Windows 95 maze screensaver mod software#
Windows 95 maze screensaver mod windows#

XScreenSaver 5.39, released in April 2018, includes a Maze3D module written by 'Sudoer' that replicates the Windows screensaver. In 2017, independent video game developer Cahoots Malone made Screensaver Subterfuge, a video game based on the screensaver created using assets from the original ssmaze.scr file. On this map, the 'player' is represented as a blue triangle, the start as a red triangle, the smiley face as a green triangle, the rocks as rotating white triangles, the OpenGL logos as stationary white triangles, and the rat as an orange triangle.Ĭornell University's Maze in a Box, a project to create 3D graphics using the Atmel Mega32 microcontroller, used the 3D Maze screensaver as inspiration. Users can also enable an overlaid map, which constantly displays the maze using simple vector graphics. Upon reaching it, the maze will reset and another will be generated. The exit to the maze is a floating, translucent smiley face. When this happens, the 'player' will traverse the maze following the right wall rather than the left until the exit is found or another gray rock is encountered. Additionally, the 'player' will encounter rotating polyhedric gray rocks that, when touched, will flip the camera upside down and turn the floor into the ceiling. Users can customize these textures, swapping them out for animated psychedelic patterns in later versions, or may instead create their own custom textures.Īs the maze is traversed, several objects can be found inside it, including floating 'OpenGL' logos, images of globes on the walls (which is seen on the cover of the OpenGL Programming Guide), and a 2D sprite image of a rat that is also moving through the maze. From there, the maze is automatically traversed using the left-hand rule, which will guarantee the maze will eventually be solved because all of the randomly-generated mazes are simply connected.īy default, the maze is textured with brick walls, a wooden floor, and an asbestos tile ceiling. You can grab it from here for Windows, macOS or Linux if you're inclined to waste an afternoon clicking around a maze from your childhood.The maze is randomly generated each time, with the 'player' navigating through it in first-person, spawning in front of a floating start button. You get the point this is the real deal or as real as you can realistically expect it to get. Tile patterns for the game's menu screens were excavated from old system files.

In order to really get the authentic Windows 95 atmosphere, attention to detail was paid textures for the bricks, carpet, and stones are the same standard Microsoft bitmaps found in the original screensaver, according to the game's readme file.

Who cares if it's smooth or runs at 60FPS – you get to play the role of the rat you've been having nightmares about for the last 22 years!Īuthenticity was the main goal when developing this game, according to developer Cahoots Malone. While Screensaver Subterfuge is far from an AAA gaming experience (it ends up being little more than a maze game with bad voiceovers and choppy graphics), it makes up for it in pure nostalgic value. If watching AI-controlled rat mindlessly pursue the smiley face at the end of the labyrinth was enough to distract your minuscule brain, prepare to have your mind blown The maze is back, but in a new form this time as a pseudo-easter egg game called Screensaver Subterfuge.

Everyone who was around at the time can remember wasting at least an afternoon or two just watching it go.Īnd now you can do it again. The screensaver of a simple rat navigating its way around a never-ending maze is ingrained into many of our memories and remains an iconic part of Windows history. However, what wasn't as noteworthy but somehow ended up being particularly memorable was Windows 95's iconic screensaver.

Windows 95 maze screensaver mod software#

Remember Windows 95? At the time, the OS was a pretty huge step forward for Windows as a software platform merging MS-DOS with Windows, introducing support for the 32-bit architecture, introducing key Windows GUI features that we know and love today such as the start menu, the taskbar, Windows Explorer and much more.