Inkle, the developers behind Overboard, Heaven’s Vault, 80 Days, and Highland Song, have released their next game, The Forever Labyrinth, in collaboration with Google Arts. You can play it right now.
Billed as a run-based narrative game, The Forever Labyrinth will have you diving into a variety of paintings. But unlike Super Mario 64 where you then harass the wildlife, you’ll instead solve mysteries. You enter the eponymous labyrinth looking for your friend, Professor Sheldrake, then find yourself trapped in a series of strange rooms with paintings hanging. Obviously, that’s not where you want to be, so the goal is to try and find your way out.
The game is built on InkJS, a Javascript port of Inkle’s Ink scripting language that allows it to run in browsers. It also utilizes Google Arts and Culture, which is a repository for artworks provided by museums around the world. It’s functionally a point-and-click adventure game meant to be played over and over in order to unlock all its secrets. The press release I have tells me a run takes about 20 minutes, but when you start The Forever Labyrinth, it says that the first run might take an hour. However, the game does tell you that it autosaves and picks up where you left off.
It’s pretty neat. If anything, it’s a good way to take in some paintings that you might not have seen otherwise. I’ve looked at an art once or twice before, but there aren’t really any major galleries in my area. The art framing the art is also well-executed, and it feels light and breezy.
You can play The Forever Labyrinth right now for free in your browser.
