Mazer is the ultimate arcade-strategy maze game. The computer can generate an almost unlimited number of different mazes, and you can even create your own. You also have full control over all the other features of the game, so you can make it as easy or as hard as you wish: the game can range from simply a maze to solve to a complicated strategy game to a nerve wracking test of perseverance. (see below) You can even save the mazes and then trade them with your friends.
The computer will NEVER generate a maze that is unsolvable.
Playing the Game
When the program is launched, it will automatically generate a random maze with deadly guardians. You can then immediately begin to play, or you may want to change the maze and/or the game options. (see below) If you explode (a very common occurrence), the option ‘New Game’ on the File menu will give you another chance.
The basic object of the game is to drag your ball through the maze to each of the three shaded corners. Your ball starts in the upper left hand corner. When you get to a shaded corner, the shading will disappear and you will hear a pling. This tends to get rather dull, so, to make the game more exciting, there are a few obstacles. The corners are usually surrounded by guardians who are stubborn and hostile: they don’t want to get out of your way, but you had better get out of their way, or you’ll be destroyed! To defend yourself, you have bullets that can either bump the guardians out of the way or destroy them. Your bullets can be just as fatal to you as they can be to the guardians, however, so be careful! And the walls can also be deadly, so you have to be careful there as well.
Once you have reached all three corners, an exit portal will appear somewhere in the maze. If you are not playing with guardians, you have won. If you are playing with guardians, you have to get to the exit portal before you have won.
Playing the game is very simple. Position the cursor over the ball and press down and hold the mouse button. The cursor will then disappear. Now simply drag the mouse in the direction that you want the ball to go. Do not drag to fast, however, because the ball cannot always move as fast as the cursor.
To fire a bullet, press the space bar. The bullet will be fired in the direction that you are moving. If you stop, and then try to fire, nothing will happen, and any bullet currently moving around will vanish. You can only use one bullet at a time, so if you fire a bullet while another one is still moving around, the old one will vanish. If you let go of the mouse button while a bullet is moving around, the bullet will also disappear. (This can be a very convenient way of avoiding a deadly bullet.) Your bullets have only a limited lifetime, so, if nothing else happens, they will eventually disappear on their own.
To create a new maze, select ‘New Maze’ from the File menu. You will then be presented with a dialog. The level that you specify in the dialog is a rough measure of how difficult the maze will be to solve. However, a level 3 maze can, in principle, be easier than a level 1 maze because the mazes are completely random. The grid spacing is simply the number of pixels between adjacent walls. Grid spacings of 10, 15, and 20 produce nice results. You can also specify something like 10 horizontal and 20 vertical for strange effects. The maze will be sized to fit the current window.
Changing the Game Options
One unique feature about Mazer is that you can change all the game options to make the game as hard or as easy as you want to. The following is a description of each of these options.
The ‘Grid spacing’ is simply the number of pixels between two adjacent walls.
‘Speed of ball’ is a measure of how fast the ball can move.
‘Use guardians’ specifies whether or not you want guardians to appear in the maze.
‘Deadly guardians’ specifies whether or not you will be destroyed if you touch a guardian.
If ‘Guardians can be destroyed by your bullets’ is not checked, your bullets will bump the guardians around. If it is checked, your bullets will destroy the guardians on contact.
‘Speed of guardians’ determines how fast the guardians can move.
The speed of each guardian relative to your ball is determined by the option ‘Each guardian moves once for every [ ] of your moves.’ The larger the number you specify, the faster you move relative to the guardians.
‘You can be destroyed by your bullets’ specifies whether or not you will be destroyed if you touch your bullet after it has been fired.
‘Speed of bullet’ determines how fast the bullet will move. A fast bullet is much more likely to hit a guardian because the guardian will have less time to move out of the way.
The ‘Life time of bullet’ measures how long a bullet will move around before it disappears by itself. This is an effective way of limiting your range so that you have to risk your life to get close to a guardian before you can shoot it.
‘You will be destroyed if you touch the walls’ specifies whether or not you will explode on contact with the walls. This option cannot be used if either of the grid spacings are 10.
Suggestions for a Good, Hard Game
1) Good arcade game: Level 3. Grid spacing: 10x10. Guardians deadly and destroyable. Bullets can destroy you. All speeds maximum. (If guardians aren’t destroyable, this case will be almost impossible.)
2) Good strategy game: Grid spacing: 15x15. Guardians deadly, but not destroyable. Bullets can destroy you. Walls deadly. Bullet lifetime short. Bullet speed slow.
Editing a Maze
To edit a maze, select ‘Edit Maze’ from the Mode menu. This will place the program in edit mode. When you click on a line in the maze, it will be inverted. If you drag the cursor across the maze, every line you cross will be inverted.
To place or remove a guardian, option-click on the desired position. You cannot remove the last guardian from the maze. If you do not want to use guardians, turn them off in the Game Options dialog. (see above) You can have a maximum of 10 guardians in a maze.
You can create your own mazes by selecting ‘New Grid’ from the File menu and starting from scratch, or by editing a maze created by the computer. When you select ‘New Grid,’ the dialog is the same as for ‘New Maze,’ except that you do not specify a skill level.
The ‘Undo’ command on the Edit menu will toggle the maze between what it is now and what it was before the latest change. Only changes in the maze walls are undoable. You can also Copy your mazes to the clipboard so that you can paste them into a graphics program. Copying works best under Finder.
Miscellaneous features
You can save and print any maze. The game options are saved with the maze. As you would expect, the program keeps track of whether you have saved the current maze. You can only have one maze open at a time.
Registration and How to Obtain the Password
If you have any suggestions for improving this program, please let me know. If you haven’t paid for the program, please do so. It took a lot of effort to get the program to work, so a contribution of US$10 or more will be greatly appreciated.
Some of this program's features are protected by a password. This was done to encourage you to send in your shareware fee. The menu item ‘Enter Password’ allows you to enter the password and unlock the protected features. When you send me US$10 and the Phrase given in the Enter Password dialog, I will send you the correct password.
Once you enter the password, the program will save it so that you do not need to do it again. Please remove the password from the copies you give to your friends.
I'll be happy to send you a list of my other programs if you want me to. I also do custom programming, in case you need a program that will do something special.
My address is:
John Lindal
P.O. Box 4092
Point Dume, CA 90264
My E-mail address is:
jafl@alice.wonderland.caltech.edu
Disclaimer
I have tried to debug this program on all the common Macs. However, I can’t guarantee that it will work with all systems. If the program does crash, send me a letter telling me how it happened, and I’ll try to fix the problem.
Please don't feel that you have to pay for the program before you report a problem. (But it wouldn’t hurt.) I’m more interested in fixing bugs and getting new ideas than getting paid for the program.
Bugs Fixed from Previous Versions
1) The program would occasionally ignore all mouse clicks in the game window.
2) David Perlman discovered that playing sounds would sometimes crash the program.
3) Clark Chang complained that Mazer was like a “ball bearing in molasses.” He was right. Now the game is much faster, and the speeds are adjustable.
4) Numbers occasionally appeared with a slash in the middle. (This one was very rare.)
5) Clark also discovered that Mazer would sometimes crash if you blew up during the first game.
6) Reverting a maze that was loaded by double-clicking on it in the Finder would cause the program to crash.
7) Entering a huge number (>1.0E38) in a dialog would crash the program.
8) You can thank Lloyd Wood for helping me make the password system more secure.
