top of page

Labyrinth Lunacy

Labyrinth Lunacy is a maze-puzzle game where the player must try to learn and map out the level in their head and identify landmark points to find their path

​

This project made me understand how to finish a game properly from start to finish, from prototyping to polishing to uploading it on itch.io to marketing it, to analysing the things that went correctly and wrong.​

The game underwent two versions, one for the college fest and the other as a final polished version.

​

Here's the complete playthrough of the game (Available on Itch).

Gameplay

Players start from the entrance of the maze, which is divided into 4 sections. The player starts in the first section is blocked by a crystal door that can only be unlocked by finding a magic crystal hidden in that section.

​

The objective is to collect the key crystal located in the center of the maze to unlock the portal and escape the maze, but the key crystal is guarded by an ancient warrior; the player must obtain crystal to find the exit while the warrior chases them.

Labyrinth Lunacy Map

Conceptualisation

This game was initially created for a Techno-Cultural college fest, 'Chakravuyh', which had each technical domain present a challenge for students to complete consecutively. As the lead for the game development domain, the club lead asked to make games as a challenge. Me and the core members decided to make two games. They would make the first game, and I would make the second. I would assist if they were stuck anywhere.

​

Initial constraints

​

  • Must use Unity.

  • Must make something connected to Indian culture.

  • Prototype-level programming skill.

  • Must provide a challenge to the player

  • Must have a unique concept.

  • The deadline is three days.

​

So I decided to go for a simple concept that wouldn't require a lot of programming. I decided to make an actual chakravuyh where the players tried to get to the center of the maze.

Prototyping Process

Iteration One

Since building a maze in Unity, even with pro-builder, would be time-consuming, I decided to use a circular maze model from the internet (Maze Model). It wasn't too small or too long and looked circular. I decided to go with this, but I felt players would get too lost in it, and the maze would feel empty. So I decided to add doors as landmarks and force the player to explore and find more crystals.

​​

I wanted the maze to feel kinda lonely, odd and mysterious, so I chose a sunset skybox and made the maze grayish-black along with background music that fit the tone.

Lonely Maze

So the maze was divided into sections by a door and a key hidden within that section. The previous iteration had only two key & door pairs.

Maze Door

(Locked Door)

Maze Key

(Door Key)

Lonely Maze

(Opened Door)

Maze Map

(Previous iterations' door and key placements)

After unlocking the two doors, I considered keeping the main crystal in the centre and collecting it would complete the main challenge. However, that felt too short, and I wanted to have a surprise in store for the end. I was prototyping enemy AI in Project Ghostrunner, and so I put an ancient warrior in the centre guarding the crystal, and would trigger the enemy and chase the player. The scene would reload if the player was caught, and would display a "You Died" text like Dark Souls games. The orb needed to escape would be outside, where the player got the first key.​

Enemy AI

(Enemy AI Attributes)

Audio functionality was added in the next version.

The UI background was done by one of the core members and I implemented the UI to have start, exit, a music slider in the settings and lastly an objectives section to give context to the player.

Maze Game UI
Maze Game Controls

I did add sound effects while collecting keys and passing through doors as a final touch.

Feedback

  • The mood and atmosphere are good, giving it a sense and being lost in a mysterious place.

  • Completing the game was daunting since the player could not keep track of where they were, and it was aimless wandering.

  • They were also people who started mapping out all the possible paths from each door, by hearting every single route and completing.

​​

Conclusion

​

The gameplay needs to be developed more in terms of landmarks, and probably an in-game feature that lets the player track the different routes they went through, and also a way to leave a trace while choosing a path.

​​

They could have been implemented, but I felt the maze needed to be custom-made with well-designed encounters and landmarks. But I decided not to make a new game at the time to focus on prototyping Project Ghostrunner.

​

But even though it had inherent flaws, I decided to polish the game to learn more about polishing games, so I started adding new things, which led to the current version.

New Features

​Art

  • Entire textures, cursor, mood/lighting, skybox and menu background to be remade

  • Key/door and portal assets, rework.

  • Crystal float and rotate animation.

  • 'You Died' screen rework.

  • The head bob of the player for walking and running.

  • Screen fades in/out while transitioning between scenes.
  • The warrior's head is always looking at the player till he crystal is collected.​

Design

  • Restructuring of key/door positions (Adding 3 of them).

  • Option to adjust mouse sensitivities.

  • Pause functionality allows you to return to the main menu and exit the game.

  • Intense music plays when the warrior starts chasing, along with the initial roar before chasing.

  • Warrior dialogue appears when the player comes into view of the key crystal, presented as captions with their corresponding sound effects.

  • Cannot collide with the warrior till the crystal is collected.​

Sound

  • SFX for footsteps of the player/warrior, key collection, passing through doors and player death.

  • Intense music plays when the warrior starts chasing, along with the initial roar before chasing.

For the icon, menu background, chase music I used AI generated tools to get customized results.

Maze Game Credits
Maze Game Menu
Scarier Maze Pause Menu
Scarier Maze

(Gameplay)

Conclusion

I decided to create an Itch page and publish it. With the help of my friend, I got the trailer ready and posted it on YouTube. The marketing was me posting the trailer on all my social media.

Results

​

As expected, the game didn't perform well. The game's length and quality weren't up to the mark due to the reasons mentioned in the feedback.​

​

I did some research on marketing indie games, and here are some of the things I learned.

​

  • Steam and Itch work similarly in terms of what games do good.

  • Genre determines the success of the game,

  • Games that organically generate more content from gameplay tend to do well, like simulation, roguelike,  RTS, base-building, etc.

  • The cover art has to be very polished.

  • Marketing comes from the quality of the game; bad games can't be saved through marketing.

  • Marketing for indies can be done by emailing streamers about your game and its appeal, along with a press kit and a Steam key or the demo.

​

The more important thing was for me to complete a finished product and learning along the way.

bottom of page