Zardy's Maze for Windows

A free challenging survival horror game

Zardy's Maze is a free 3D action survival video game wherein you have to be careful while weeding your cornfield. As an indie psychological horror game, you are tasked with a normal farm chore in your very own farmland. However, things can get pretty daunting as you must traverse the cornfield maze at night, with only your trusty flashlight and your ax by your side, while the pumpkins and scarecrows start to come after you.

No spoonfeeding for you

The main menu of Zardy’s Maze looks quaint enough: a bright day wherein you have to do some ax-whacking in your fields after spotting some strange-looking weeds. However, as soon as you start the game, the environment’s sunny atmosphere changes to a dark and foggy night, quickly hinting at the usual farm horror fare. Unfortunately, while there’s a How to Play on the menu, the game doesn’t hold your hand in figuring out your end goal.

You use the WASD keys to move, the mouse to look around, the Shift key to sprint, the Spacebar to jump, and the E key to interact with objects. Meanwhile, the left mouse button is for chopping with the ax, the right mouse button is for using the flashlight, and holding the right mouse button will recharge the flashlight. Finding the weeds are easy enough as their spikes glow blue in the dark. 

What’s tricky, however, is figuring out how to survive against the numerous enemies lurking about. Each of them requires a different tactic, such as shining your light on certain scarecrows that block your path and jumping over vines to evade pumpkins that grab you. It doesn’t help that the maze is procedurally generated every time you restart. There are little to no clues that tell you what to do to stay alive.

Trial and error

Zardy's Maze is a challenging first-person survival horror game to play, especially with how it does not give you a lot of information aside from the controls. The random spawning of enemies can be overwhelming. However, learning how to escape them can be rewarding in the long run. All in all, this game is a good recommendation for anyone who wants jumpscares and speedrunning challenges in horror games.