Review

Maize

Employing successful comedic elements in to any medium can be a difficult undertaking for one who hasn’t found the appropriate audience to appeal to. The main reason is fairly obvious – not everyone shares the same sense of humor. Knock, knock jokes might not win over a crowd consisting of people over the age of ten. That said, with the proper timing and a little wit, it’s possible to broaden a joke’s appeal. The opposite is also true…

Maize is a first person adventure game that, I feel, is a lesson in comedic delivery. The game places players in the shoes of a silent protagonist who randomly awakens near a cornfield one day.  Upon exploring his surroundings, he’ll come across a house and what looks like the entrance to an underground bunker. Paths leading from the house to other locations are blocked by clumsily stacked boxes. Arrows or markers left on scattered debris inform him of what lies beyond the artificial barriers; a windmill is to the left, a barn is to the right, etc.. Taking the only path that’s available (for some reason he can’t push through the boxes) he stumbles onto his first clue – the remains of a dead scientist wearing a lab coat adorned with jumper cables.

The plot unfolds in classic Adventure game fashion via discarded documents and visual evidence of past dealings. Seeing the aforementioned dead scientist raises questions. Finding his journal detailing his desire to rise above his previous station sheds some light on what lead to his death. As the player goes about solving puzzles using items found in the environment, things will get progressively surreal. Wacky scientists who only speak in posted notes, sentient corn, and a Russian version of Teddy Ruxpin called Vladdy all add to one peculiar situation at this secluded location.

The nonsensical story is ripe with opportunities for a clever pun or random gag. Picking up a scrap of paper could reveal more about your current surroundings, or it could also just provide some self-reflection thanks to a witty script that often breaks the 4th wall. You may read something like “you’re left perplexed after perusing these government documents. Not because you didn’t understand what was typed, but because after an hour of searching through a dictionary, you still don’t know what the word “perplexed” means”. There are also a couple of funny encounters with strange characters; there’s a large corn fellow who loves to storm off after a long rant, only to return to knock over a random glass item before leaving again.

While the early bits allowed for a chuckle or two, I felt as though the developers/writers at Finish Line over played their comedic hands. Again, like most adventure games, the player will need to pick up items and use them to solve puzzles. The problem here is that the game doesn’t differentiate between important items and useless junk. Objects that can be interacted with will glow yellow, prompting you to pick them up as they may be needed to solve a puzzle. At the very least, you’d expect them to add to the story in a meaningful way. A lot of the time you’ll get something that was placed in the environment as a joke. After picking up a rock, the game told me that it wasn’t needed to complete this adventure and that I had named it Bob. An hour later I had picked up three more rocks, all of which weren’t needed to progress the story nor provided any worthwhile information.

This problem grew as the game stretched on. Not just with the items but with the characters as well. Vladdy’s sole purpose seems to be to insult everyone he came in contact with. Sure, he’ll help you open a door or too but for the most part, he’s the comic relief. And while it could have been entertaining if held to a minimum, the abundance of “stupid American” lines boarder on aggravating. Basically, certain comedic elements were overused to the point of besetting the game’s few good points (mainly the mystery of the talking corn). Now to be fair, the ending does reveal why the game insisted on berating you with insults. It doesn’t make what happened any more entertaining though. You just…won’t be as confused as you were starting out.

Maize is a campy adventure game that provides a mediocre experience. Only a few jokes hit their mark, none of the puzzles were that challenging, and the story is entirely forgettable. This is sad because it has the potential to be a rather interesting game story wise. Or at the very least, a funnier one!