PLATFORM | PC
DEVELOPER | WIZKODER
RELEASE | 2.5.12
In the best and worst ways, Lost Labyrinth is a Windows 95 game.
Though it may be a 2012 release, this indie dungeon-crawler can’t help but hearken back to the mid-’90s—that crossroads between the death of freeware and the birth of casual gaming. It does this with cute, semi-appropriated RPG Maker sprites, a garish interface and some big-ass, delightfully unbalanced character building—i.e. “the best ways.” It also does this with repetitive sound effects, questionable design choices, and an inventory screen that closes itself after every action, forcing you to open it again if you want to equip more than one item at a time. Yep, these are “the worst ways.”
Lost Labyrinth is ultimately a game one can’t help but, well, get lost in. The problem is it’s hard to tell if that wanderlust is brought on by a deep, well-crafted world of Tolkien-esque complexity, or by a confusing, half-baked interface that fails to telegraph when the player does something right.
More than likely it’s both, leaving Labyrinth at a crossroads that, sadly, needs to be passed over.
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