Ken's Labyrinth
DOS - 1993
Description of Ken's Labyrinth
A horrible 3D game from Ken Silverman, wonderboy creator of Build Engine, the groundbreaking engine behind 3D Realms’ Duke Nukem 3D-- arguably the first game that posed a serious threat to id’s DOOM as the king of FPS genre.
The plot: escape from an underground labyrinth while trying to rescue your dog and save the world at the same time. While Ken’s humble beginnings are more or less—well, humble, his knack for level design and real-world physics is evident. Unfortunately, the god-awful graphics (which are even worse than Catacomb Abyss) and hackneyed monsters make it very hard to see that talent. Hardcore FPS players will recognize some wall textures from Pixel/Future Crew, and an engine that is remarkably similar to id’s hit Wolfenstein 3D.
Overall, a pretty bad shooter that you should try only if you want to see what early an Ken Silverman is like before all the brouhaha about Duke Nukem 3D. The game used to be sold as shareware by Epic, but Ken has recently released it as freeware on his website-- for better or worse.
Review By HOTUD
External links
Captures and Snapshots
Comments and reviews
Mykl 2022-11-27 0 point
A fun game for its time. Quirky critters and robots. Hidden rooms and slot machines.
Maze games are cool; I lost Sparky many times; I got lost many times.
With no programming skill you can photoshop the textures to your liking. Try it.
tutusfox98 2022-05-15 2 points
An impressive early 90s fps, pretty much a solo dev game written by a 17 year old Ken Silverman, who would go on to great success with his Build engine later. The music was composed by him too, and some of the game tunes are really catchy. A complete game data editor was just released to celebrate the 30 year anniversary, at https://github.com/kaimitai/klabkit-sdl
Crossman 2022-05-10 1 point
OK. So actually Ken's Labyrinth, although being a first among those that followed Silverman's accomplishments, is by no means inferior to his later work as a programmer neither is it different in idea and scope than say, Duke Nukem 3D and others. I personally found it a refreshing change of pace from the otherwise gloom and doom that Wolfenstein and Doom represent and a funny concept that some alien beings from somewhere in space likes to spread on their bread the jelly that comes from the planets that lose to their puzzles.
I only wish there were more games similar to Ken's Labyrinth that would offer an alternative to violence and mayhem and would impart a greater creativity to those enjoying such games.
old wolves 2018-12-26 1 point
just spent an hour forty five trying to find this damn game, haha... Loved this one as a kid. can't imagine it holds up very well today though...
Green 2018-12-09 7 points
Everyone's complaining about this one, forgetting it was put together by a teenager, back when very few people could even make a raycasting engine that ran this smoothly on PCs of the time, let alone a kid. The level of interactivity you also had with the world was unprecedented for 1993 and would only be one-upped by Ken's own Build Engine.
No, as a game Ken's Labyrinth is not for everyone, but as an accomplishment it's very impressive.
karyel 2015-12-12 1 point
for me this is weird and fun game, I first played it when I was 8 yrs old and I didn't finish it because I was in love with the heretic game. :D
d.Rock 2014-10-31 0 point DOS version
I will admit that I played this in about 7th grade... when I became addicted to slot machines. I played the game just to play the slot machines... This game was very entertaining for a kid with little money and lots of time.
Lulz 2014-06-04 -7 points DOS version
Just a weird Wolfenstein3D clone that just didnt work for me
indstr 2014-02-11 1 point DOS version
Oh dear, this is what we would play in the months before Doom came out. It gave me a headache just like Wolf3d though. Yeah it wasn't too memorable.
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