Compelling maze adventure
For a truly retro and simple approach to maze-style gaming, then Pacman or Queen of Hearts fans might like to check out this shareware title. It's pretty straightforward stuff on the whole, with little in the way of innovation or imagination, but it remains strangely compelling stuff if you love wandering around inoffensive mazes looking for computerised treasure. In similar fashion to the likes of arcade classic Boulderdash, players gets to explore a series of mazes, which here are randomly generated, and need to grab as many diamonds as possible and then return to the exit before their lantern goes out. Of course, it's not all that simple and many diamonds are cunningly positioned in such a way that they require blasting out the rock with the limited supplies of dynamite that you're given. To be honest, that's pretty much all there is to Diamaze but while it's simple in theory, in practice it's addictive stuff. The visuals are crude in the extreme, with the player merely represented by a large X and with a complete lack of colour so if you need visual splendour, then steer well clear of this one. The interface though is simple and intuitive, with responsive controls and a clever system implemented for the dropping of dynamite. Another nice touch is the way that if you fail to complete a level, or if you just get out too quickly, the whole maze is revealed, thus showing if you were wise or foolish to to abandon the quest. While Diamaze is certainly no classic, it's actually pretty clever stuff and it's easy to get lost in it for a while so if you fancy some retro maze fun, then take a look.
