To explain the Maze Game, tell the player to use the arrow keys to move one open cell at a time from the upper-left start to the star near the lower-right corner of a fixed 9-by-9 board.
The easiest teaching order is objective, legal movement, blocked-input behavior, scoring, and replay. That sequence prevents a common misunderstanding: not every arrow press counts as a step.
A clear explanation to say aloud
Give the goal before discussing the controls, and distinguish the marker, the corridors, the walls, and the goal.
- Goal: Guide the player dot from the upper-left corridor to the star-shaped goal near the lower-right corner.
- Movement: Arrow Up, Arrow Down, Arrow Left, and Arrow Right move the dot one orthogonal cell when that destination is open.
- Blocked directions: Pressing into a wall or beyond the edge does nothing. The dot stays in place, the step count does not rise, and the score does not change.
- Counting: Each successful move adds one valid step and applies the ten-point deduction to the score.
- Completion: Reaching the star ends the round and freezes the board so the result remains visible.
Those points fully describe a normal round. Do not add rules from another maze product: this is a product-defined 9-by-9 puzzle rather than a representation of a standard maze specification.
Controls and feedback the player will see
Use this table when you need to distinguish an action from its result.
| Control or element | What happens | Point to explain |
|---|---|---|
| Arrow keys | Propose a one-cell move up, down, left, or right. | The move is accepted only when the neighboring cell is an open corridor. |
| Wall or edge input | The attempted move is ignored. | Blocked input does not add a step or reduce the score. |
| Valid-step counter | Increases by one for every accepted move. | It measures actual movement through corridor cells, not raw key presses. |
| Score | Starts at 1,000 and follows the ten-point-per-step formula, with a floor of zero. | A shorter valid route produces a better score. |
| Star-shaped goal | Completes and freezes the round. | The star near the lower-right corner is the destination. |
| Restart | Resets the player, counters, score, completion state, and reachability check. | It always returns players to the same fixed layout. |
| Escape twice | Within 400 milliseconds, toggles a visual cover over the puzzle. | Repeating the two presses returns to the game without changing the maze. |
The game also provides accessibility information. Assistive technology announces the current position as “Player,” announces the goal separately, and exposes whether each board cell is a wall or a path. The high-contrast selection follows the site's light and dark appearance settings rather than using a separate color palette.
Walk someone through one complete round
When demonstrating the game, make each part of the workflow visible before discussing strategy.
- Locate the start and goal. Point to the player marker in the upper-left corridor and then to the star near the lower-right corner.
- State the legal movement. Explain that the arrow keys move the dot one cell at a time in the four orthogonal directions. There is no diagonal movement, edge wrapping, or jumping across walls.
- Make one successful move. Choose an adjacent open corridor cell and press its corresponding arrow key. Show that the dot advances by exactly one cell.
- Connect movement to the counters. Point out that the valid-step total increases by one and that the score changes according to the step-based formula.
- Continue along the corridor. Ask the player to follow the continuous path rather than pressing several directions at once. Each valid press represents one move toward the star.
- Explain a blocked attempt when it happens. The marker does not move into a wall or outside the board. The step counter and score also remain unchanged.
- Reach the star. When the player arrives, the board freezes, the round is complete, and the best completed result is retained locally in the browser.
- Choose the next action. Select Restart to replay the same board with reset counters. Players can also use the optional boss cover, but it does not alter the puzzle or its state.
Scoring, step counts, and the shortest route
The valid-step counter is the central feedback because it counts movement rather than every key press. A direction blocked by a wall or the board edge contributes nothing, while an accepted move contributes exactly one step.
Score formula: max(0, 1,000 − 10 × valid steps).
For the shortest route, the calculation is 1,000 − (10 × 24) = 760 points. That 24-move path is the best possible result for this fixed layout. Taking a longer route lowers the score, although the single-corridor design mainly tests whether the player can avoid wasted backtracking.
The score cannot fall below zero, and it is a lightweight personal challenge rather than a global ranking. It is not uploaded, attached to an account, or compared with other visitors.
What to say about the fixed layout
The word “deterministic” is useful here: the maze does not change between rounds. Every restart restores the same 9-by-9 arrangement, so a player who discovers the route on the first attempt can work on recalling it cleanly on later attempts. The game does not randomly generate a new maze.
That makes discovery and recall two different phases of play. For a closer look at that distinction, compare discovery versus memory in Maze Game. The later memory phase is still a short spatial-memory challenge, not a clinical assessment of memory, attention, or navigation ability.
Before a round begins, the game performs a breadth-first reachability check from the start to the goal. If a future layout were malformed or the goal became unreachable, the interface would report a deadlocked maze rather than invite play on an impossible board. The current fixed maze is reachable, and its shortest route is 24 valid moves.
Make the explanation easy to remember
Here is a ready-made explanation you can use without adding rules that do not belong to this game:
“This is a fixed 9-by-9 maze. Move the player dot from the upper-left corridor to the star near the lower-right corner. Use only the arrow keys, and each accepted press moves one cell up, down, left, or right. If the next cell is a wall or outside the board, nothing happens: the step count and score stay the same. Every successful move adds one valid step, and the score formula subtracts ten points per step until it reaches zero. Reach the star to finish the round; Restart puts you back at the beginning on the same layout.”
To check that the explanation is clear, ask the player to identify four things without moving:
- Where the start marker and star are located.
- Which four directions the arrow keys can move.
- What happens when the next cell is blocked.
- Which display changes after a successful move.
What resets and what remains after a round
Reaching the star freezes the completed board so the final position, step total, and score remain visible until Restart is selected. Restart is always available below the board and resets the player, steps, score, completion state, and deadlock check. It does not generate a different layout.
The best score is stored in browser localStorage under a game-specific key. It stays in that browser but is not uploaded, shared with other visitors, or tied to an account. Private browsing, cleared site data, disabled storage, or a different browser profile can remove or isolate the saved value without affecting play.
The boss key is optional and separate from solving the maze. Pressing Escape twice within 400 milliseconds covers the puzzle with a simulated operations spreadsheet; pressing Escape twice again returns to it. The cover is visual only: it does not send data, open another site, or change the maze state.
All movement, scoring, and saving happen in the current browser tab. No login, network game service, or uploaded file is required, and the game does not generate printable mazes.
For a deeper look, see How Do I Explain the Rules of Minesweeper to Someone Else?.