Mr. Maze is a self-admitted "budget" first-person adventure by Mark J. Lovegrove, published by Screen 7, and released in February 2019 for PC. It can be purchased through Steam here
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Peter Porter's daughter Penny loves mazes, and has asked her father to take her to a giant maze attraction built by the legendary "Maze Meister". However, when the Meister himself uses magic to kidnap her, Peter gives chase, and ends up in a realm of mazes he must navigate in order to rescue her.
Mr. Tropes:
- Action Dad: Peter Porter, the main protagonist, is driven to rescue his daughter no matter what the Maze Meister does to try and stop him.
- Alliterative Name: The main characters are Peter Porter, his daughter Penny Porter, and the villainous Maze Meister.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different:
- Midway through the game, the scene briefly shifts from Peter trying to reach where his daughter is being imprisoned to Penny trying to escape the Maze Meister's dungeon, and swaps back to Peter soon after.
- By finding all of the Thought Stones in a level, the player unlocks new bonuses in "The Study", where they play as the Maze Meister himself and interacts with them.
- Beneath Suspicion: Midway through the game, it turns out that the Maze Meister is none other than the ticket attendant for the Scrap Palace attraction that Peter interacted with at the very start.
- Book Ends: After the confrontation with the Maze Meister in his castle, the final playable segment is the same as the first: back at the Scrap Palace maze attraction in the real world.
- Disney Villain Death: In the final confrontation at the top of Meister's Mount, the stag stuns the Maze Meister and Peter punches him off the mountaintop, with the camera cutting away while he's still falling.
- Environmental Narrative Game: Every level is centered around beating a different version of The Maze, but there are never any dangerous threats and the player can take as long as they like to explore each level. Additionally, there is various lore and other narrative elements that can be discovered by exploring, either through activating Thought Stones or reading the journals of other victims of the Maze Meister.
- Foreshadowing: While exploring the Maze Meister's dungeons, Penny comes across a trio of caged-up animals: a sheep, a horse, and a stag. Later, she sees the Maze Meister muttering to himself over what to have for dinner: the sheep or the horse. He didn't mention the stag because it's actually a Guardian Entity that he wasn't aware of.
- Guardian Entity: The stag, which Peter and Penny can see throughout the game (including the very start in the real world), turns out to be the last man who challenged the Meister, using magic to watch over and protect them.
- Jump Scare: In-Universe, the linear corridor that is the entrance of Brain Castle is filled with skeletons suddenly popping into existence with a scream and then immediately disappearing, which at first genuinely startles Peter but ends with him just getting annoyed at the constant interruptions.
- Klingon Promotion: One of the Thought Stones on Dinky Island is about a man that's envious of another islander that's setting up a ferry business, and decides to promote himself to "Captain". When Peter seeks out the sole ferryman after solving the level's mazes, he speaks with the same voice that narrated that Thought Stone.
- Living Memory: Scattered throughout all of the "realms" are Thought Stones, which record the thoughts of those that first interact with them (whether it's a mere rabbit, a robot servant, or Peter himself) and plays them back when Peter or Penny interact with them.
- The Maze: The game revolves around exploring a variety of mazes in order to activate runes, reach their goals, and continue the story.
- My Greatest Failure: The Maze Meister's actions are motivated by his own. The Inferno was originally a magical hedge maze that he designed for his own daughter, but the magic went wild and it caught fire. The Meister then failed to dispel the flames and save his daughter, with the only trace of her remaining being a memory in the Thought Stone in its center, which he's been sending the people he kidnaps to try and obtain.
- Not Quite Dead: In The Stinger, the Maze Meister awakens from his Disney Villain Death at the bottom in a snow pile and vows to get his vengeance on Peter.
- Sequel Hook: The game ends with Penny wondering how all of the other people the Maze Meister kidnapped will be rescued, with Peter dismissing it by saying that it will take a smarter mind than his own to do that and the Stag will still be there to protect the Dwellers until then. And then The Stinger, the Meister awakens from his fall and declares that he'll get his revenge on Peter.
- Shout-Out:
- There is a blatant poster of John Snow with the Game of Thrones logo on one of the walls in the Scrap Palace maze.
- "Big Jim", the Snake Oil Salesman, is such an obvious reference to Jimquisition that his "Big Jimporium" store uses an exact copy of James Stephanie Sterling's original logo.
- A Thought Stone that recorded "Big Jim" has him think about how the current location of his business is much better than the last place he visited, "The Rim of the Sky".
- Snake Oil Salesman: "Big Jim", a large, tophatted salesman at Dock Town, is mostly focused on turning a profit despite being trapped in the Maze Meister's realms, and sells mainly waterproof barrels and figurines of himself.
- Title Drop: At the end of the game, people call Peter "Mr. Maze" for having conquered the Maze Meister's challenges and rescued his daughter and some other children in the process, revealing that it's a Protagonist Title.
