How to play Escape from the Mindmaster online
- Walk forward / back up: up and down arrow keys
- Turn 90 degrees left or right: left and right arrow keys
- Pick up or place a peg: Space bar
- Restart: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Number of chances: F4 (left difficulty switch)
- Speed of the Alien Stalker: F9 (right difficulty switch)
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
Each maze hides shaped puzzle pegs, and each one belongs in a matching hole elsewhere in the maze. You can carry one peg at a time, and the exit stays locked until every peg is in place. Below the 3-D view you see a map with your position, an arrow for the direction you are facing, the peg you hold and your remaining chances. The map shows no pegs, doors or enemies.
Two dangers cost you a chance and send you back to the start of the maze. The Alien Stalker roams the corridors and cannot be beaten; its beeping gets higher as it comes closer, and it cannot pass through walls or doors. From the second maze, sliding force fields glide sideways through the walls. From the fourth, some doors only work one way. The game ends when you run out of chances or escape the sixth maze.
Scoring and the Mindmaster’s tests
Every maze starts you with 60 points, and a point ticks away every few seconds. Whatever is left when you leave is added to your total, so speed matters. A fanfare announces a surprise test hidden in each of the first five mazes:
- Agility: dodge falling bricks; the fourth hit ends the test
- Reflexes: follow a flashing arrow with the stick as fast as you can
- Recall: repeat a sequence of arrows from memory
- Dexterity: get through a stream of bricks without touching any
- Coordination: land a spaceship gently without wasting fuel
At the end, the Mindmaster judges you and the human race. The left difficulty switch gives you 5 chances (A) or 9 (B). The right switch makes the Stalker fast (A) or slow (B). The switches only count when a game starts.
Tips
- Start with both switches on B. Nine chances and a slow Stalker make it much easier to learn the mazes.
- Keep a wall between you and the beeping. When the pitch rises, back away through a door.
- Look before you go through doors from maze four on. A one-way door can cut you off from a peg you haven’t placed yet.
The story behind Escape from the Mindmaster
The working title was Labyrinth. It was one of Starpath’s first “multi-load” games: the tape held four parts (three pairs of mazes and the final evaluation), each loaded separately from a cassette player. Caswell has said he wanted to make a game without shooting, and that getting smooth-edged 3-D walls out of the 2600 was hard work.
Reviewers praised the convincing sense of depth, though some wanted more action. Radio-Electronics named it its top game of 1983. A ColecoVision version was announced but never released. Starpath was bought by Epyx soon afterwards, where Caswell went on to create Impossible Mission for the Commodore 64.
Similar games to play next
- Survival Run – another first-person 3-D maze game from the same period
- Dragonstomper – Starpath’s fantasy role-playing game on cassette
- Sword of Saros – another Starpath Supercharger adventure
- Party Mix – paddle party games, also programmed by Dennis Caswell