Soul Of Mask

Review

When I was a tadpole in the early 80’s, I spent a fair bit of time and money playing this yellow ball who was eating dots and blue ghosts. Several weeks ago, while looking at my discovery queue (on Steam) I came across a maze game called Soul of Mask that took me back to those times.    

Soul of Mask is labyrinth game where you control a spirit, which is represented by a white sphere (or mask when equipped), collects demon eyes and escapes the underworld.

In the main menu, you can start a new game, continue an existing game, and adjust your settings via the option tab. There are three locations in which to play, each with 34 levels to clear. This screen will pretty much look like a maze with circles and locks above them. You have to successfully beat a level to unlock the next. However, the first three are a short tutorial which you have to complete. You also have 250 coins at your disposal straight away to purchase one of the 5 marks available. Each of the masks has a different ability and costs 250 coins each time you buy one.

There are two ways to start a level, either with or without a mask. If you already have a mask, not only will you have an ability on hand (either shooting fire projectiles, teleporting, hiding, creating a barricade of rocks, or freezing), but you can pick demon eyes straight away.  If not, you have to find which tile has the rotating mask icon on it so that you can pick it up and make your way to the eyes for collection. There are between 2 to 6 eyes in each level so far (I have beaten 7 levels in each location). Some of the eyes are protected by gates or by guardians. Each maze has coins to pick up but you don’t have to collect them all to finish a level. You beat the level when you acquire all eyes. Some other interesting aspects within the maze include a minimum of 3 enemies at the start of each of the levels. One tile has an expanding and contracting black circle on it; a new enemy will appear on it every 20 seconds or so and you have no idea which mask it will wear. To give you an idea, if you are wearing a red mask which shoots fire and you are purchased by an enemy with the same type of mask, it will be immune to your ability. The next thing is the guardians. You’ll need to have them see you in order to attack you and leave the tiles in the place where they were guarding one of the eyes so that you can collect it. Each guardian is a combination of 4 spirits with masks and as soon as you take the eye it was guarding, it will release the four new enemies within the maze. It becomes very crowded quickly and fairly difficult to clear the level. That’s not all, there are masks within walls that reappear every 5 to 10 seconds and drop an obstacle for a few seconds in front of you. It could be a rock to stop you going through, water to slow you down, or freeze you for a few seconds, and more. All you need to do is to make sure to collect all the demon eyes as soon as possible. When you successfully complete a level faster than the time limit, you will be granted more coins.

The controls were quite responsive and I preferred the keyboard option rather than the gamepad. The game could have been more polished in terms of graphics and I find the music irritating (thank God we can mute it)! I also experienced a few crashes.