These, like scary maze game, are designed to look like still images, innocuous videos, or browser games. The scary maze game is part of a genre of scare pranks called screamers or jump scares, tracing back to the 1990s. These videos may be referenced alongside the game itself. This video attained its own memetic status and may also have helped intensify the popularity of the game. When the screamer was triggered and his friend attempted to scare him, the player hit his friend with a lamp, threw his printer out the window, and leapt out himself. One notable take, which achieved meme status all its own, featured a man who was shown the game while a friend hid under his desk. Saturday Night Live also parodied the meme in a 2010 video, and more reaction videos followed. This set off a wave of similar reaction videos, massively boosted later in August of that the year when then-Disney stars Miley Cyrus and Mandy Jiroux recorded their own scary maze game video. Recording unsuspecting people playing scary maze games became a popular prank and meme in 2008 with a hit YouTube video showing a young boy playing the game, and getting duly, and to many, hilariously, frightened. Once the player completes Level 3, a picture of Regan McNeil (Linda Blair), the possessed girl from The Exorcist, suddenly, and terrifyingly, pops on their screen, accompanied by a loud scream. The flash-based computer game requires a player to navigate a multi-level maze without touching any of its walls, demanding intense concentration. Game developer Jeremy Winterrowd is credited with creating the original scary maze game, which his website calls “The Maze,” in 2003.

Scary maze prank games