A reader returns to Sinclair ZX81 classic 3D Monster Maze and finds arguably the first ever survival horror game to still be impressively frightening.

Instilling fear is something video games can do most effectively. Watch a horror film and although sometimes it can feel like it, you aren’t directly involved in the events unfurling on the movie screen. You’re being shown a nightmare, you aren’t participating in one.

Horror themed games make you take part. Play a scary game and you’re no longer watching a shocking situation, you’re living it, and it’s down to your wits and decision-making skills whether or not you make it through to the end credits. Headphones and VR headsets take the video game horror experience a stage further. Unparalleled immersion concocted to terrify.

The first game to frighten me would be considered rather basic in comparison to the horror games available today. 3D Monster Maze released in the early eighties on a computer called the Sinclair ZX81 pitched the player against a single foe. Your adversary in this game was Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Played out in first person view, 3D Monster Maze presented its experience in black and white with no sound. One of the earliest home computers brought to mass market in the UK, the ZX81 lacked any audio capability. You had to buy a RAM pack to boost the ZX81’s initial 1K of memory to 16K.

The machine had a membrane touch sensitive keyboard and it couldn’t do colour. These limited specs might explain why 3D Monster Maze appears so simple and stark to a modern audience, but back in the early eighties this game was a killer app for the ZX81.

3D Monster Maze asked players to flee in three directions; left, forward, or right, while text prompts informed you of the T-Rex’s status:

REX LIES IN WAIT

HE IS HUNTING FOR YOU

REX HAS SEEN YOU

FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING

RUN HE IS BESIDE YOU

Each move made with T-Rex tracking you earns five points and a successful escape attempt results in 200 points. This game probably sounds laughably primitive when described nowadays. Navigate a black and white maze in silence using three directional controls while getting spooked by portentous text updates.

But rudimentary as it was, the game worked, and it still does prove unsettling because I tried out a fan made version recently. 3D Monster Maze – ZX81 gaming on the Web.

The ultimate goal in this game is to escape the maze and, of course, to not be eaten. At the start of each session, I believe the maze exit is randomly generated, so you can’t keep using the same path to freedom. Playing the 3D Monster Maze fan tribute version, I managed to reach the exit a few times only to be told that:

Rex is very angry, you’ll need more luck next time.

The man who programmed this groundbreaking game, Malcolm Evans, also made one of the first games that I bought for the ZX Spectrum called Escape, and that game also featured dinosaurs. 3D Monster Maze is probably a much more well known and iconic creation though, thanks to its star.

The hunting T-Rex is effectively realised here, and so we witness the debut of one of gaming’s first memorable baddies. Watching a bunch of monochrome blocks bearing down on you shouldn’t instil panic, but in my opinion it still does. If you imagine the effect that the same sequence had on a kid sitting in front of a largish TV screen way back in the distant past, you might understand why the game left such an impression.

Prior to the Nemesis or the Regeneradores stalking players in Resident Evil. Light years before the necromorphs and the xenomorph gave everyone the willies in Dead Space and Alien Isolation, T-Rex chased a whole generation of computer gamers through a greyscale labyrinth with nothing but dinner on his mind. One wrong turn made in panic and the player’s screen would be filled by a wide open mouth and loads of jagged teeth.

At the start of 3D Monster Maze you’re given a briefing, by a clown I think or a circus ringmaster, the ZX81’s graphics aren’t always overtly clear.

The management advise that this is not a game for those of a nervous disposition.

I’d say that’s fairly accurate guidance.

By reader Michael Veal

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot.

Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email.

MORE: I’ve finally played the five best games of 2025 – Reader’s Feature

MORE: I still play my favourite ZX Spectrum game 38 years after it came out – Reader’s Feature

MORE: Nintendo GameCube is my favourite console even though I know it’s not the best – Reader’s Feature

Comments


Add as preferred source