- Commandeer a velosphere to the finish line at the end of every maze
- Muster up every ounce of your short-term memory to finish the game
- No respites, race against the clock after three seconds of layout memorisation
Nothing captures that fleeting sensation of timelessness as well as synthwave – a genre associated with Miami sunsets and vintage race cars, like the Lamborghini Countach. It’s mainly celebrated for its 80s neon aesthetics and great electronic score. It also wormed its way into many media works, and science fiction in particular shares a good chemistry with it. As proof of my statement, look no further than Blade Runner’s Los Angeles and Akira’s Neo-Tokyo.
Many covet its ability to blend a nostalgic past with the future’s potential. I am one of them. Listening to Timecop1983 or Wolfclub on my commute fills me with nostalgia. It also reminds me of fun times playing games on cereal boxes or newspapers during my free time. Among them, personally, nothing can be more revitalising and gratifying than navigating mazes.
So, when the Neon Zone trailer dropped, I knew I had to play it. It melds two of my f avourites together, presented in a way that tailors to the smartphone generation plagued with goldfish memories.
Reshaping the temporal frontier
The first thing that struck me about Neon Zone is its Tron vibe. In the original arcade, there’s a part called the Light Cycle match, where you race an opposing rider and try to kill them with a trailing light ribbon. In lieu of that, here, time is your greatest foe to race against.
Right off the bat, you start with 15 free mazes to race on with extra unlockable stages you can buy. You play as a Velosphere that’s seemingly designed after the Alien’s Shredder from 2014’s Battleship.
This is not your ordinary maze quest where you help little Joe find his way back through a maze. All the mazes here have a time attack twist. On every stage, you are given three seconds to memorise its pattern. Once the time is up, the screen immediately zooms in. With only your short-term memory and sense of direction, you must tilt and turn to reach the yellow finish line. If you’re one millisecond too slow to make that turn or accidentally run hither and thither, your sphere blows up. Once the tick-tock stops, so does your run.
Dangers lurk in the neon labyrinth
Nothing compares to the thrill of beating a maze’s tricky twists and optical deceits. Neon Zone designs its stages using these factors. They did so with a proper linear difficulty progression in mind. Some mazes have multiple paths to optimise your time. Others deceive you with their confusing patterns. Hence, often, what seems complicated is sometimes just a straight dash to the finish line. Other than the walls, there are also red lasers and the occasional bomb to steer clear of.
What defines a game about mazes is, of course, the maze designs. Neon Zone really flexed their creative muscles here. There is a linear difficulty level so you don’t immediately feel overwhelmed. Some levels down the road (such as Level 43) are just absolutely challenging to conquer.
The same can’t be said for the naming convention – while some of them make perfect sense like the Arrow and Neon Maze, most of the words felt spontaneously spewed out of ChatGPT. Some maze patterns felt repetitive as well. Case in point – Level 23 and 29. 
When it comes to monetisation, other than the level packs that require an actual purchase, neon candies are the main currency awarded for every perfect finish on a level. In return, you can cash in for either new tunes or spend 20 coins to make your title screen more retro. The music composition has a playful yet consistent upbeat tune to it. If anything, Bendik’s passion for experimenting with different music feels palpable.
The temporal perfectionist
Stars are awarded for finishing a maze within a set time. More often than not, that’s easier said than done. To reiterate for emphasis, you’re penalised for being a fraction of a millisecond too slow in your reflexes. Failure to time your turn accurately causes your sphere to ram against the wall. This can waste enough time to make you miss a star.
Other than setting a new time record and defeating your past self, there’s also healthy competition in the form of leaderboards that let you compete with others, both of which grant you endless replayability.
Download now!
