Game 591: Mazes and Monsters (1982)

There's no game name, but the screen gets the important part.

           

Mazes and Monsters

United States

Micro Video Corp (developer and publisher)
Released 1982 for Interact Home Computer
Date Started: 12 August 2026

       

A short and simple game is fine. A long and complex game is also fine. A short and complex game is a bit weird, and rare, but I wouldn't exactly call it a problem.

   

The problem is when a game decides to be long and simple, when it reveals all its tricks within 20 squares of exploration and you still have 2,000 squares to go. Mazes and Monsters (which, if it does nothing else right, nails the title) is that kind of game. If it had no ending, just a vague goal to get stronger, this entry would be finished in 1,500 words and less than one hour. Because it has a winning condition, it will probably require 1,600 words and 60 hours. Of course, the manual sees this as a selling point: "Mazes and Monsters is a game you might well play forever."

       

A good reminder when you're considering investing 60 hours in a simple wireframe game.

        

If we give it a bit of a pass, it's first because it's from 1982, before developers really knew how to do anything, and because it's for a platform so niche I hadn't even heard about it until this year. The Interact Home Computer (also called the Interact Family Computer) was developed by Interact Electronic of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and hit shelves in June 1978. By June 1979, units were off the shelves and the company was bankrupt. Later, a French company bought it and marketed it as the Victor Lambda. In 16 years of blogging, no one has ever asked me when I'm going to play a game for the Interact computer.

    

Though short-lived, the company lasted long enough to inspire a spate of software from Micro Video Corp, also based in Ann Arbor, to include Mazes and Monsters and The Dragon's Dungeon (also 1982; I didn't think it was an RPG). These games are unlisted in any online database, so as usual we have El Explorador de RPG to thank for dragging them out of the pages of computer magazines of the era. Even then, Mazes and Monsters might have been lost given that the title screen in the existing dump has no name. The only online source to include the game lists it as Castle, likely because of the title screen image. Fortunately, El Explorador also dug up documentation from the era that confirms the title.

      

A decent set of attributes.

       

Mazes takes place in a dungeon of eight 16 x 16 levels with a castle on top—specifically, a "7th-century" castle, which isn't very helpful in a game that doesn't tell you the current year. The backstory is that the Sacred Orb has been stolen and hidden on the eighth level, and you've got to retrieve it. The player selects from a dwarf, elf, or human character and then rolls as many times as he wants for strength, dexterity, IQ, and vigor (3-20, affected by race) and initial hit points (2-12). He then enters the dungeon, which he explores with (F)orward, (L)eft, (R)ight, and (T)urn around commands.

      

The dungeon levels are randomly generated for each new session, which might include any number of characters. When one character dies, another takes his place, unless you reload completely and start a new game after the title. The random generation not only includes the wall/door configuration but the initial placement of monsters, who do not move, and the placement of traps, stairways, books, and treasures.

           

Exploring the dungeon.

      

There are 15 monster types, including thieves, warriors, wizards, gargoyles, ghosts, death, demons, vampires, and dragons. You can encounter any monster on any level of the dungeon; their difficulty is a combination of their inherent strength and the level you're on. Thieves, the easiest enemies, are worth 10 experience points x the current level while sphinxes are worth 250. A Level 4 wizard (20 x 4 = 80 XP) is about as hard as a Level 2 troll (40 x 2). Some monsters have special attacks and defenses. Thieves can steal, for instance, and mind flayers can drain IQ points.

      

The thief lives up to his name.

        

Against these monsters, the character has only the ability to fight, flee (if there's at least one empty space adjacent), and cast a small selection of spells. Once the option is chosen, the combat resolves automatically and instantly (rather than round-by-round), with the player informed of the results and how many hit points he lost. 

       

Options against a vampire.

        

Successful combat is rewarded with experience and gold, which itself is converted to experience when the character leaves the dungeon. Occasionally, you find a piece of inventory. The character starts naked but can find shields, swords, and armor. Every time he finds one after the first time, it adds a "+" to the item, up to +3. He can also find a variety of one-use magic items, like an amulet that destroys undead, a spear that slays mythical monsters, and a cube that destroys any monster. I should mention I've had no luck using these items; the game simply says "Cant!" every time I try.

       

A helpful item.

     

Books occasionally appear in random squares, each with a chance of raising an attribute, wiping away all hit points, banishing the player to a random part of the dungeon, or polymorphing him into a different race. 

   

The game's various conventions, including . . .

   

• The quest for an orb
• The types of items you can find
• The types of monsters, including "death"
• The assignment of monsters by class, including a "mythical" class 
• Some of the spells
• The appearance of magic books 
• The ability to convert gold to experience
• The use of SHIFT-F to move forward through doors

   

. . . betray it as a variant of the PLATO Game of Dungeons (1975). Author John Stout went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor around this time, and the university had a network of PLATO terminals. As usual, many of the elements of the original game were dumbed down for the microcomputer. While the Mazes does not feature the permadeath of its inspiration, it does limit saving to once per character level.

         

First row: death, demon, dragon, gargoyle, ghost. Second row: mind flayer, serpent, slime, sphinx, spider. Third row: thief, troll, vampire, warrior, wizard. 

       

The game starts quite hard as the character tries to make it to Level 1. It is very possible for the random dungeon generation to create a configuration that is simply impossible to overcome. For instance, one of my games started with a sphinx (the hardest enemy in the game, immune to Level 1 and 2 spells) practically adjacent to the stairway.

   

Once the character gets enough experience for Level 2, the game becomes a matter of caution, not advancing too quickly, and regularly retreating to the castle for healing, treasure conversion, and spell point restoration. As with The Game of Dungeons, this process gets more difficult and annoying once the character has explored downward a few levels, though there are spells to help. The manual recommends that the player not move to the next dungeon level until his character level is four times the dungeon level. That would mean waiting until you hit Level 8 on dungeon Level 1 (I know, I know, too many uses of "level") before heading down to dungeon Level 2 and then hitting character Level 12 before exploring dungeon Level 3.

        

Two more levels before I can leave Level 1.

      

Monsters are seeded in fixed locations and don't move, but when you've killed enough of them, the game repopulates the dungeon. In that manner, you can grind forever. 

   

The character types make a difference. Dwarves earn only 2 magic points per level, while humans earn 3 and elves earn 4. Dwarves roll higher strength and vigor and have a permanent "Light" spell cast, allowing them to see enemies in front of them and secret doors. Elves, in addition to getting the most magic, roll higher intelligence and have a permanent "Levitate" spell cast, allowing them to avoid trap doors. These trap doors, which dump the character down to the next level, are so horrible (unless you can return immediately, you almost always die) that I agree with El Explorador that the elf is the obvious way to go unless you want to keep casting "Levitate" every couple dozen turns. The extra magic that elves earn is also vital for the navigation spells you'll want to use liberally later in the game, including "Wall Pass," "Ceiling Pass," and "Floor Pass." The disadvantage is that elves are a bit weak in physical combat. Humans, sold in the manual as "balanced," are really just lame, lacking any special abilities.

       

A choice only the elf gets.

       

Overall, the game has 10 combat spells and 10 noncombat spells, all spread across three levels, each requiring a number of points equal to its level. They're all available to the character at the beginning of the game provided he has enough points. The spells mirror those in The Game of Dungeons (in which they were split between cleric and mage spells), including some of their strengths and weaknesses, some of which go back to The Dungeon (1975), the first CRPG. For instance, "Hold" is almost an instant-kill, but only for "flesh and blood" monsters like thieves and trolls. "Dispel" works on mythical creatures. If there are any tactics to the game, it's in the intelligent use of spell points, choosing the right one for the right situation, always saving enough to cast a "Ceiling Pass" if you have to get out of a place in a hurry. 

   

The game is a chore to map. 256 squares per level is not a lot to map, but the procedural generation doesn't allow for rooms—just corridors and doors—so it takes longer than it looks. The maps are useless past the immediate game. The nature of the procedural generation also does not allow "islands," so any entire level can be explored by simply following one wall. On the negative side, this can mean that it takes a long time to get from stairway to stairway unless you use "Wall Pass."

         

One level map.

         

I grant there's more to the game than I suggested when I started this entry, and there's a sense to which it appeals to an atavistic desire to fight monsters, get stronger, and fight harder monsters. But it's not enough to sustain an interest for the amount of time it would take to win, nor would that be good use of my blog time. Thus, while I'd like to rise to El Explorador's challenge ("The CRPG Addict is sure to win"), I'm not going to do this one legitimately.

   

There are actually a couple of good reasons to cheat. The first is that whatever I do, I cannot get saving to tape, and subsequent reloading from tape, to work. I can never get it to work, with any platform. I don't know what I'm always doing wrong. The second problem is that, for whatever reason, saying "N" to reading a book (which is a good idea, since it can really screw things up) always ends the game. Both of these problems could be overcome with save states, but the VInteract emulator that I started with doesn't support save states, so every game I played had permadeath. Even if I were willing to accept that, I can't keep the same emulator session running for dozens of hours of gameplay.

      

It's not like I have a choice.

        

I thus sucked up the few hours I invested with my first character, killed the emulator, and spent another few hours getting the game to work in MAME, which as much as I dislike it, at least has save states (although they're not "officially supported" for the Interact, as the emulator reminds me every time I save). The use of an emulator with save states changes the experience a lot less than you might imagine. Yes, I can take slightly more risks, exploring downward a little bit faster than when I had to be cautious, but the character's ability to succeed in battle against particular foes on particular levels is relatively deterministic. Since you rarely find treasure in spaces not occupied by monsters, doing "deep dives" is relatively fruitless—and even if it wasn't, the number of spell points limits how far you can go without losing your ability to return.

    

The game is quite serious about the 4 x the current level thing. I'm at character Level 8 as I type this, and I'm still getting my hit points wiped out by sphinxes on dungeon Level 2. I'm absolutely not equipped for dungeon Level 3. But it's also taken me absurdly long to get here, and the idea of getting to Level 32 before I can explore the bottom of the dungeon is absurd.

        

Some of the equipment I've amassed.

       

Once I hit (character) Level 9, which I'm on the cusp of, I'll have enough magic points to "Floor Pass" all the way down to (dungeon) Level 8. I thought I'd do that from strategic points, mapping as much as I can, maybe getting lucky and finding the Orb without having to kill a Level 8 sphinx in the same square. Of course, this will only work if I don't then have to return the Orb to the surface. Whatever I need to do to win, after I published the most recent Ravenloft entry, I was so sure I could figure it out in 2.5 days that I went all-in on wrapping up Mazes and Monsters. It didn't happen.

 

I did flirt with hex editing, just to be able to show the winning screen, but I can't figure out for the life of me how to interpret MAME's save state files. I wasted too much time trying to figure it out. So either someone with more expertise in this area needs to assist, or I'm just going to keep chipping away at it now and then while I'm watching Teaching Company videos or listening to audiobooks. 

     

I am still frequently amazed at how solidly even a no-frills RPG can deliver that familiar dopamine rush. There's nothing about this game that should excite me, and yet I've still enjoyed every level-up, and I practically cheered when, just as I was about to schedule this entry for publication, I found a lamp. A lamp is a permanent artifact that casts "Light" and thus lets the player see secret doors and the presence of enemies in adjacent squares. Such a simple thing in such a simple game, and yet it still satisfies the addiction.

      

A monster waits in the corridor ahead.

     

Author John Stout was 25 when Mazes and Monsters was published. A newsletter from Micro Video indicates that Stout "has had a hand in almost every new piece of software in our last two catalogs," which included a variety of games and utilities, including (probably) a text adventure called The Mysterious Mansion Adventure (1982; see Jason Dyer's coverage here). His more important contribution seems to be co-creating the Video Voice Speech Training System, a program to help deaf people speak aloud, which Micro Video marketed well into this century (its web page is still active). Stout went on to a career as a music composer, arranger, and software consultant. He died of cancer in 2017 at the age of 60. His obituary mentions that his compositions appeared in television shows, films, and games, but it doesn't name any of them, and I'm having trouble untangling him from a different John Stout (of Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five).

     

John Stout, from his 2017 obituary.

        

I wish I'd gotten to this game when I first passed through 1982, as I would have liked to ask Mr. Stout whether he just picked a relatively generic, alliterative name meant to evoke Dungeons & Dragons or whether he was deliberately trying to capitalize on Rona Jaffe's 1981 novel of the same name. (The novel became a movie in 1982, starring Tom Hanks in his first lead role, but the film didn't come out until December of that year.) If so, it's a nice middle finger to the ridiculous moral panic to which both the novel and film contributed.

         

Time Stamp: 7 hours 

      

****

   

Further reading:

   

• The Game of Dungeons (1975), which inspired this one.
• My "Index of Games Played by Lineage" has other games in this line. 
• El Explorador de RPG's coverage of the game.  

11/01/2026