I could see in my head the stone wall of the interior of the castle, and I was vaguely aware of some certain background music. With just those details to go on, I started searching the Internet for the name of this game. I had seriously been obsessed with tracking it down for years, and I finally found something that might be the game I so desperately sought. The game was called MindMaze, and it came with Encarta Encyclopedia, but I couldn’t get a clear release date. Maybe 1996 or 1998? I looked the game up online, and even though there were some differences I don’t recall, I think it was the game I had been looking for. Basically, you explored a castle by clicking on doors or people and answering random trivia questions in order to proceed. The funny thing is how faulty our memories are.

I remember the game to be a lot more free-roaming, when in actuality it’s more of a point-and-click kind of game. I also thought the game was more 3D when the graphics are more flat and cartoony. And yet, the more I watched someone play the game and caught little snippets of the background music, the more the memories all came flooding back. This is the game I had been searching for, that “super awesome game I played a long time ago, where you got to explore a medieval castle”.

Mindmaze encarta game online