What is the World's First Horror Game?
You thought Specimen Zero is scary one or even Five Nights at Freddy is a hell nightmare but have you even asked what is the World's First Horror Game?
Many people attribute this title to Resident Evil or Alone In The Dark, but this game predates them all and is also one of the first 3d first-person games, long before the era of Wolfenstein or Doom.
3D Monster Maze is a game published in 1981 for the Sinclair ZX-81 home computer. It worked on as much as 16 kilobytes of memory. With ASCII visuals and a stunning 6fps, 3D Monster Maze featured no sound and pretty good pseudo-3d graphics for the time.
The game was created by JK Gray and Malcolm Evans. The couple has created games for Sinclair systems including 3D Defender, Catacombs, and Invasion. The idea of ​​3D monster maze is that you are launched into a maze with a T-Rex, and you must survive as long as possible. This is directly related to the gameplay, where the more steps you take, the more points you earn. You wander through empty halls, and the text below serves as a substitute for sound.
"Rex is hiding", "footsteps are coming", "run,
Despite the utter silence and relative simplicity, there is something effective about the way running away makes you panic. The game was very well received at the time and was considered one of the best, if not the best, Sinclair games. But was it scary then? Well, the term survival horror only entered the gaming lexicon much later with games like alone in the dark and resident evil. But ask anyone who played this back in the day and he'll tell you it is scary. Black skin, empty eyes, gaping lipless mouth - if hell exists for dinosaurs, then this creature burst out of its main gate.
On a more personal note which I tried before constructing this one, I have to say that the only thing that panics me in horror games are chase sequences. All in this whole game is one continuous chase sequence. Even as a veteran of horror game fun, playing this game many years after its graphics were considered revolutionary when I see a black pixel block looming on the screen in the distance, or as text inexorably communicates the persecution - that as this new follows me along the empty corridor, it still makes me jump up or hastily hit the keyboard in a panic frenzy.
Another cool thing about the game is that it is procedurally generated. Each maze is an 18 by 16 sector with a portal leading to a new maze. And this was not the first game in which you ran away from monsters through a maze, that is, this path goes back to ancient folk tales. But exploring a trail with this Jurassic Park twist is creative, and seeing this type of game in those days is very interesting given all these new versions of the same idea: SCP Containment Breach, Spooky's jumpscare mansion, Vanish .. and another lesser-known game that I swear must be directly inspired by this, because if not, then it must be a huge coincidence. It's called "1916 der unbekantkrieg", it's a WWI horror game where you run through trenches from Velociraptors,
In addition to the eerie atmosphere, silence, and scary text below, there is something else: the rex himself. The design of this one is insanely creepy. Many credits the "creepy black and white pixel creature" descriptions to the yumenikk Uboa, but I would like to give that honorary title to the t-rex. His face is terrifying, and his ill-defined silhouette, coming closer and closer, is pretty well done.
Wanna play it?