A blast from a retro-futurist past, Super 3D Maze 16 is the game you probably imagined yourself playing back at the dawn of arcade video games.

As the name reveals, it is indeed a maze game, albeit one with a mysterious, voiceover-delivered narrative that unfolds as you progress, allowing you to learn more about your little spacesuited character (swiftly revealed to be named Elias), and his thoughts as he navigates each maze.

The goal of each stage is to find the three coloured keys and then the exit; the methods by which you do this, and the obstacles placed in your way to hinder your progress, change on each stage.

There’s a maddening memory test on level 4, for example (though it’s far from the only one!), where you have to enter a series of portals in a specific order to get to the next part of the maze. Or how about the more traditionally designed, mega labyrinth on level 5, which you’ll likely wander around for a while as Elias ponders his part in the mysterious maze?

The movie camera collectable shifts the perspective from overhead to first person; more than a cool trick, it’s another way to deliberately restrict your progress, or to make you pay attention to other elements of the game’s environment and the enemies that get in your way.

There’s a very minimal style to Super 3D Maze 16; though at least, I suspect, partially a budgetary necessity – given that this is a very small scale indie production – its neon-in-the-void aesthetic evokes the feeling of futurism via the lens of the earliest video games, and Elias even thinks about the way the visuals look too.

No element of Super 3D Maze 16 feels accidental, and everything seems to have its place in both gameplay and narrative terms. It’s very cleverly constructed.

Though its presentation is minimal, outside of its actual gameplay, it gets the job done, and Super 3D Maze 16 ends up being a surprisingly addictive and compelling experience.

Though there are only eight levels (plus a secret stage, which I admit I didn’t manage to unlock!), certain mazes put up a very stiff, often brain melting challenge; level 7, I’m looking at you (my particularly pathetic completion time for level 7 speaks volumes).

The audio is pretty nicely handled too; though in-game sound effects are minimal, the music is in an excellent, synth-led electronic style that perfectly suits the visuals.

Overall, Super 3D Maze 16 is a really impressive effort; especially so, considering that it’s pretty much all the work of a solo developer, Jameel deBeer.

Though once you get your mind around Super 3D Maze 16’s mechanics and quirks –  particularly its clever method of delivering hints on where to head next – it won’t take you long to see the final screen, there is a secret level to find, and stage specific leaderboards too, so if you want to chase the top spot for the best time on each level, you can certainly do so.

Super 3D Maze 16 is an excellent little game; cleverly designed, retro-futuristic maze game with some really neat and well implemented ideas.

Super 3D Maze 16 is available on Steam. Designed to be played with a controller, it also works brilliantly on the Steam Deck.

Many thanks to Jameel deBeer for providing me with a key for Super 3D Maze 16 for review purposes.