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"Mazes and Labyrinths" Q&A, Interview Compendium!

This is the compendium of all of the interviews in "Mazes and Labyrinths," my Q&A series with speedrunners and Twitch streamers. I ask them about disempowerment inside Metroidvania and survival horror games, specifically how mazes and labyrinths, along and their historically "heavy" contents, are used to disempower players. 

Update, 1/4/2025: I've decided to release the entirety of my work on Metroidvania in one single place: "From Master's to PhD (and Beyond): My Entire Work on Metroidvania" (2025). This includes my master's thesis and early postgraduate work (re: "Mazes and Labyrinths"), my PhD (released in 2023), further essays released after my postgraduate work in my larger book series, Sex Positivity. You can also ask me questions about Metroidvania on the r/Metroidvania subreddit: "From Master's to PhD (and Beyond): My Entire Work on Metroidvania" (2025).

This post contains all of the interviews for the series. For more information on my exact research goals for the series, and on Metroidvania and survivor horror and what they are as genres, please refer to the series abstract.

The Interviews

CScottyW: A speedrunner with world records in Metroid 1, Fusion and Zero Mission. Read our interview here.


Behemoth87: A speedrunner with world records in Metroid II, and previous records in Super Metroid. Read our interview here.

ShinyZeni: A speedrunner with previous records in Super Metroid. Read our interview here.

SBDWolf: A speedrunner with world records in Castlevania 1, Donkey Kong Country 2, and Cuphead[interview coming soon]

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About me: My name is Nick van der Waard and I'm a Gothic ludologist. I primarily write reviews, Gothic analyses, and interviews. Because my main body of work is relatively vast, I've compiled it into a single compendium where I not only list my favorite works, I also summarize them. Check it out, here!

I'm an artist and a writer. If you're interested my work and are curious about illustrated or written commissions, please refer to my website for more information. If you want to contact me about a guest article, please use this contact form or reach out to me on Discord (vanderWaardart#5394)!

If you want to make donations, you can directly support my artwork on Patreon and my writing on Ko-Fi!

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