Maize | Review | Sentient Corn and Talking Robot Teddy Bears
11Warning! Corn puns ahead! You have been warned!
I love a good indie game that can make me laugh and make me think. And this is the right time period in which to live for experiences like that. From the bizarre existentialism of The Stanley Parable to the cruel drudgery of Papers, Please, indie developers have taken full reign of creating games about literally anything that they want. And Finish Line Games has continued that proud tradition with their 2016 title Maize. Meant to be a comedy adventure along the point and click lines of classics like Maniac Mansion, there’s a lot that works with Maize. Sadly, there’s a lot that doesn’t work.
Maize is a game about sentient corn and I’m not even kidding at all.
As a nameless, voiceless protagonist, it is your job to make your way through an abandoned, top-secret government lab in the middle of a massive corn field, collecting appropriate items, avoiding nuclear meltdowns, and reading post-it notes in order to solve the mysteries of the bizarre, starchy world around you. It’s a silly game, and I don’t say that as an insult in the slightest. At first, the collect and use nature of the game’s exploration put me in the mind of classic Sierra and Lucasarts games. You pick up a top hat: what’s the top hat for? Damned if I know, but it’s definitely going to be necessary to move the plot forward.
The problem with a comparison like that is Maize’s lack of difficulty. Rather than force you to really ponder how an object could work in a given situation, Maize will literally leave a blue outline of the usable item in its proper place, effectively spoon-feeding the answer to you. This is disappointing due to the fact that each item’s description generally offers a funny or interesting clue as to how it might be used. I think I would have had more fun discerning the amusing, snarky explanation of the game’s description rather than have it laid out for me. With literal blue lines pointing out exactly how piece A fits into tab B, there’s actually no reason to read the flavor text of each item, which is a shame.
This is all in conjunction with walls of orange boxes that cut off access to various areas of the world--sometimes areas that you’ve had access to in the past. The boxes appear and disappear based on how many of the correct items you possess for the next step to be taken, and it guides you smoothly to exactly where you need to be. Unlike classic adventure games, you don’t spend a lot of time retracing your steps or trying different combinations of objects. You don’t even need a map to navigate, which is good because Maize provides no map. This is either maddeningly condescending or mercifully straightforward, depending on the sort of adventure game you prefer. But the problem with taking away the vast majority of the challenges is that the game has to rely on its humor and story to keep you focused and engaged. And both can be a little lukewarm at times.
I’m going to clarify here that Maize is definitely a funny game overall. It kept, at very least, a bemused grin on my face throughout my entire four hour playthrough. It’s just that the focus Maize requires to go from a funny game to a hilarious game just isn’t there.
The humor bounces between dopey goofiness and self-referential post-modernist commentary. In fact, it almost feels like there were two completely different writers constructing the jokes. When you’re in the world, the humor is far more simple. Talking stalks of corn say stupid things, a robot teddy bear with a Russian accent refers to you and the world around you as stupid, and post-it notes between the two absent scientists who used to run the government lab remind you that one of them was very stupid.
Everything’s stupid. Everyone’s an idiot. Fine. It just didn’t do much for me.
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