Developer: Ken Silverman
Release Date: January 1, 1993
Source Code Release Date: July 1, 2001

I'm going to be honest - for a long time I didn't know Ken's Labyrinth was a real game. Written by Ken Silverman as a teenager, the game is most known for being effectively the progenitor of the Build engine, which he later wrote. For some reason I always thought it was the name of a tech demo he used to get the 3D Realms gig, and not an actual commercial title.

But no, it's real, and it's fascinating. Sometimes when you have an early example of a game in a genre you get to see what they tried to do before they knew what worked. Like how Wolfenstein 3-D had points you could score, something later id Software titles never had. Ken's Labyrinth, though, has everything. Score? Check. Utterly random enemies? Check. No real plot or need for one? Of course. Graphics and sounds made by a passionate one-person team with no previous experience? Done. An in-game economy with vending and slot machines? Sure why the heck not. Toss in some photos of the developer and an audio clip of him welcoming you and you have the video game equivalent of a cult classic. The game was originally shareware and later published by Epic.

Silverman released the game as freeware in 1999 and the source in 2001. LAB3D/SDL is a source port started by Ryan “icculus” Gordon and like the Build engine that came after it, it's been through a chain of maintainers, including Katie Stafford, the latest of which is from Cameron Armstrong who brought it into modern Mac platforms.