Our flagship Polymorph RPG comes to the festival of independent games this November
The nominees for the 2022 IndieCade International Festival of Independent Games have been announced, and MAZES is among them!
Each IndieCade Nominee may be awarded in the following General Categories:
IndieCade Jury Prix
IndieCade Grand Jury
IndieCade Developer’s Choice
Innovation in Interaction Design
Innovation in Experience Design
And each is nominated for at least one Spotlight Awards Category as well. For MAZES, that's Tabletop Design. The awards will be announced during the festival in November. We're so excited for more players to enter the dungeon with us! Plus, we're proud to showcase the work of the designers and team behind MAZES:
Chris O'Neill (Lead Designer)
Patrick Clapp (Designer & Writer)
Justine Jones & A. Shipwright (Art)
Nat Mesnard (Short Fiction)
Adriel Wilson & Heather O'Neill (Production)
Of MAZES, Lead Designer Chris O'Neill writes:
Once upon a time, I took a roller coaster and found myself trapped in a magical and mysterious maze that was called “a dungeon.” I am as hopelessly lost in its labyrinth now, as I was the first time that I faced the evil magic-user Bargle or fought the water weird as I explored the Dungeon of Dread. MAZES is a thoroughly new take on the venerable dungeon crawler. It is hewn from the very bones of the past. We take direction from the guides of Basic. We stole the grit and grime from the Unearthed Arcana. We explore Tunnels filled with Trolls, and the twisting passageways are the same caverns mapped out by Palladium and by the Arcanum. The strange beasts hail from Ardruin. The glory imported from Glorantha. The tomes are borrowed from the libraries of Midkemia. From this dungeon deep, I have come to lay my offering upon the altar of the Fantasy Heartbreaker– one last time.
In many ways, Mazes is just a reformulation of an already discovered thing – an attempt to try and capture the magic spark of that original fantasy roleplaying experience. In other ways, important ways,it is something new and exciting. I have spent much of the last decade playing with dice and ideas around a new, streamlined, elegant answer to many of the problems in roleplaying – an answer that we call polymorph. After the initial publication in Zine Quest, and a host of other polymorph games, what you hold in your hands is the definitive MAZES game. Simple roleplaying rules for daring adventurers going down into dangerous dungeons to fight dragons with funny little dice. So, my stalwart companions – light your torches, and take up your die – we venture into the Maze!