Note: This essay was awarded a High Pass for HTS2 Halfway Places 2021-22.

Setting: Longleat Maze, UK

‘I enter the Longleat maze, physically surrounded by 2m tall hedge walls. I follow the path in front of me. Whenever I’m faced with a dead-end, I have two choices, go right or go left. I notice a rougher patch on the ground towards my left, uncovered with grass. Does that mean more people choose to go left? My intuition provokes me to turn left. I’m trying to remember the path I’ve been following since I started the maze, trying to mentally have a continued sense of direction because I know that I need to go north in order to reach the exit. I don’t have a map, I’m relying on my spatial navigation skills but the twisted turns make it difficult for me to always remember the direction. The more I walk, the more confused I get. However what choice do I have? There’s only one way out. I could try to find a viewing bridge to get a temporary top-view of the maze, but there are only three throughout the entire maze. Do I spend time trying to search for the exit or the viewing bridge? I’m also heavily relying on identifying clues in the hedges, what part has been touched most often by past players, what path has been traversed most often? Maybe that can help me escape my confusion. Every time I find a rough patch on the ground, I feel momentary excitement. It’s a clue! But as I get deeper into the maze, there are more moments of confusion, making each tiny exciting clue feel larger and more rewarding. I see the exit. I walk faster, I rush towards it. The largest reward: Escaping the maze! I won! A rollercoaster of confusion, excitement, frustration and satisfaction! Would I visit again? Maybe not in the near future, the experience is still quite fresh in my mind.’

Setting: In my room, on my desk.

‘I turn on my computer. It’s Tomb Raider II: Lara Croft time. The game starts, I was on level 4 last time so that’s where I start from. The corridors all look the same, this is an older version so I can see pixelated stone walls. My screen only shows part of the maze, I don’t know how large the entire gamespace is. Is the tomb made out of 50 rooms? 150 rooms? I don’t know! I open the top-view map to get a whole view of the play arena. Okay, that’s where I am at the moment and that’s where I need to reach to pass level 4. But the corridors all look the same, I can just go north, or I can turn right, both move towards the exit. I see a huge rolling stone rushing towards me from the north, so I guess my only choice is to turn right and run! I feel a sudden surge of excitement because I know my path at this moment, while I was in a state of confusion a few seconds ago! Is the stone meant to be an obstacle or aid? It did help me with the decision to choose my next path. I see something glowing in the tunnel ahead of me. It’s a power-up! That means I have additional tools to battle monsters and reach the end room without having to take longer paths! I can use shortcuts! My motivation level doubled after receiving the power-up! I go into map view again to see if I’m heading in the right direction. I keep checking the map and navigating seemingly similar corridors to finally reach the end room! I have passed the level! Do I have time to play another level? Maybe not. I quit the game and close my computer. It was a great experience. Though, was it my experience, or was it designed by the game designer?’

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A maze is a game. As a a physical space, a maze is a bounded space to be traversed by the player. Architecturally, the design of the maze delays the players’ journey from point A to point B using one of three methods: 1. Extending the distance between A and B, 2. Introducing a single meandering path from A to B, 3. Branching the meandering path and forcing the player to guess the correct path. Ultimately, the player wins by successfully moving from point A to point B. Therefore, the player needs to master the physical space to win. Their direction of movement constantly changes based on their decisions. Multicursal mazes highlight the players’ role because their ability to choose, memorize and navigate determines their experience while for unicursal paths, the experience is outlines by the architecture. This essay will use the player-centric nature of multicursal mazes to build its foundational argument on a dynamic player-experience. 

In ‘The Idea of the Labyrinth’, Doob views ‘confusion’ as mazes’ primary function but also uses ‘doubt’, ‘frustration’ and ‘bewilderment’ to describe different play experiences. Yet mazes draw attention and entice players to keep playing. Mazes also construct playful experiences. This essay investigates three case-studies to determine how players’ maze experiences can be created, altered and framed by game designers. The three chosen case studies are:

1. 2D Digital Maze: Pacman
2. 3D Digital Maze: Tomb Raider
3. Physical Maze: Longleat Maze, UK.  

Pacman

Pacman is a top-down maze. As a player, you interact with the space from a plan view. The space has fixed, unalterable walls that act as architectural boundaries. You always have a complete view of the playfield, implying that you cannot get lost. There is a firm start point, but your success then relies on mastering the space by forming a path to conquer all obstacles, because there is no endpoint. Spatially, the maze structures Pac-Man’s drama and game dynamics because it allows for the game level difficulty to be choreographed. Power pellets can be stashed in a corner to increase difficulty or be placed in a normal path to outline your game experience. The pills lead the path throughout the pre-designed game. As a player, you are offered a level of confusion through the freedom of mapping the ideal path to collect most pellets but the plan view provides you with the architectural restriction that allows your confusion to motivate you instead of giving up. Therefore, the physical architecture of the game is designed to restrict the player, consequently helping their confusion translate to frustration.

If the gamespace is considered an arena, then the maze architecture forces you, i.e Pac Man, the ghosts and the pellets into continuous contact which form the core of your experience within the game. Always having a view of the arena draws your attention from repetitive elements such as repeating corners or turns. As a player, your focus is on game elements like acquiring food and escaping ghosts or trapping and outwitting ghosts rather than navigating the architectural space. Being aware of your full scope of movement shifts your focus from navigating the architectural space to deriving an optimal path to win the game. As a player, your experience is only bounded by the maze architecture but is choreographed when the architecture syncs with game elements to define your movement by the paths you choose.

Image 1. Pacman’s 2D screen interface. The player’s path is bounded by the architecture but led by game objects. 

The goal of the game is to last as long as possible by continuing collecting pellets to get a high score per game. Once the game ends, your experience ends. As you move up levels, your experience changes by the game objects that define the generative nature of your maze experience because architecturally, the spatial organization of each layer is the same. The ghosts and pills in the maze create paths the the architectural boundaries create the space. Since the architectural layout is the same, eventually you start orienting yourself spatially and you move ahead in levels. Your focus shifts on battling obstacles instead of mastering the physical space. The challenge primarily deals with confusion around choosing an optimal path around dynamic game objects within a designed static architectural space. The player has the agency to choose their path led by the palcement of game objects and architectural boundaries, both of which are designed by the game designer. Therefore, the player’s experience is largely controlled by the designer.

Definitive vs Undefined Space and Time Restrictions

Physical mazes can only be experienced occasionally, while digital mazes can be experienced everyday. The time-committment to both defines players’ experience differently. Moreover, physical mazes are restricted through time and space because the player wins once they reach the end. However, digital mazes can be extended indefinitely by the game designer, hence giving designers the agency to extend players’ experiences across multiple levels. On the other hand, a physical maze’s architect cannot restrict the maze indeinitively, because practically, a player would face physical and mental exhaustion after a certain point. So the maze has to be designed considering physical limitations of players’ whereas digital mazes have a ‘quit’ option so the game designers don’t really have to consider players’ capacity to engage with the interface and hence can extend the extected experience both spatially through a single maze and through multiple levels. Digital mazes have an option to ‘pause’ to take a break or ‘regenerate’ is the player loses a particular level. However physical mazes only have one end-result: winning after continuous efforts. Therefore, a singular reward creates the entire experience of a physical maze more intimate to each player because the entire journey results in the overwhelming feeling of satisfaction. On the other hand, winning a level on Pacman or reading a map on Tomb Raider to find the maze exit doesn’t provide the same level of satisfaction because as a player I have the choice to quit or pause the game any time. Therefore while a physical maze has to be designed while considering players’ physical capacity, the experience feels more rewarding than the experience of a digital maze. Designers are restricted in designing the physical gamescape while for digital mazes they have indefinite control over how long the player can play. 

The Role of Paths and Players’ Freedom of Choice

It is also important to differentiate between the terms ‘path’ and ‘space. In the experience of a maze, space refers to the physical area occupied by the player at a given time. It can be the visible area through a screen or the physical area in a Hedge maze. Path refers to players’ sequence of movement, with every chosen path always opening up new spaces. Overall, a players’ spatial experience of the maze can be visualised by tracing their path while their cognitive experience can be understood as being derived from their interaction with various spaces within the game. 

The paths of videogames are generated by the players’ actions. In videogames, the player masters the gamespace by understanding and creating their path by overcoming obstacles. In videogames, there is ‘purposeful play’ and ‘appropriated play’. Appropriated play refers to how the player discovers new modes of play beyond the predetermined rules through the spatial and architectural design in video games, through tame objects such as avatars, obstacles and other gamified elements like constantly updated leaderboards that provide instant gratification. These gamification elements are additional stakeholders provided by digital mazes that reconstruct narrative and temporal elements of the players’ experience of the gamespace. In Tomb Raiders and Space Invaders: Videogame Forms and Contexts, King and Krzywinska state that digital interfaces allow for the virtual space to appear larger than the technology allows. This is because the player’s perception is bounded is physically bounded by the screen’s dimensions. However, experiencially, the players’ experience is prolonged because the screen only shows part of the maze. As a player, you are unaware of the scale of the space you are expected to cover. This ambiguity prolongues your experience of the maze as you explore the gamespace.

In a physical maze, the path itself is fixed and this players experiences are contained in the two-dimensional motion bounded by the maze’s fixed architecture. While pathways in digital mazes are generated through the players’ interaction with game objects, pathways in real-world mazes are fixed and thus constrict the players’ experience within them. Therefore, it can be implied that while a physical maze provides a sheltered experience, with the pathways defining all possible gamespace explorations, digital mazes provide a dynamic, generative player-led experience with a higher possibility of ‘choice’ that unfolds with the path being defined by the player’s choice to follow game objects in a given pattern. This can be understood as if the player’s choice of pathway is led by game-objects in digital mazes, making the experience more dynamic while in physical mazes the element of choice is executed as a more intuitive action. Being more intuitive comes with the possibility of higher error, which could lead to the player giving up faster in physical mazes. However in digital mazes, the addition of dynamic game objects often provides instant gratification, which acts as additional motivators’ to the players’ experience of the maze. Therefore, it can be deduced that physical mazes have a pathway of experiencing the bounded space while digital mazes has multiple pathways that create player experiences within the bounded space. Game designers have complete agency over designing both game objects and the architectural gamespace, hence they can design every possible iteration of a players’ experience. However for common physical mazes, their control is slightly restricted at designing the physical architectural boundaries because the path is more reliant on players’ intuitive choices. 

Image 2. Longleat Hedge Maze, UK. Players’ experiences are bounded by the maze’s architecture. 

Architectural Boundaries and Repetition

The ‘boundaries’ in videogames are pre-designed architectural elements that are only spatial boundaries but do no restrict players’ paths because their paths are also influenced by internal game objects. However in physical mazes, these in-game architectural boundaries are physical restraints where the player’s path is led by these geometries that create the gamespace, and not by game objects like pellets in Pacman or weapons in Tomb Raider.  In general, the gamespace of a maze needs to be mastered in order for the player to have a fair chance at winning. In videogames, the player uses the architectural boundaries as guides to generate their own path in attempts to master the space. In physical mazes, these architectural boundaries act as restrictions that also help the player master the space because the state of being ‘physical’ makes it easier to identify repetitions within the architecture, thus helping the player to spatially place themselves within the gamespace. 

In physical mazes, like Pacman, the architectural boundaries are fixed. However, there are no game obstacles. In, Space Time Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: The next Level, the authors argue that mazes are primarily driven by the architectural boundaries. Specifically for physical mazes, boundaries define navigable space. For example, in the Longleat maze, hedges restricted navigable space for players. Consequently, when physically immersed, players are likely to pay attention to specificities of the architectural space, such as footprints outlining paths of prior players as clues. Therefore, physical interaction with the space guides the players’ experience in the absence of game objects for physical mazes. While physical boundaries restrict player paths, they still allow the player to have a generative experience by helping them map the gamespace through physical clues of repetitions. These repetitions can be identified by natural causes such as weathering. 

However in digital mazes, the gamespace needs to be mastered by a player-generated path led by game objects, essentially a connection of nodes because the physical architectural space has equivalent repetitions but they cannot be identified due to the digital interface. Therefore while the concept of repetition is instrumental to the architectural design of a maze, in physical mazes they help the player have a generative experience while in digital mazes they are unidentifiable due to the interface and hence in-game architecture becomes less restrictive and generative but more of a guiding tool while the player’s generative experience is actually created by game-objects. Hence, though prompted by different factors, both physical and digital interfaces provide generative experiences which are important in keeping the player engaged within the gamespace. Game designers have complete control over designed repetitions in digital mazes however, repetitions in physical mazes become more apparent because they cannot be controlled by the designers as accurately as in digital mazes.

Image 3. Immersive screenshot from Tomb Raider II. Repetitions in the path are difficult to identify on the screen due to the digital interface and similar pixelation. 

Perspectives (First-person, top-view, interchangeable)

Doob describes mazes as having a double interaction perspective-choice for players:

1. A maze-treader who is physically immersed in the space with a constricted and fragmented vision of the gamespace.
2. A maze-viewer who views the maze from plan-view and is aware of the complete scale of the space. 

Since this text was written in 1990, before the digital gaming revolution, this statement does not consider a hybrid perspective provided by computers where a player can switch between being a treader and viewer. A player’s experience can be categorized as either first-person, being inside the maze, or as a top-view. 2D screen mazes, such as Pacman, offer a top-view, whereas most physical mazes offer a first-person perspective. 3D screen mazes, such as Tomb Raider, offer a dynamic experience where a player can change between perspectives.  While playing Tomb Raider, I have the agency to look at the maze from a top-down view to decide my path. However, physical mazes are strictly experienced from a first-person perspective where the player is enforced to spatially navigate and walk the space to form a mental map of the architectural organization. Mental mapping is required to categorically win a maze because it structures the entire experience for a player. The act of mentally navigating a path within the fixed architectural boundaries creates a heightened awareness of the physical spatial conditions and creates an active experience. Having an active experience keeps the mind and body engaged with the architectural space. Specifically for the Longleat maze, the option of ‘quitting’ isn’t a straightforward choice because you need to navigate your way out to the exit. Therefore, mental mapping and spatial navigation are processes that players use by default which help them interact with the space to a higher degree than in 3D digital mazes. It may be easier for a player to feel the sensation of being lost in the confusing space for a physical maze than on 2D screen mazes. In physical mazes, the creation of a mental map often relies of noticing repeatitions on the path as clues. These clues can be understood as ‘game objects’ that provice the player with clues to help them mentally map their path. However unlike Pacman or Tomb Raider, these game objects aren’t designed in physical mazes.

Image 4. Map from Tomb Raider II. Players can switch between plan view and an immersive experience.

 As a player, my experience could rely on tracing past players’ movement or noticing the weathering of certain rocky terrains to inform my next decision. Players use these spatial clues to create a narrative of ‘I’ve been here before’, to formulate a spatial guide for themselves. Hence, undesigned game objects and clues create an additional element of challenge while also fuelling the players’ narrative experience, which is then used to win the maze. 

In Tomb Raider, the digital interface makes it difficult to identify repetitions, hence players rely more on reading the top-view map as a clue or identifying game objects such as rolling stones. Moreover, the interior infrastructure of the maze also provides clues because architectural details such as ceiling heights for room change. UI design also plays a large part in defining player experiences of digital mazes. If the maze is a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional screen, the players’ sense of scale is distorted by default. Elements such as repeated geometry and identical texture mapping can help add elements of confusion because on a digital interface, players cannot easily identify between these repetitions due to a subdued sense of scale. Therefore, while identifying repetition within the path is difficult due to the similarity of the graphics, such architectural details help visual recognition consequently, lead to the feeling of familiarity for the player and help define their path. However, the notion of familiarity in digital mazes is achieved after a longer time than in physical mazes due to the absence of tactile interactions within the experience. Hence, 3D digital maze expereinces don’t require mental mapping and players often primarily utilize game objects to achieve specific level goals. Therefore, in physical mazes players’ experience of escaping mazes is defined by the mental map formed by them, which is informed by tangible visual clues that are dynamic and undesigned – providing a ‘surprise’ element. It can be implied that the influence of game objects on player experience for physical mazes is slightly unpredictable while it can be completely designed and choreographed in digital mazes.

Image 5. Screenshot from Tomb Raider II. Different infrastructures cover up for the lack of repetition identification and help lead player paths. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, a players’ experience of a maze is largely constructed through their chosen path. The path is influenced by maze architecture, supporting game objects, knowledge of the gamespace and player perspective. Between digital and physical interfaces, game designers have different levels of control over these elements of players’ experiences. It can be implied that through digital interfaces, the ‘immersive’ quality is derived through game objects to ignite emotions of motivation and excitement for players experiencing the maze through a screen. Since the game-designer controls the placement of game objects and architectural boundaries, they have higher control over choreographing player experiences on digital mazes. On the contrary, physical maze paths for players are often influenced by more tangible, natural clues that cannot be designed by the maze designer. Designers are restricted to designing the gamespace at a scale that confuses but doesn’t frustrate the player and giving occasional clues, such as viewing bridges, that can help break player confusion by providing a momentary top-view which brings back emotions of excitement and motivation. Therefore, the designers’ primary role is to create a graph of fluctuating emotions that range between minimal confusion and borderline frustration through the physically designed architectural maze. On the contrary, for digital mazes, the designer choreographs the entire experience from the gamespace to the possible path iterations a player could take.  All designed elements ultimately aim at using architecture to design the psychological experience, i.e. designing for an expected level of confusion from the player. Hence, it can be concluded that while game designers do choreograph player experiences in both physical and digital mazes, their control is more eminent through digital mazes and comparatively subdued for physical mazes.

(Note: This essay was submitted as a part of Susan Chai’s HTS 2021-22 Term 2 Course: Halfway Places at the AA.)