Man in a Maze: Deathmatch

I came here looking for something to slap on the second monitor and play local with a couple of controllers, and this is precisely what Man in a Maze delivers. It is a top-down stealth-puzzle-arcade hybrid dressed up as a TV game show, and the concept is sharp enough on paper: sneak past patrolling robots, sidestep traps, collect cash, spend that cash on gadgets, and either survive a 60-level solo gauntlet or blow up your friends in a 2-4 player local deathmatch. The Frenzy mode, which lets you replay completed levels with the robots now hostile and hunting you, adds a decent second pass. As a solo time-waster it is serviceable, if unspectacular. The gadget loop is where the game earns its modest budget. Mines, cloaking, and ball-returns give you real tactical options rather than just a single weapon and a dodge roll. Spending in-maze winnings to upgrade them before the next level creates a light economy that keeps you invested past the tutorial. The cloaking in particular changes how you approach patrol patterns entirely - it is a stealth tool, not a panic button, and the game is more interesting when you respect that distinction. One community player noted they barely touched the cloak and leaned on the ball-return almost exclusively, which tells you the gadget balance is loose enough that you will find your own preferred style. Here is where I get impatient, though. The multiplayer hook in the title is strictly local, couch-only, no online component. In 2014 that was already a sliding scale; in 2026 it is a hard wall for most players who do not have three bodies and three controllers available in the same room at the same time. There is no ranked system, no netcode to worry about because there is no net. The Steam community is effectively silent, review count is too thin to score, and there has been no meaningful post-launch update activity in years. The ceiling is an evening with friends and then that is probably it. The TV game show framing - prize wheels, crowd cheers, a campy aesthetic - genuinely separates this from generic maze clones. SmallGreenHill committed to the bit, and the personality carries the visual limitations. The 60 challenges across four themed maze sets is a real content count, not padding. But the solo experience plateaus faster than the level count suggests it should, and without online play the multiplayer is a party trick rather than a reason to keep the game installed. If you have the hardware setup and three people who will actually sit down together, the deathmatch mode can produce some genuinely chaotic fun for an hour. Just go in clear-eyed about what you are getting.

Fred · Scout Team

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