Labyrinth.os is the kind of game where I’m not entirely sure I can tell you what it is exactly. It is, as the game’s itch.io page says, a “new 3D Dungeon Crawling Dream for Windows Machines.” A brief, seemingly in-world description explains the setup for the game too: “Before dying out, the smartest of the world from before left a machine,
A machine with the power to restart the world, The Thirteen Architects who were built to maintain this machine dubbed it: The World Egg.” But beyond that, it stays shrouded in mystery up to the point of playing it, which is the exact kind of game that draws me in quickest.
Labyrinth.os is most certainly an old school dungeon crawler. Grid-based paths designed in a labyrinthine fashion (appropriate, given the name), random enemy encounters, a party of characters with which you can fight back. It’s the very particular Vibe with a capital V that it’s wrapped up in that compels me the most. Sure, it seems like there may be some classic Shin Megami Tensei vibes in there. Moreso what comes to mind are the likes of early Japanese CG, films like Malice@Doll, or in adventure games like Kowloon’s Gate and Planet Laika.
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Judging from the game’s only trailer, there will be a mish mash of further influences like Alice in Wonderland, Angel’s Egg, and quite simply religion itself. Looking at older gameplay footage from a now unplayable demo, combat looks to be the kind of thing you’d expect from the genre, i.e. turn-based with a need to be tactical over your melee and magic attacks.
Overall Labyrinth.os looks like a forgotten PC game of the aughts that you learn about in a video essay titled “The Cursed Forgotten Dungeon Crawler You Need To Play.” Really, this should be the rough end point of all games, but seeing as it’s not, perhaps give it a go so that that isn’t the title of a video essay in 20 years time. You can pick it up on itch.io right here.
