Warning: corn puns ahead.
Those who know me will tell you that I have a love for puzzle games, and those who know me better will probably tell you that I crack way too many bad jokes for my own good. Good thing (or bad thing) is, Maize combines both of those things, effectively turning itself into one of my favourite games.
Easily the most ridiculous experience since The Stanley Parable, Maize sometimes has you running around a maze made of maize, and other times running through an underground nuclear reactor. The areas above and below ground stand in starch contrast to each other, but still fit together surprisingly well. The wacky story with small additions in the form of passive-aggressive post-it notes between co-workers and stuff you can find in your folio will keep you busy for about five hours, maybe more, depending on how bad you are at finding stuff.
The gameplay in Maize is, for the most par,t the typical point-and-click style, but can pick anything up up, or anything that needs an item has a highlighted border in certain colours. The game world of Maize is blocked off above ground by corn or red boxes, whereas the underground areas are locked with either red boxes or otherwise.
Red boxes block off areas that can’t be accessed anymore or yet, and any removal or addition of these is usually first shown by the “tutorial” texts shown on screen. This text is, however, not written in a dry way, not taking itself seriously while telling you that the way is “coincidentally” open. The same text repeatedly tells you that pressing Q does nothing. Trying it several times revealed that pressing q really doesn’t do anything. If you don’t believe me, feel free to press Q. Trust me, it’s useless. Don’t press it. Stop it. No. Don’t do that. Stop pressing Q.
The game manages to be self-aware through humorous use of barriers, without directly breaking the fourth wall. The sarcastic writing makes fun of you, the player, for being ridiculously stupid. One of the characters, a Russian teddy-bear named Vladdy who likes to throw insults around, calls you stupid all the time. The description of each item in your inventory is written in such a way so as to get across how much of an idiot you really are.
Although the sentient corn stalks (yes, that is a thing) don’t have the best animated faces, their looks fit the overall tone of the game. The cutscenes have a separation from the rest of the game via black bars at the top and bottom, but the transitions are usually spotless. Maize’s music is not too bad, but can start getting monotonous at times, when you’ve been walking in circles around the same area looking for the thing you missed. Sometimes the answer is something you didn’t think to try, because you thought the required item would be coming later. If you’re stuck, and you’re absolutely sure you’ve picked everything up, then try those things that would technically work but are not what you expected to be an answer. The game is full of those mechanics, surprising you with the humorous way a puzzle is built up.
Vladdy the Russian teddy-bear is found in the underground area and begins to follow you around as soon as you meet him. The corn stalks that obviously have British accents, because what else would sentient corn stalks sound like, constantly mistake Vladdy for a helicopter, asking him for rides and being offended when he refuses their request. Vladdy is used for many a punchline, fixing machines needed to open doors, as well as climbing through vaults. He really, really doesn’t like climbing thought vaults. At all.
The villain, a sentient corn stalk with a stereotypically angry bad guy voice and a fur coat that rushes around the underground area, has just as much a knack for calling you an idiot as Vladdy does. He yells hysterically and talks fast, running from place to place while flailing his arms. It seems like the whole game is obsessed with calling you an idiot. I guess it makes sense, because you definitely are.
The queen of the sentient corn stalks has a ridiculously pink face, and a female voice, but still British. She has a huge dress made out of leaves, and for some reason has an open area where the lungs would be for a human. That alone would be fine, because all the others are basically walking sticks, but she has some kind of floating confetti that seems to stimulate her breathing. Either that was intended or I just stared at the game for way too long. It’s probably the latter due to the fact that I was way too tired. So, for that reason, you might want to take anything I say about the humor with a grain of salt, because I laughed at almost everything in Maize.
Maize has successfully snuck itself into my top five games of this year. It’s definitely not the best, but it’s up there. The corn stalk(er)s and Vladdy, the angry teddy-bear that looks just a bit too much like Ted with a mechanical claw on his back, make this game into a ridiculously fun time that I won’t soon forget. The post-it notes littered all over the underground areas make the whole thing even better. It’s not a-maize-ing, but it’s a damn good game nonetheless.
Copy provided by publisher. Available on PC.
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