Theseus and the Maze

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Pater Alf
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Theseus and the Maze

Post by Pater Alf »

A nice little platform game in which you have to collect as many gems as possible and find/reach the exit of the maze. Graphics are cute (remind me of "Cave Story" and "The Underside"), level design is great and the game gets quite tough after a while.

"Theseus and the Maze" was made for the YoYo Ancient Civilisation competition.

Developer: Joep Aben

Download: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=373246

Download size: 5.2 MB

Year: 2008

Status: Have to check if we can host it...
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Chroelle
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Post by Chroelle »

I am wondering why they decided to go with Theseus? Is there more that combines this game with the myth more than the maze? A minotaur, a fair princess...even a dad throwing himself off of a cliff because his son forgot to change his sails...?
But the game sure does look playable, and I will definently try it out as soon as I find time to dive back in to gaming.
Currently testing Life version 2.9 (With added second child)
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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

I haven't played through the whole game yet, but I think the only reason that it has Theseus in the title is that they wanted it to be an entry in the Ancient Civilisation competition...
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Post by Pater Alf »

I really like this game. It has cute graphics, a nice soundtrack (that doesn't distract you from playing) and most important a brilliant level design. Your only task is to reach the exit of the maze, but that is much harder than it sounds as the game really gets tough after a while (and it's not easy right from the beginning).
So far I have played for hours and I don't think that I'm even somewhere near the exit. But even after I failed to reach a certain point over and over and over again, the game didn't get frustrating for me and I think that's a rare quality.

Developer said that "Theseus and the Maze" was designed as a speedrun game and the highscore table says that there really is a guy that completed the whole game and collected all 100 gems in a bit more than 13 minutes. If he did that without cheating, I bow my head in awe as I'm not even able to reach the next savepoint in that time... :greetings:
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Post by Chroelle »

I could once more go short and write Ditto, but I will try to say what I liked about it as well.
The fact that the maze opened up more and more as you solved puzzles, collected powerups and cleared obstacles, was so well working that I started loving this rather soon in my gameplay. The fact that you didn't have a limited number of lives to solve it was a good thing though.
I never found the exit, but I am sure that you could if you tried hard... I did find an obstacle that annoyed me to the point of quitting - and now I am a bit sad that I did.... :(
Currently testing Life version 2.9 (With added second child)
(Beta testing in progress)

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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

Then go back and try again. If there is a guy that can solve this game in 13 minutes, I'm sure you can do it as well... :)
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Scythe
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Post by Scythe »

Maybe I stand a chance. It only took me 5 minutes to reach the second checkpoint. :p But I'm afraid my fingers will snap if I keep playing.
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Post by Scythe »

I seem to have gotten myself stuck here. Any ideas? I can jump two blocks worth of height.
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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

Where did you come from?
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Scythe
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Post by Scythe »

Up left.
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Post by Pater Alf »

Hmm, will try if I can find the place...
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Post by Pater Alf »

I fear you are really trapped. But if you want I can send you my savegame that is pretty near this place.

And here's a link to a video walkthrough, so you can see what you did wrong (but in fact the developer did something wrong, because he gave you the possibility to get there, before you have high jump skill):

http://www.truveo.com/Lets-play-Theseus ... 3719483870#
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Scythe
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Post by Scythe »

Huge kick in the nuts to the developer!
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Post by Pater Alf »

I will write to the developer and ask him if he build this trap on purpose (I don't think so) or if it is kind of a level design bug...
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Post by Scythe »

Thanks for the save, I will see if I can avoid that silly trap when I have some more time. There should have just been an exit to the left in the ice area or something. The game is hard enough without trapping you completely.
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Post by Scythe »

I can see why you haven't made it any further, that next part is seriously sadistic.

There's a pretty annoying bug as well, when bouncing off the pink blocks, sometimes you will be flung and stuck moving left, continuing this movement even after death, forcing a reset to fix it.
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Post by Pater Alf »

That happened to me too some times, but I always was able to move on after a while (by jumping and moving) and was never completely stuck.

About the trap: I really think it's a bug. You weren't supposed to get there before you have highjump, but you can get there by jumping to the left first and then to the right. I still hope that the developer can fix it by adding one or two extra blocks, so it's not possible to get there without the ability you need. If he really created this trap by purpose it would really have been sadistic...
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Post by Scythe »

Ok, that's enough of that.
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Post by eMTe »

I have a strange problem with downloaddll.dll file (one of the files which is created when you run theseus exe file). When I try to run game for the second time it hangs with the black window and wait cursor. I can close the window only via task manager. The only solution is to delete dll before next run and repeat this action every time. I dont know much about how dlls work, but seems to me like a pretty odd problem. At least it's not critical. 8)
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