falkens maze

Falkens maze (AKA Faulkens maze) is a fictional artificial intelligence game from the 1980’s movie war games.

It has also been known to refer to “shepherds maze” an unusually secretive online alternate reality game, available by invitation only. Most likely falkens maze is used as a code or to conceal that players are actually referring to shepherds maze, as some online communities have become hostile towards players. Although they are interchangeable (falkens or shepherds) the actual game is sometimes called just “the maze” as the original game had no name but was given the nickname by players because it revolves around a highly detailed and complex journal written by a man named “Shephard” or “Shepherd”. A known symbol used by players is the sheep emoji followed by the dog emoji (🐑🐕) and/or the numbers (8888 0008). Details of the game are a tightly guarded secret and sometimes compared to the secretive online group cicada 3301.

Remember that scene in wargames where falkens maze says “would you like to play a game”?

Q: Bro have you heard of that “arg” game falkens maze? I heard it’s super crazy and people get obsessed with playing it.

A: yeah man, it’s just another name for shepherds maze, same thing.

Shepherds maze

Shepherds maze (sheps maze) is a highly secretive but allegedly exciting online alternate reality game in which players can join by invitation only and is loosely based on a bizarre journal found to have belonged to a paranoid schizophrenic in GA. Aspects of the game are taken directly from the journal in a way that re-enacts scenarios described within. Snapshots of the journal have been seen on Imgur and reddit under fake/ghost/newly created usernames but are usually deleted before anyone has had a chance to save them.

Dude I’ve been playing shepherds maze for a month and it’s so much better than any other ARG I’ve ever played.

Did you see that last snapshot of Shepherds journal? I wonder if there’s any clues that will be in the maze?!