''Snail Maze'' is a 1986 video game by

Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...

for the

Master System The is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was originally a remodeled export version of the Sega Mark III, the third iteration of the SG-1000 series of consoles, which was released in Japan in 1985 and ...

. Instead of being released on a cartridge, it was built into the system's

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the ...

and could be played by starting the system without a game cartridge inserted and holding Up and buttons 1 and 2 simultaneously. Some later console models included a minimal BIOS because of memory constraints, and ''Snail Maze'' had to be removed. These systems instead included a built-in ''

Alex Kidd in Miracle World is a platform game for the Master System. It was released in Japan on November 1, 1986, followed by the United States in December 1986, with Europe in September 1987, plus South Korea in October 1988, and Brazil in 1989. It was later built into ...

'' or ''Sonic the Hedgehog''. ''Snail Maze'' was never released in cartridge or card format.

Gameplay

A very simple game, ''Snail Maze'' involves navigating a small orange

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastro ...

with a yellow shell through a blue

maze A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lea ...

. A goal area is clearly marked, which players must attempt to reach within a time limit. Despite its relative simplicity compared to other games of its era, Snail Maze could be quite challenging. Subsequent levels reduce the time available, giving a progressively lower margin for error.

Legacy

In 2004 an unofficial port of ''Snail Maze'' was made for the Japanese MSX computer platform with enhanced graphics and a new title screen. A version of ''Snail Maze'' was included on the

Coleco Sonic Coleco Industries, Inc. was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company. It was a successful toy company in the 1980s, mass-producing versions of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game console ...

handheld system, created in 2006. An unofficial port of ''Snail Maze'' was released in December 2015 for the

TI-84 Plus CE The TI-84 Plus is a graphing calculator made by Texas Instruments which was released in early 2004. There is no original TI-84, only the TI-84 Plus, the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition models, and the TI-84 Plus CE. The TI-84 Plus is an enhanced ve ...

graphing calculator, written in

eZ80 The Zilog eZ80 is an 8-bit microprocessor from Zilog, introduced in 2001. eZ80 is an updated version of the company's first product, the Z80 microprocessor. Design The eZ80 (like the Z380) is binary compatible with the Z80 and Z180, but al ...

assembly language. An emulated version of ''Snail Maze'' can be played on the in-game Master System in the 2021 game ''

Lost Judgment ''Lost Judgment'' is an action-adventure The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems f ...

'' by using the system without selecting a game.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Master System screenshots
1986 video games Master System games Master System-only games Maze games MSX games Sega video games Video games developed in Japan