The Pac-Man episode of Amazon Prime Show Secret Level serves as the muse behind this unusual new Vania and its odd combination of inspirations.
So far 2025 has proven to be a strong year for strange games, offering many unexpected peculiarities, including one that features a A boy trapped in a constant T-position A boy locked in an unchanging T-pose A boy unable to move from his T-shaped stance A boy frozen in a static T-pose A boy stuck with his arms out in a T-formation A boy permanently positioned in a T-shape A boy caught in an eternal T-posture A boy immobilized in a T-body position A boy fixed in a lasting T-stance A boy forever held in a T-configuration and whose closest companion is a musical giraffe, and latest updates from Hideo Kojima where you receive instructions from a chatty store dummy and battle spirits by throwing a boomerang dipped in your own blood against them.
It might sound like a cliche, but much of the most unusual stuff video games are made in Japan ; those two definitely, and so is this one: a dark and rough 2D platformer that's also a hidden Pac-Man game. As strange as that concept sounds, it's disturbingly similar to Bomberman: Act Zero on the original. Xbox which transformed the vibrant social game into a bleak horror scenario and gained notoriety as one of the most poorly received video games ever created.
Shadow Labyrinth isn't anywhere close to being that poor, although it also doesn't truly have much depth. The game draws inspiration from a ten-minute segment of the Amazon Prime Video series Secret Level, which transformed Pac-Man into a science fiction narrative involving a starfighter pilot who crashes onto an alien planet and gets controlled by a sinister version of Pac-Man. Although we haven't viewed it ourselves, we certainly wish it was superior to the accompanying video game.
Prior to discovering the link with Amazon, we believed the game was influenced by the well-known The Insanity of Operation 6 Fan artwork featuring Pac-Man, something you've likely spotted on a t-shirt at least once, particularly if you've attended a video game convention or related gathering. This would have definitely been far more engaging than the shallow, overused science fiction story that serves as the real background for Shadow Labyrinth.
From the very beginning, the story features absurd-sounding names and technical terms, but here's the brief: you play as an unnamed warrior brought back to life by a hovering yellow sphere named Puck, which others will instantly recognize as Pac-Man. (The name alludes to the fact that the original video game was initially intended to be titled Puck Man, before they realized how simple it was for the first letter of the word to get damaged.)
Following a short, somewhat perplexing intro, you're quickly immersed in references, battling strange alien insects with your sword and honing your 2D side-scrolling jumps. This all works well enough, but the dull and sterile visual design is instantly off-putting and gives the impression of an outdated Flash game.
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