Posted November 20, 2025 by Smohc_Stahc
Should I need to tell you my story?
I've sat on this project for a long time, three years without any work done. My original intention was to build myself a little LLC, register a domain name and self-host a server tied to a payment processor of my own and sell and market my little gems to anyone who was curious enough to find my corner of the internet. In the three months it took me to develop this game, I knew the time was limited. My ability to program to my heart's content on pet projects while being paid unemployment was going to come to and end and I would have to return to the job I was furloughed from 18 months prior. I satisfied myself with the knowledge of having finally completed a game. It was the kind of satisfaction a dying man has when thinking about the house he built when he was young. A house that will inevitably fall to ruin the moment his six children fail to come to an agreement on the words "equal portions" and cash out to a private equity firm. Without a proper business to carry on, this game should be my last as I will be back to working my normal full-time job to support my normal family. Still I am happy to have made it, because of what it is. I am a dead man and this is my house.
Oh you, humble reader who took the road less traveled to dead end here on my corner of the internet, I offer to you this work without request for compensation. I would recommend a project like this sit at the cost of $5 that at the current rate of inflation should be $5.02 by the end of this post (And $5.05 if you read it twice). If you happen to spare some money and happen to have so much of it that you're willing to part with it for the most frivolous of reasons, you can hand it to me using the download page, where I will inevitably waste it on yet more video games. While the game is free for you to receive here, I should be rather displeased if this game happened to end up elsewhere. Pay attention and you might however notice something when you do choose to acquire my game legitimately through my recommended means of distribution.
If you know me in person and you probably do if you happen to be here, (because at the time of writing the page is unlisted, de-listed or otherwise scrubbed from all algorithms) then you might happen to know I busy myself with full employment while being a dutiful husband and father caring for and maintaining many needs. Perhaps its seems somewhat laughable to you specifically to imagine a situation where I, a scrupulous, god-fearing, warm-blooded American would have the audacity to pass off a passion project as a scam to harvest browser cookies or API keys. Regardless of the nature of the joke upon which we laugh, the reality is quite serious and to guard against it, downloads for Labyrinth Stalker have been quarantined. For me to go about the theft of this information would be a felony under federal U.S. law for accessing another person's computer without their expressed permission. I am keenly aware that, as a United States citizen, I am well within the jurisdiction for a valid plaintiff to seek prosecution for this injustice. My identity, being divulged completely for the purposes of making the very webpage you happen to be reading, is not something that would be very difficult to be uncovered by any law enforcement agent, should such a plaintiff choose to pursue a conviction. Well, if you happen to be worried about yourself, then I'm afraid I am set apart from you trapped culture now lost to time. It is a culture where the spies and malicious actors were seen as enemies doing harm rather than providing a service. It is a time when an operating system contained absolutely no useful identifying information and could be wiped and reinstalled in an afternoon. I have no fear of being hacked, impersonated or blackmailed and I am incapable of motive to these crimes. Don't envy me, it is a damnable existence doomed to inconsequence, but think of this in relation to my software.
Should I be bitter for choosing to create something that can run on a 15 year old machine running Windows 7 with only an integrated graphics card rather than bloating it up with incomprehensible libraries or scripts so it can be run in a browser? This question is left as an exercise for the reader but I should continue. I have taken it upon myself all those many years ago when I first wrote this software to endeavor to register a copyright. To the me of now, it is an exercise without meaning because I am not so naive to think that it can and most likely will appear elsewhere and on other devices without my permission. I would go so far as to say that the popularity of this particular game could reach it's peak among cell phone users regardless of my distaste for any mobile device. Think about this when you consider why this game does not run in a browser.
To the question of "should", the answer is "no".