Sketchy Maze

"a drawing-based maze game."

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v0.15.0 Released

It has been over 2 years since the last release, but Sketchy Maze v0.15.0 is here!

This release focused heavily on performance improvements, including slashing the file sizes of levels & doodads by 90% (resulting in a much smaller download size of the game), fixing memory leaks and reworking collision detection to make the game run much more smoothly.

It also tightens up the game’s features and fixes a lot of bugs with collision detection and doodad scripts.

v0.14.0 Released

A new version of Sketchy Maze is now released and brings some polish and a handful of new features!

Some of the highlights of this release includes:

  • Level Thumbnails will now be generated and saved with your level file. At first, these will appear on the Story Mode screen for level packs but in future releases they will show when loading your custom levels from disk, and when an online level sharing service is set up, they will be prominently featured there to get a preview of a level before you download it!

    v0.13.2 Released

    It’s been a bit over a year since the last release of Sketchy Maze, but I’ve been slowly working on it in between other distractions of life and work getting in the way. 😅

    This release brings some new features and optimization for the game’s file formats to improve performance and memory usage.

    Some new features:

    • Doodads can be non-square! You can now set a rectangular canvas size for your doodads. Many of the game’s built-in doodads that used to be off-center before (doors, creatures) because their sprites were not squares now have correct rectangular shapes.
    • A Cheats Menu has been added which enables you to enter many of the game’s cheat codes by clicking on buttons instead. Enable it through the “Experimental” tab of the Settings, and the cheats menu can be opened from the Help menu bar during gameplay.
    • The game now supports Signed Levels and levelpacks which will enable the free version of the game to play levels that have embedded doodads in them. The idea is that the base game in the future may come with levelpacks that use custom doodads (to tell a specific story) and these doodads may be so specific and niche that they will ride with the levelpack instead of be built-in to the game. To allow the free version of the game to play these levels, the levelpacks will be signed. It also makes it possible for promotional levelpacks or “free DLC” to be shipped separately and allow free versions of the game to play them with their attached custom doodads.

    Other miscellaneous changes:

    v0.13.1 Released

    This release brings a handful of minor new features to the game.

    First, there are a couple of new Pixel Attributes available in the level editor:

    • Semi-Solid: pixels with this attribute only behave as “solid” when walked on from above. The player can jump through the bottom of a Semi-Solid and land on top, and gradual slopes can be walked up and down as well, but a steep slope or a wall can be simply passed through as though it were just decoration.
    • Slippery: the player’s acceleration and friction are reduced when walking on a slippery floor. In the future, players and other mobile doodads may slide down slippery slopes automatically as well (not yet implemented).
    • These attributes are available in the Level Editor by clicking the “Edit” button on your Palette (or the “Tools -> Edit Palette” menu). The Palette Editor now has small icon images for the various attributes to make room for the expanded arsenal of options.

    v0.13.0 Released

    A new major update to the Sketchy Maze beta has been released! This update continues to improve on performance and stability with a new file format for Levels (& Doodads) which greatly reduces memory use when playing large and colorful levels such as Azulian Tag - Forest – down from 1.5 GB of memory to closer to 200 MB, making these larger levels playable on lower power devices.

    Your existing levels & doodads created with earlier versions of the game still work! The update is backwards compatible and your files will be transparently upgraded to the new format on its next save.

    v0.12.1 Released

    A new version of Sketchy Maze has been released and this one focuses on improving performance and memory usage of the game. Two of the game’s levels (“Azulian Tag - Forest” and “Shapeshifter”) were especially taxing on the game and 32-bit builds could sometimes crash for running out of memory! The game tries to be much nicer about freeing up memory when not in use and more proactively loading/unloading level chunks during gameplay.

    v0.12.0: the Azulian Tag Update

    A new beta release of Sketchy Maze is now available. This release brings a lot of new features to the level editor, such as a Text Tool and Flood Fill Tool, and adds a couple new levels for a game mode called “Azulian Tag.”

    In Azulian Tag, the player who is “It” (that’s you) needs to avoid being tagged by the enemy characters, most of which are Azulians. The Azulians on these maps have an infinite aggro radius and will chase after the player no matter how far away you are! To get the gold medal high score, you need to find the secret exit hidden in each level. Otherwise, you’re awarded a silver high score based on how long you survive until one of the Azulians catches you!

    v0.11.0: the Creatures Update

    This is a new, major release of the Sketchy Maze beta. There are a bunch of new tweaks to gameplay including controller support and an A.I. overhaul for the enemy creatures.

    Download the latest release now or see the change log for full details. The highlights of this release are described below.

    Screenshot of The Zoo

    New Features

    Creatures are more aggressive

    The game’s creatures have had an update to their A.I. and many of them will now become hostile to the player character. There have also been updates to their behavior when controlled by the player character. Some of the changed behaviors include:

    Sketchy Maze v0.10.1 Released

    A new revision of Sketchy Maze has been released!

    This is a minor release that brings the following new features:

    • Level progression and high scores in Story Mode.
    • Auto-save for the editor in case of unexpected crash!
    • Color picker UI to more easily choose colors in the editor without worrying about hexadecimal codes!
    • Invisible Warp Door doodad has been added.
    • Several built-in levels have been revised for difficulty. These levels were created during earlier versions of the game and weren’t updated when the player character and platforming physics were changed, and some platforming sections were difficult with touch controls.

    There are a few smaller fixes and improvements, see the change log for the full details!

    Sketchy Maze v0.10.0 Released

    A new version of Sketchy Maze has been released!

    Screenshot

    Some new features of this release include:

    Level Packs

    Players can create their own Level Packs which are collections of levels that are played in series. The game’s built-in levels have also been grouped into a couple of Level Packs.

    You may “Edit” a level from a Level Pack and remix it or learn from it without affecting the original level data.

    Sketchy Maze v0.9.0 Released

    A new version of Sketchy Maze has been released! This release comes with some huge quality of life improvements, new doodads, and a new level!

    screenshot

    Some of the highlights of this release include:

    Touch Controls!

    The game is now 100% playable on Linux mobile devices such as the Pine64 Pinephone. In the level editor, drag with two fingers to pan the view of your level and for gameplay, just touch in the direction you want to go. On-screen hints will appear if you stand still for a moment. I’m beginning to look at Android support, stay tuned!

    Sketchy Maze v0.8.1 Released

    This is a minor update to the game which brings a couple new features, but the main feature of this release is there there are now 32-bit builds available for Linux and Windows.

    The new (experimental) features in this release include:

    • Zoom In/Out: in the level editor you can zoom in and out of your drawing. It’s mostly usable with a few bugs to iron out.
    • Replace Palette: in the Level Properties window you have the option to replace your palette with one of the built-in defaults, like when you first created your level.

    To access these features, open the game’s Settings window and see the new “Experimental” tab.

    Sketchy Maze v0.8.0 Released

    A new version of Sketchy Maze is released today that brings several new features, new doodads and new levels!

    Grab the latest version on the Download page!

    Some highlights of the new release include:

    Doodad Editor Improvements

    Using only in-game tools, it is now fully possible to create custom doodads (including multiple frames of animation), attach and manage their JavaScript sources, and there are a few built-in “generic scripts” to give simple behaviors to your custom doodads all without you needing to worry at all about writing any JavaScript code!

    Sketchy Maze v0.7.2 Released

    A new version of Sketchy Maze is released today that brings some new features and some new content.

    Grab the latest version on the Download page!

    New Levels

    Two new levels are added in this release:

    • Desert-1of2.level: a desert-themed level with platforming segments as you climb the outside of a pyramid.
    • Desert-2of2.level: inside the pyramid. This level is full of puzzles involving the new Box doodad.

    These join the previous three Tutorial levels that earlier versions came with.

    Sketchy Maze v0.7.1 Released

    This is a small bugfix release: on the Windows build of v0.7.0, built-in wallpapers other than the default Notebook were failing to load.

    No substantial differences for the Linux or Mac OS version, though I have improved my deployment scripts to make it easier to release the game in the future.

    Get the new version on the Download page!

    Sketchy Maze v0.7.0 Released

    release announcement

    A new alpha version of Sketchy Maze has been released.

Copyright © 2026 Noah Petherbridge.