides the context for the main character's arc of facing the future. Its a baffling choice and one that is so easily avoided. As with much of the game's wider problems!
But even now, I can't help but think of all the effort Blue Hour put into the art. There's elaborate animations, dozens of cgs and intercutting images. They clearly excel at art, both pixel and hand-drawn and animated. Its in the programming and writing that the work clearly fumbles.
And the funny thing is... I was still charmed the whole way through. Every glitch, every purposeless speech, every odd little murder twist and its strange tragic backstory... I couldn't help but smile the whole time.
Silly, silly game.
In between different realities and universes, sits The Maze. Managed by a mysterious Creator, the Maze holds a beautiful estate with a wealth of magic and opportunity. The Creator assigns the Overseer to watch over four nominees, all from different worlds. Pick one nominee to be King, to gain all that power. All they have to do is understand their fellow nominees, and then they'll be worthy.
The loop of the game is pretty straight-forward. Pick one of the four nominees, watch what they do, problems ensue. Time resets, try the next one. Its a little tedious, but the process works. In terms of gameplay, you're largely walking from location to location and observing scenes or avoiding death traps.
The four nominees fixate heavily on one personal flaw, all related to a deck of cards. Heart is fixated on love and loyalty. This makes him a steadfast ally in most routes, but a dangerous person to give power if he determines loyalty to one means another must be lost. Clover is fixated on happiness, regardless of where it comes from. The most efficient use of acquiring happiness in her mind is aggressively drugging the people around her. Becoming King of the Maze is primarily a method of gaining more Happiness Tools to her. She's a little jokerfied. Speaking of, Spade likes death. His superpower is insta-kill by touch. People suffering too long? They should die to be at peace. People in love? Love always ends, so they should die to avoid suffering. People eating some popcorn? Better die, so they don't have to live with running out of food. He's got a one-track mind.
But my stand-out favorite was Dia, queen bitch of queen bitch kingdom. Dia believes in power and greed. Take what you want so no one can take it from you. No matter which routes you take, Dia holds onto some importance. In Heart's route, their growing affection for each other directly correlates to Heart's defensive murder paranoia. In Spade's route, she keeps up a good fight against the man's rampage before she gets got. In Clover's route, the Overseer/player character is put out of commission by Clover's drug frenzy. The game swerves into Dia taking center stage. During her frequent temper tantrums, she's displayed her ability to turn anything into gold. As Clover starts throwing syringes left and right, Dia becomes the best equipped to instantly block Clover's Joker Medicine from breaking skin. She's the one that makes sure no one gets permanently Jokerfied and she's the one who's making the moves to save the day.
She also delivers incredible asshole lines, such as:
Dia: "I'm tired of your bullshit. Give me answers, now!"
Overseer, chained up and mute:
Dia: "I can't hear you, you're chained up."
I went into Dia's route expecting her to spiral into her own neurosis, presumably turning everyone into gold or some such. Instead... she makes real progress. She help in the kitchen, she finds lost items, and she does it all while being the Meanest Mean Girl ever. Even if her motives are purely to gain more power, she at least attempts to make a real effort that no one else manages.
Then Spade gets bored, starts killing people, and the Overseer declares this one was a wash too and Dia can't be king either.
Twerp.
I'm giving away the whole plot here, but the fact is that I'm probably one of five people on the planet who got this far. The game is... buggy. When each loop resets, the Overseer takes the nominees to a dinner table, where the player gets to select the next King. Except, the game bugs out and the screen goes black. The player has to fumble around in the dark to find where the nominees were sitting at the table, and then select them as the next king. Its not as difficult as it sounds, but to anyone with a lack of patience, that's kind of a major dealbreaker. Most players probably shut the game off forever, convinced there was no way to progress at all. I only discovered the truth through random clicking on the black screen, startled by the sudden "Select Dia for King?" prompt. Choosing yes brings the world back into focus and the game back on track. This happened every single loop.
What truly caught me off guard was the end result of finishing all the loops. After 20-30 minute episodes of murder rampages, I was expecting the final route to be a short affair rewarding your commitment.
Instead, the entire second (?) half of the game opens up.
The scope expands beyond the mansion I've spent 90 minutes in, as the squad outlines how the loops went and where to progress. Just talking to each other isn't working. The Overseer needs to personally travel to their worlds to understand their personal lives.
We jump from the 10 or so screens of the Maze to entire new settings with new aesthetics. Dia's money obsessed, debt riddled world where profit and proper IDs rule everything. Clover's quiet, miserable world where happiness is a commodity very few people can afford. And Spade's empty wasteland, utterly lacking in any future by the simple presence of Spade's existence.
And... well, hard to say what comes after that. After Spade placed me into a surprise boss battle, the game glitched. Spade's just gone. His timer to kill me vanished. I don't know where that kid is. My last non-current fight save was back in one of the loops. That's a good two hours of unskippable progress I'd need to get back.
This game is truly fascinating. There's so many odd, fun ideas thrown at the wall, many of them not properly considered. The core loop of learning about what each character will do for power, followed by learning what they do with their lives at home, is an arc that both succeeds and fails in the same breath. The character work is a bit edgy and silly, but in such a way that I can't help but find it endearing. And wrapping this package up is a tight little bow of game-breaking bugs.
I would love to return to this fascinating little passion project. This murky, broken little treasure that Blue Hour put their heart and soul into, even if reality and experience couldn't match their ambitions. No updates in years since the game's 2021 release. No YouTube video recapping the entire game, only one that covers the Clover route. I hope they still like the game they worked on. I doubt it. The profits don't look good and the passion seems to have wilted away. And there's only so much to defend when the game has this many problems.
Still. Maybe I like the mess.
Edit: I couldn't stop thinking about it, a final reload attempt fixed the issue and I hit credits five minutes later. Complaining works.
There's so many other bugs I didn't even think to mention. Dia's walking model wouldn't work in one room, leaving her gliding across the floor in her "sitting" pose. There's text in other languages that comes out as "JJJJJJJJJJJJJJ." And the final act's focus on the Overseer, a character I truly did not care about at any point compared to the other endearing weirdos, soured me at times. The Overseer's sudden ability to talk in the second act significantly hurts the writing, as he suddenly becomes the character who has to vocalize The Problem Solving. So much of the game's strength was characters futilely bashing heads as they fundamentally ignored the interior lives of the people around them. Suddenly, around Problem Solver Overseer, communication gets a lot easier and characters can recognize their own flaws in ways they couldn't before.
But I think what really hurts the game's finale is that Overseer is somehow blocked off from the game's central thesis. We are asked to understand these messy, flawed murderers. The game encourages us to see beyond their worst behavior and accept the nominees in spite of their flaws. But the Overseer is... dull. There's nothing messy to interrogate. His past is a mystery, the identity of the Creator is unclear. Its a story asking for empathy and understanding, and then it never provides the context for the main character's arc of facing the future. Its a baffling choice and one that is so easily avoided. As with much of the game's wider problems!
But even now, I can't help but think of all the effort Blue Hour put into the art. There's elaborate animations, dozens of cgs and intercutting images. They clearly excel at art, both pixel and hand-drawn and animated. Its in the programming and writing that the work clearly fumbles.
And the funny thing is... I was still charmed the whole way through. Every glitch, every purposeless speech, every odd little murder twist and its strange tragic backstory... I couldn't help but smile the whole time.
Silly, silly game.