In Zardy's Maze, Scarecrows scare you.
Zardy's Maze is a videogame developed by SwankyBox
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The story is simple to follow; you are a farmer trying to chop down strange weeds that have infested your corn maze. This task is easier said than done, because the plants weren't the only things to break into your maze - in fact, several Scary Scarecrows are roaming the maze with the only goal of offing you on sight. Armed with just an axe and a flashlight, you must destroy the weeds and get out of the maze alive.
The game can be obtained for free on Steam - additionally, SwankyBox later released a Friday Night Funkin' Game Mod with Zardy as the opponent, known as V.S Zardy - Foolhardy, in collaboration with musician Rozebud and artist StarnyArt.
This game provides examples of:
- Artificial Brilliance: Most adversaries have a very competent pathfinding system that will try its best to screw you over. On the higher difficulties, various enemies discover new applications of their basic abilities (Cablecrows start launching themselves at diagonal angles instead of straight lines) and begin actively coordinating with each other to box the player in.
- Artificial Stupidity: The Brutes are absurdly easy to lure into a spot to alter their patrol routine and make cutting vines much easier.
- Badass Normal: The player is a simple farmer, yet can humiliate a massive army of scarecrows by themselves and destroy giant-sized vines in just a matter of three hits.
- Big Bad: Zardy is the only mobile character with a max count of 1, but unlike other characters, he is always aware of your location and will actively stalk and hunt you down, having a tendency to actively spawn behind or right in front of you while you're too distracted or busy running away, and he will spawn behind you whenever a vine is destroyed.
- Boring, but Practical: Jumping is at first glance an absolutely useless skill, but it is required to avoid Pumpkin Crawlers and can be used to have a bird-view of the maze, helping you find spots to escape into if you ever come across a dead end. It also lets the player spot Cablecrows as they fly around.
- Brutal Bonus Level: Maxing out each character's difficulty and enemy count and playing on a random map seed on Challenge Mode is a
Nintendo Hard Luck-Based Mission that requires lots of skill to complete. For the record: Foolhardy, the achievement obtained from playing this gamemode, only needs you to cut a single vine out of five and exit the maze. - By the Lights of Their Eyes: Zardy, Pumpkin Jack, Pumpkin Crawler and the Cornstalkers's eyes glow in a similar fashion to Jack 'O' Lanterns.
- Cruel and Unusual Death:
- Zardy will both slit your neck and whack you to the ground using his hoe.
- The most brutal jumpscare comes from Cablecrow, not because of the jumpscare itself, but because they will use their grapple hook to send your character flying towards a wooden pole at terminal velocity.
- Developer's Foresight: If you leave the maze while Zardy is trailing behind, he won't follow, but will instead wave at you and fade away as if the flashlight was shone on him.
- Eldritch Location: Thanks to the mysterious vines, the maze itself. Whenever a vine is destroyed, roots will begin to sprout from the ground as the entire maze begins to shake; if the player does not escape through an exit in time, the maze will block itself using a green forcefield, and if they do manage to escape, said exit will be blocked off by yet another ominous vine.
- Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Swankybox has stated that the Rattler is usually independent from Zardy and his crew, but they aren't averse to working together.
- Guide Dang It!: There are a lot of secrets in the game that are hidden in plain sight that are very easy to overlook.
- When the maze locks up after all vines have been destroyed, there will be a pixelated vine somewhere in the maze that you can climb on in order to end the game and get a secret ending.
- The door to the shack in the beginning of Story Mode can only be found randomly in the challenge "Needle in a Haystack", which takes place in a pitch dark maze, but the game doesn't tell you it even exists and provides no help in tracking it.
- Destroying a Pumpkin Crawler will make all nearby Pumpkin Jacks hiss, alerting you that they're en route, but what you probably wouldn't figure out through normal gameplay is that destroying a Pumpkin Crawler actually summons an entirely new Pumpkin Jack too.
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: Cablecrows move via hitching a grappling hook onto different wooden poles located in the maze, and will kill you if you do come in contact with them while they're in motion. A later update introduced the Rattlers, robot-like enemies who weaponize said item by directly aiming it towards the player. One hit from their grappling hooks and you're toast.
- Limp and Livid: Pumpkin Jack's arms hang slack at his sides while he walks, and he almost looks as if he's limping at times, but that doesn't mean he can't pick up speed when he's motivated.
- Lost in the Maize: The entire game happens inside a labyrinthic cornfield. The player can utilize the corn itself to hide away from foes and cut through the walls of the maze at the cost of a slower running speed. Stay too long inside, however, and Zardy will go out of his way to instantly kill you.
- Meaningful Name: Zardy is a short, informal nickname for "Zahrada", a Slavic noun meaning "Garden". Zardy, being a scarecrow, is the primary keeper of a large cornfield and carries a gardening hoe to till the fields and assault anyone who trespasses in the field.
- My Rules Are Not Your Rules: The Cornstalkers will block you from turning back unless you destroy them using the axe and the Pumpkin Crawlers will slow you down if you've got the nerve to step on them. Everybody else will just walk through said obstacles.
- Nintendo Hard: To put it lightly, the game is brutal. Multiple factors such as the randomly-generated map and enemy positions can screw you over: special mention to Pumpkin Crawlers, who can slow you down while navigating in the middle of a cornfield.
- No-Sell: Unlike most characters, Zardy will not lose track of you if you attempt to hide in the cornfield and will instead wait for you in whatever place you decide to exit, and if you navigate through the corn for too long, Zardy will instantly kill you.
- Pacifist Run: It is entirely possible to beat the game without having to utilize the axe or the flashlight against any of the scarecrows. Beating the game without using the latter will even award you with a secret ending.
- Scary Scarecrows: So, so many of them, at that. Zardy, Pumpkin Jack, Cablecrow, Brute, and Rattler are all made of varying combinations of burlap, straw, gardening tools, wood, and malice.
- Shout-Out:
- There is a graveyard called "Knot Cannon" (Punny Name for "Not Canon") where tombstones of several familiar names can be found, such as a Monika, Samuel Lawrence and Baldimo Basicco.
- A silhouette of the youtuber Tetra Bit Gaming's logo can be found in a tree. There is also a message written in the floor wishing the youtuber 8BitRyan good luck and the text "CAN THEY SOLVE IT?" near a silhouette of Game Theory's logo as means of challenging them to crack the game's plot.
- A face very reminiscent of Toad's face from Super Mario 64 can be found engraved into a tree as a reference to SimpleFlips, streamer who caused said texture to achieve memetic status in the Super Mario 64 community.
- By obtaining the key to the shed, a "gaming crossword" can be found pinned to one of the walls which appears to reference popular indie horror characters such as Freddy Fazbear. The purpose of this crossword is unknown, but it is presumed to serve plot relevance..
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: The game will provide zero hints as to how each mechanic work excepts for the flashlight and the axe. Either you die a thousand times to learn what each character does, or you look up a guide.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: While not a gameplay change per-se, challenge "Needle in a Haystack" will start with the player only holding their flashlight in total darkness; their goal is to find their axe somewhere on the map and destroy a single vine. The only problem? The vine is extremely small, and there is no way to pinpoint its location until it's right in front of you, which can result in spending most of the challenge walking around looking for the damn thing.
- A major change came with the steady revelation by a group of players. The game as a whole was also was part scavenger hunt. The Gaming Crossword in the shed uses not just video games as references, but specifically games that Swankybox has made videos on and hidden clues in, which includes having modded the games he talks about without comment to add references to Zardy, and videos made years before the release of Zardy's Maze.
- A Winner Is You:
- Beating the story mode will award you with your screen slowly fading into white alongside some cryptic text.
- Completing the game in challenge mode will award you with a simple black screen reading "CHALLENGE COMPLETE".
- Beating the game through special requirements such as not picking up the flashlight or climbing an odd-looking vine will grant you a screen with an odd array of characters. Decoding these gave result to videos of a Pumpkin Jack performing the Default Dance uploaded by seemingly unrelated channels, however, these rather humorous videos lead hidden videos in SwankyBox's official channel depicting situations such as a meteor falling and the unnamed farmer seemingly falling victim to a Pumpkin Jack whilst trying to investigate the situation.
