Black Labyrinth

About the game

Black Labyrinth is a maze game written by Somebud0180 for Sprig, the open-source game console made by Hack Club that you program in JavaScript. You are a small white dot in a labyrinth where almost everything is dark. Only a few tiles around you are lit, so you learn each room by walking through it, and the walls only show up when your light reaches them.

The labyrinth is built from twelve maps, and each map is a chain of rooms. You leave a room through its left or right edge and arrive in the next one, so a map is really a long corridor of puzzles. Coloured doors block the way, and the keys for them are yellow, blue and orange. A key is rarely lying around in the open: many are hidden in boxes, and checking a box tells you what is in it and scans the tiles to its left, right, above and below. Some rooms have lamp posts whose flickering light shows you the corridors around them, others add boxes to deal with, and some combine both. Each new map starts with its name on screen and takes your keys away, so you begin every map with nothing in your pockets.

If you are lost, the I key flashes the map and lets you see much farther around you for a moment. If you cannot remember which key you need, K cycles through the three colours and points you to the one you are carrying or looking for. Both are assists, and the game notices: if you finish all the maps without them, the ending says so.

Playing it here

Click Play and the game starts in the page, on the Sprig's own 160×128 screen scaled up so the pixels stay sharp. A title screen with a pointer leads to Start Game and to a Guide that explains every key and gives five tips; it has menu music that J mutes. Steps, keys, doors and each new map have their own sound effects. The game keeps no save on disk: it remembers the level only until you close the page.

On a phone or tablet, two groups of buttons appear under the screen, like the eight buttons of the console. On a computer, use the keyboard; the arrow keys work like W, A, S, D.

Controls

Tips

Look across rooms for the key. The key for a door is usually in another room of the same map, so do not give up on a locked door, go and explore.

Check every box. A box can hold a key or nothing at all, and checking one also scans the four directions around it, which is a cheap way to map a dark room.

Use the flash sparingly. The map flash is an assist. It is great for getting unstuck, but the maze is more fun when you feel your way through.

Doors stay closed in the next map. Keys do not travel from one map to the next, so look for new ones as soon as you arrive.

FAQ

Is this an official Sprig game? It comes from the public Sprig game gallery, where anyone can send in a game. This one was sent in by its author, Somebud0180, and it runs here unchanged.

What is a Sprig? A small console with a 160×128 screen and eight buttons, made by Hack Club to teach programming by making games. Its games are plain JavaScript programs, and the engine that runs them is open source.

How long is it? Twelve maps and twenty-five rooms, then an end screen. A first run takes a while because every room is dark.

Does it save my progress? Only while the page is open: the menu remembers your level, but closing the page starts you at the first room again.