Eclectic Lunchbox of Delights

a game by Chris Street

Dizzy and tired, you open your eyes to find yourself at your desk. You'd fallen asleep on the Internet.

It's not quite dawn, and the room is pitch-black. Your coffee's cold, (good job that did of keeping you awake,) your doors are all locked and your monitor image is slowly morphing into some Daliesque vision of random madness. As you slowly regain awareness, you shake your head at the insane Web pages that are appearing on your monitor. And you have the uncanny feeling that somewhere, something's watching you - in the prowl. What a terrible way to start your day....

Welcome to the WEB LABYRINTH. You need to go in, find a particular page that you're interested in, and get back out as quickly as possible. And you know that somewhere nearby lurks the fearful MINOTAUR, who happens to love surfing the web too and is always in the search of new creatures to eat.

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The Rules.

When you click that button below, you will be cast into the world of WEB LABYRINTH. An entire Web world will be created for you at random, and you will find yourself at one of the pages in this new world. The pages that you encounter will be weird, silly and bizarre, some will be well-designed and professional, and some will be sloppy and amatuerish. They will be about all sorts of subjects, and have many different layouts. This labyrinth, you understand, exists in a strange dimension far removed from the mainstream Web at large, and you might encounter just about anything.

The only thing that every page will have in common is a list of links. This will be how you make your way throughout this new world - this Web Labyrinth. Try to pick up clues on how to navigate through this place. Fortunately, most of the time, links are reciprocal - but it doesn't have to be that way in all cases.

Your task is simply to find the information that you're looking for in this Web Labyrinth, (no, you don't know exactly which page it's on beforehand,) and to return to the web page from which you started. Easy, right?

Ah, but you're forgetting the MINOTAUR. A mythical beast of unreal strength and power, he's waiting somewhere in this world to trap you and have a quick munch. He's browsing the same pages that you are, and sees exactly the same links, and every now and again moves from one page to the next. And if you and he ever happen to be on the same web page at the same time, well... use your imagination.

It always has to be difficult, doesn't it? It sort of gives the notion of "dead links" a whole new meaning. So if you think that you're brave enough to go in, just remember: it's a world where there are no search engines, no back buttons, and not even a spool of string to help you. Drink that coffee cold, 'cause you certainly don't want to fall asleep now.

Begin a new game of Web Labyrinth.