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MadMaze was an online video game playable through the now-defunct Prodigy service. It was designed by Eric Goldberg and developed by Greg Costikyan in 1989, and was the first online game to draw over a million players. The game disappeared in 1999 with the death of the Prodigy service, but has since been rehosted by fans of the game, with permission from the service and the game's creator.
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The player takes on the role of a boy hailing from the Village of Weith. Wellan, the Village Elder, explains to you that The Mad One, [[Mad God|an insane deity born of primal chaos]], has awakened, and is slowly reclaiming the world, transforming the land it controls into a sprawling and hazardous maze. Now, the MadMaze approaches Weith, and threatens to engulf the village. The boy is tasked by Wellan to travel to the center of the MadMaze and recruit the help of [[Big Good|a wizard named Moraziel]] on the pretext that only with his help can the Mad One be defeated.
The [[
The maze itself is composed of straight, [[Cut and Paste Environments|homogenous]] corridors and right-angle turns. Each section can be easily mapped out on a sheet of graph paper, and beyond the first level, this becomes necessary. You must navigate the sprawling labyrinth in a first-person perspective and locate Places of Power.
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At any time outside of a PoP, you can save your game, though you only have one save file available. There is also a password system, but as it was dropped entirely from the second level onward, you can only use it to warp to two PoPs in the first level.
[http://
[http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/171 Discussion of the game can be found here.]
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* [[Ax Crazy]]: From Castle Perilous onward, nearly everybody and everything you meet comes with the option to kill it. If you so desire, you can hack-and-slash your way through the maze, though by failing to collect any information, it's unlikely you'll get very far.
* [[Big Bad]]: The Mad One
* [[Big Creepy
* [[Big Good]]: Moraziel
** To a MUCH greater extent, the goddess known as The Lady.
* [[Bigger
* [[But Thou Must!]]: Upon completing the first level, King Carlon will grant you possession of the Sword Valterre. If you refuse out of humility, Carlon will give it to you anyway, while explaining how deserving you are of it.
* [[Cool Horse]]
* [[Cool Sword]]: Valterre.
* [[Cruel and Unusual Death]]: The Insect Mother killed one of her husbands "by implanting eggs in his body, so that the hatching larvae would feed on his living flesh. [[For the Evulz|That was a most amusing death.]]"
* [[Deal
* [[Dialogue Tree]]
* [[Did Not Do the Research]]: One clue we're given is to "Pull the primes". This refers to a structure of 9 rods. pull the right rods, and it opens a secred door. Pull the wrong ones, the structure collapses on you and you die. You're supposed to pull the rods with a prime number to succeed. Goldberg evidently forgot that 2 is a prime number. Pull on the 2 rod, you die. {{spoiler|The rods you're supposed to pull are 3, 5, and 7.}}
* [[Dirty Coward]]: {{spoiler|Moraziel.}}
* [[
* [[The Dragon]]: The Mad One's Archpriest.
* [[Elemental Powers]]: For the third level, you gain the power to control the nine elements - [[Playing
* [[Everybody Hates Mathematics]]: The final trial guarding the exit to the second level is the dreaded [[Punny Name|Al-Gibra]].
* [[Exposition Break]]: Usually provided by the local sage living in each level, though you'll need to talk to other [[NPC|NPCs]] to get a more complete picture.
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* [[The Load]]: Iggy the Wizard, whom you are imprisoned with at one point. He reveals an exit to you, but beyond that either provides no help in the puzzles to come, or suggests the wrong answers.
** He usually does manage to give good advice most of the time he gives advice. It's just that most of the time, he doesn't offer a suggestion and he can [[Never Live It Down]] the one time he gives bad advice on {{spoiler|which fruits to pick.}} If you consult Iggy in the final round of your final battle with [[The Dragon|the Archpriest]] he will inadvertantly give you the clue to winning.
* [[Lost Forever]]: Technically averted. The game does not keep track of your inventory or information you come across as you move from Place Of Power to Place Of Power. To use an item, you have to prove you own it by describing some of its features. This means that you can get through any situation simply by saving beforehand and brute-forcing the solution if necessary
:That said, if you are opposed to guessing answers or using [[Walkthrough|walkthroughs]], it is incredibly easy to permanently lose access to important information. PoPs can be repeated indefinitely (as explained in the [[Shall I Repeat That?]] entry), but once you pass through them to the maze beyond, the exit is immediately walled off behind you. With some exceptions, you won't be able to reach that PoP (or preceding PoPs) ever again.
:Thankfully, the third level, which is harder in many respects to the first two levels, is lenient in this regard, as most PoPs can be revisited.
* [[Mad God]]: The [[Big Bad]] of the game, referred to as The Mad One, or [[He Who Must Not Be Named|He Whose Name Is Not Spoken]].
* [[The Maze]]: It's called MadMaze [[Exactly What It Says
** [[Mobile Maze]]: "A wall is closing in behind you!" This happens whenever you leave a Place Of Power, besides the way you came in.
* [[Multiple Endings]]: In the final Place of Power, there are two options that both explicitly end with "The End". In the good ending, you defeat [[The Dragon|the Archpriest]] and you and your 2 companions are awareded by [[Big Good|The Lady.]] In the bad ending, you live but {{spoiler|are forced to [[Face Heel Turn|become the Mad One's minion]], spending the rest of your life committing atrocities, with the knowledge that your home village is spared being your only consolation.}}
* [[Nintendo Hard]]:
** [[Averted Trope|The first level is of easy-medium difficulty.]]
** The second level considerably trickier, as it's easy to miss important passwords or information. If you're not consulting a [[Walkthrough]], and you miss anything, [[Lost Forever|you're out of luck.]] The mazes are also nearly twice the size of the first level's.
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* [[The Password Is Always Swordfish]]: You can open the magically locked door in the tower of Castle Perilous just by saying "Open Sesame".
* [[Petting Zoo People]]: The third level is home to various sapient races, including dinosaurs, jungle cats, and giant bugs.
* [[Point of No Return]]: The third level, which stops dividing the maze into discrete [[Game Level|sections]], has two of the Cruel variety.
** Once you enter the Insect Mother's lair, you'll be trapped in a small sub-section, with the only exit being the Pyramid of the Insectidae. If you haven't yet gathered all the information to pass the traps, and save here... well, prepare to die. A lot.
** Another occurs when you enter the final section of the maze.
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** Dare the troll guarding the well to arm-wrestle you.
** Stride right on up to the front gate of Castle Perilous and announce how you'll topple the evil regime single-handedly. [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?]]!
{{quote|
** Climb to the highest peak of the Taralen Mountains, and leap to your death.
** Swim through the River of Flame. Or better yet, ''drink'' from the River of Flame.
{{quote|
** Tell the booming voice at the chasm that your quest is to find a nice ranch-style colonial near good schools.
** Go to the Plain of Ferit, and summon a roc.
{{quote|Are you SURE?
-- Yes|No}}
** Press a ''VOLCANO GOD'' for information and, when he angrily tells you to leave, push your luck.
{{quote|
** Provoke the wrath of the Wizard Wicksmear, and you'll be given the choice to either "flee", or "stay and die." Unfortunately, picking the latter does not reward you with a funny message... or any message at all, really. It just ends the game.
* [[
* [[Second Person Narration]]
* [[Secret Ingredient]]: Before [[Portal (
* [[Shall I Repeat That?]]: Exaggerated. Most PoPs can be repeated indefinitely by exiting the way you came and going back in. Also, within a given PoP, you can repeat actions that should not be repeatable, such as killing stuff.
** A rather sadistic example of this occurs after the shaman sends you off to the series of mazes leading to the River of Flame. When you finally return to the shaman, you are given the choice to Go North, or Go East (Towards Temple). If you accidentally select the former option, you must ''run the series of mazes to the River of Flame all over again''.
* [[Snake Oil Salesman]]: Friendly Achmed's Caravan of Fabulous Goods at Low, Low Prices. In a subversion, the only item you need to progress (or rather, the password necessary to activate it) is legitimate.
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* [[Talk to Everyone]]: If you want to complete the game without a guide, you must seek out every NPC hiding in the maze, solve every problem, and accept every quest.
* [[Terms of Endangerment]]: The Crone Matilda is awfully fond of these.
* [[Unwinnable
** If you enter Ogrok's pit in Castle Perilous before you get the Sword Valterre, you'll be left only with the choice to die bravely or die screaming.
** If you demand that the lyon tell you the necessary words to pass through the ruins of Al-Mugabi, he'll give them to you, but you won't survive long enough to use them.
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** In the final PoP, if you give the message to the Archpriest, your only options are to either get instantly killed by him or suffer the [[Multiple Endings|bad ending.]]
* [[Unwinnable By Mistake]]: If you decide to play the game honestly and abstain from guessing or looking up the answers elsewhere, a single missed password will leave you unable to progress.
** The most egregious example of this is when the maze forks into two paths past a desert. One path leads to the Twisted Temple, while the other leads to the River of Flame. If you choose to go to the Twisted Temple, you'll find a password-protected door to the next maze. A shaman living nearby will offer to give you the password in exchange for traveling to the River of Flame and bringing back some firewater. Taking him up on his offer takes you to the start of the series of mazes that will eventually let you reach the River of Flame. He also gives you a password to warp you back to his yurt once you've done so
:Now, here's the thing: at the desert, if you choose to go to the River of Flame, you'll be taken to exactly the same place as if you'd taken up the shaman's offer. Except, if you haven't visited the shaman yet (and if this is your first time through, you haven't), then you have no idea that you're supposed to collect some firewater or return to his yurt with it. Even if you manage to collect some firewater, no one except for the Shaman himself gives you the necessary password to return to him. And there are no exits from the maze where you find the River of Flame, so you will be trapped unless you guess the password.
:So basically, save yourself the trouble, and take the Northeast path to the Temple every time. Otherwise, you'll take the longer path (the Temple path has 5 mazes, compared to the River's 6), and be forced to miss an entire section of the game.
** See also the [[Game Breaking Bug]] above.
* [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]: You'll know you're there when you reach the first section of maze that ''isn't'' outdoors.
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* [[Violation of Common Sense]]: When you reach the Edge of the World for the second time, you can climb the cliffs to reach the next section. {{spoiler|If you jump off, you get there much quicker. This despite the fact that the first time you find the Edge of the World, jumping off will result in you falling for eternity, and eventually dying of dehydration.}}
* [[Weird Moon]]: {{spoiler|The final sections of the maze.}}
* [[What the Hell, Player?]]:
** If you reach the River of Flame and, before collecting some firewater, chant the spell to transport yourself back to the shaman, prepare to get an earful.
** When you encounter a large green dragon blocking your path, he'll force you to play a game with him. If you stall for time, eventually the dragon will lose his temper and tell you to just "shut up and play."
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