View source for Maze (video game genre)

[[Image:Pac-Man - ARC - Screenshot - Ready.png|thumb|256x256px|''[[Pac-Man]]'' (1980) is an early maze traversal game.]]

A '''maze''' game is a video game genre in which a player must solve or traverse every passage of a maze, often with pursuers. It is one of the oldest video game genres, dating back to 1959. Part of the reason why maze games made such an early impact on video games is because most early software developers were also mathematics students who had to learn the various [[Wikipedia:Maze generation algorithm|algorithms]] that can be used to generate mazes. 

==History==
The very first maze video game was ''[[Mouse in the Maze]]'' (1959) where you had to make a maze for a mouse to solve. However, since you couldn't solve the game yourself, it was more of a toy than a game. In the early 1970s, maze games were becoming larger and required the player to solve a randomly generated maze. The predecessor of ''[[Maze War]]'', ''[[Maze (1973 video game)|Maze]]'' (1973) was the first first-person perspective maze game, and ''[[Maze (1974 video game)|Maze]]'' (1974) and ''[[Maze Tracing]]'' (1974) were the first traditional maze solving games. [[Atari]] created probably the first maze pursuit game with ''[[Gotcha]]'' (1973) although it wasn't much of a maze, and other companies were hot on the trail as first generation home video game consoles included ''[[Amazing Maze]]'' (1976), ''[[Videocart-10: Maze]]'' (1977), and ''[[Super Maze]]'' (1977). The first maze traversal game, where the player is expected to walk through the majority of the passages in a maze, was ''[[Pac-Man]]'' (1980), and the first grid capture maze game was ''[[Amidar]]'' (1981).

As hardware became more powerful, maze games started to become more complex and evolved into genres like [[dungeon crawler]]s, [[Rougelike]]s, and [[first-person shooter]]s, which, although they still take place in mazes, their game play is so different, they don't really fit into the category anymore.

==Categories==
There are several sub-genres of maze games.

{| class="wikitable"
! Sub-Genre !! Description !! Examples
|-
| Standard Maze || The player is expected to solve a maze from beginning to end while viewing it from a top-down perspective. || ''[[Maze (1974 video game)|Maze]]'' (1974), ''[[Maze Tracing]]'' (1974).
|-
| 3D Maze || The player is expected to solve a maze from beginning to end while viewing it from inside the maze in a first-person perspective. Later 3D maze games incorporate pursuing enemies or opponents. || ''[[Maze (1973 video game)|Maze]]'' (1973), ''[[Escape!]]'' (1978).
|-
| Maze Pursuit || The player is expected to avoid or defeat opponents in a maze. || ''[[Gotcha]]'' (1973), ''[[Heiankyo Alien]]'' (1979).
|-
| Maze Traversal || The player is expected to traverse all of the passages of a maze with enemies or an opponent in pursuit. || ''[[Head-On]]'' (1979), ''[[Pac-Man]]'' (1980).
|-
| Grid Capture || The player is expected to surround and "capture" areas of a maze with enemies or an opponent in pursuit. || ''[[Amidar]]'' (1981), ''[[Triple Punch]]'' (1982).
|}

==Personal==
I'm pretty sure the first maze video game I ever played was the arcade version of ''[[Pac-Man]]'' around 1985. My family also had ''[[Maze Craze]]'' and ''[[Pac-Man (2600)|Pac-Man]]'' for the Atari 2600. Although I really enjoyed mazes on paper in my childhood, and frequently drew them, I never really cared much for any of these games, and none of the sub-genres appeal to me either. I either find them to be too simplistic or too geared toward reflexive play.

==Games==
This is a list of maze game that are important to me. For all games in this genre, see the [[:Category:Video Game Genre - Maze|maze category]].

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Title !! Released !! Developer
|-
| ''[[Combat]]'' || 1977-09-11 || [[Atari]]
|-
| ''[[Katamari Damacy]]'' || 2004-03-18 || [[Namco]]
|-
| ''[[Maze Craze]]'' || 1980-??-?? || [[Atari]]
|-
| ''[[Ms. Pac-Man]]'' || 1982-02-03 || [[General Computer Corporation]], [[Midway]]
|-
| ''[[Pac-Man]]'' || 1980-10-26 || [[Namco]]
|-
| ''[[Pac-Man (2600)|Pac-Man]] (Atari 2600) || 1982-??-?? || [[Atari]]
|-
| ''[[Super Bomberman]]'' || 1993-04-28 || [[Hudson Soft]]
|-
| ''[[We Love Katamari]]'' || 2005-07-07 || [[Namco]]
|}

==Links==
{{Link|Wikipedia|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maze_video_games}}


[[Category: Video Game Genres]]