Wall collisions do not lower your score in Maze Game. Bumping into a wall or pressing an arrow key toward a solid edge is treated as a no-op: the input is ignored, the player dot does not move, the step counter stays put, and the running total remains exactly where it was a moment earlier. Scoring is calculated solely from accepted corridor moves, using score = max(0, 1,000 − 10 × valid steps), with a hard floor at zero. That mechanic is the core difference between a maze game that punishes clumsy inputs and one that measures actual route quality. Accidental key presses never compound into a worse final score the way they would in a game that tracks every keystroke. This keeps the displayed score a clean reflection of how efficiently you solved the maze, and removes the "I would have scored higher if I hadn't bumped that wall" frustration that maze players often report elsewhere. Below is how the rule works in detail, exactly which inputs count, and how to hit the 760-point ceiling on the 9 by 9 deterministic layout.
How the Scoring Formula Works
The score starts at 1,000 on every fresh round and decreases by 10 points per accepted move. An "accepted move" is any arrow input that successfully transports the player dot from its current corridor cell to one orthogonal neighbor that is also a corridor cell inside the 9 by 9 board. Inputs that would land in a wall, off the grid, or onto a previously illegal diagonal destination are rejected before they affect the counter. As a result, only the inputs that produce visible movement can lower your total.
The shortest valid solution on this board takes exactly 24 valid moves, and the formula makes that equivalent to 1,000 − (10 × 24) = 1,000 − 240 = 760 points. The score cannot drop below zero. If your path drifts past 100 accepted steps — which is impractical on this compact single-corridor layout but worth knowing about — additional accepted inputs will stop reducing the displayed total and the floor stays at zero.
What Counts as a Valid Move
Four specific conditions must all be true for an arrow press to register as a valid step. The destination cell must be exactly one orthogonal neighbor away (up, down, left, or right); diagonal moves are not allowed. The destination has to be inside the 9 by 9 board grid, so pressing any arrow at the outside edge is silently ignored. The destination must be an open corridor cell, not a wall. The destination must differ from the cell you currently occupy, so an input that would keep you in place is treated as nothing.
The board's current position is announced as "Player" to assistive technology, and the goal is announced separately. Each board cell exposes whether it is a wall or a corridor, which means the same wall-collision rule applies to screen-reader users as to mouse and keyboard users. Before a round begins, the game logic runs a breadth-first reachability check from the start to the goal; a future malformed layout would surface as a deadlocked maze message rather than inviting play on an unreachable board.
| Arrow press | Destination | Step added? | Score change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up / Down / Left / Right | Open corridor cell inside the 9 × 9 board | Yes, one step | −10 points |
| Up / Down / Left / Right | Adjacent wall | No | None |
| Up / Down / Left / Right | Off the board edge | No | None |
| Diagonal combination | Any cell | No | None |
| Any arrow key | Same current cell | No | None |
How to Reach the Star and a 760-Point Run
- Load Maze Game in your browser. The 9 by 9 board appears with a start marker in the upper-left corridor and a star goal near the lower-right corner. The step counter reads 0 and the score displays 1,000.
- Press Arrow Up, Arrow Down, Arrow Left, or Arrow Right to attempt one orthogonal cell of movement. If your input points into an open corridor, the dot moves and the counter ticks up by 1 and your score drops by 10. If the input is blocked by a wall or points off the grid, nothing visible happens and your numbers stay the same.
- Trace the winding path toward the star, accepting only the moves that advance your position. Skip every detour you can spot — each accepted move costs 10 points, so avoiding backtracking is the only way to keep the score high.
- Aim to land on exactly 24 accepted moves. That target produces a final score of 1,000 − (10 × 24) = 760, which is the best possible result on this fixed layout.
- Step onto the star cell to complete the round. The board freezes in its finished state so you can read the final step total and the final score side by side.
- Select Restart below the board at any time to reset the player, the step counter, the score, and the completion state. The same 9 by 9 layout reloads, because the maze is deterministic and not randomly generated.
- Press Escape twice within 400 milliseconds to swap the screen to a simulated operations spreadsheet; press Escape twice again to return to the maze. This "boss" cover screen is purely visual; it does not change the maze state, send data anywhere, or open another site.
Why Wall Bumps Don't Cut Your Score
The reason wall collisions are free is that the score is meant to measure route efficiency, not keyboard noise. Many maze games count every arrow press as a move, which makes accidental double-taps and edge mistakes expensive. The implementation in Maze Game reverses that approach by validating the input before it ever touches the counter. The visible step total therefore records only actual movement through corridor cells rather than every key you pressed. For a learning player, that means you can press freely during exploration — your "failed" inputs don't quietly accumulate hidden penalties. For a returning player, it means your final score reliably reports how clean your route was, so you can compare a 26-step solution with a 30-step solution and trust the 20-point gap.
The deterministic layout reinforces the same fairness idea: because every Restart reloads the identical 9 by 9 map, you can isolate skill (route recall) from randomness (fresh layouts). If you nail the 24-step solution twice in a row, you know the score difference is genuinely your own, not a board-shape variable. The breadth-first reachability check that runs before each round adds a third guarantee: you will never be asked to play a board where the goal is unreachable, because the interface would surface a deadlocked maze message in that case instead.
Tracking Your Best Score Between Runs
Your personal best is stored in this browser's localStorage under a game-specific key. It is a local-only value: nothing is uploaded, no account is required, no other visitor can see it, and no network service is involved. The score is a lightweight single-player challenge, not a global ranking. Switching browsers, clearing site data, browsing in private mode, or disabling storage can remove or isolate the saved best without affecting the game itself, which is why a clean 760 run after a long break sometimes starts fresh from zero.
The maze layout is the same on every Restart, which makes the game a small spatial-memory drill: the first run is about discovering the route, and later runs are about recalling it cleanly. The intent is a short spatial-memory challenge for quick keyboard play, useful as a repeatable micro-challenge during a short break. Movement and scoring happen entirely in the current browser tab; no login, no network game service, and no uploaded file are required.