Clone

Clone is a puzzle-oriented maze game with occasional elements from other game types like Soko-Ban, but its main distinctive feature is the ability to simultaneously control several identical characters ("clones") that do exactly the same movements. The game's plot follows a fantasy creature that looks like a blue smiley face, who is lost in not-so-friendly places and must find its way out of trouble, often with the help of its magically created duplicates - the eponymous clones.

The game is split into six episodes, each spanning across multiple levels. The player's objective in each level is to safely guide the main character and any of its clones to the exit point marked by a blue gem. The path to the exit is often strewn with traps and other obstacles, but whenever the character is cloned, the player's main concern would be to take advantage of this ability, while trying not to softlock oneself in an unwinnable position. For example, it may be required to make two clones stand on different floor buttons in order to open a door. All clones make the same moves, i.e. when the left arrow key is pressed they all move to the left if possible; so guiding clones individually to their desired destinations is somewhat tricky and requires thinking ahead.

Clone was originally marketed as a shareware game, with the free demo containing only the first episode out of the six. In the early 2000s, when the publisher shut down, author Mathieu Frenette made the full version available as a free download from his site.