The fastest way to choose your next step in a hexagonal path game is to place a barrier on the open cell that cuts off the cat's shortest path to the edge, since each valid block costs 100 points off a 1,000-point starting score. A hex path game places you on a compact seven-by-seven field of offset hex cells, with most cells pre-blocked except for a fixed seven-cell horizontal corridor through the middle. The cat begins in that corridor and tries, every turn, to step onto a cell in the outer row or column. Your job is the opposite: anticipate the automatic move, pick the open cell that removes the most direct route, and repeat until the cat has no neighbor that can still reach an edge. When the cat has no escape, the round freezes as a win. When the cat lands on the outer row or column, the round freezes as a loss and only Restart recovers it. Because the cat's move is fully determined by a breadth-first search over open cells, your best play is to think like that search: predict the shortest reachable route, then close the bottleneck one cell at a time.
How the Cat Picks Its Move
Every turn, the browser runs a breadth-first search from each open neighbor of the cat and measures how many steps each neighbor still has to reach an edge. The cat then steps onto a cell on a shortest reachable route. If no reachable step exists, the cat is trapped and the round ends in your favor.
The board uses odd-row offset hex neighbors, so an interior cell can have six adjacent cells rather than the four of a square grid. That extra adjacency is the reason a single barrier rarely blocks the cat for long: closing one path usually leaves two diagonal neighbors that still reach the edge through different routes. A good barrier choice is therefore one that forces the cat to step onto a cell whose own shortest reachable route is longer than the route it just left. The cat has no memory of past turns, so any improvement in its distance to the edge comes from geometry, not pattern recognition.
This is the same core premise described by the Google Play listing for Trap the Cat and the rules explained by CoffeeBreak Games: you block one spot, the cat moves toward the edge, reaching the edge loses, and removing every route wins.
How to Place Your Next Barrier
Each turn follows the same six-step loop in Trap the Cat:
- Move the highlighted target with the arrow keys until it sits on an open cell adjacent to the cat's current route, or click or tap the cell directly with a mouse or touch.
- Press Space or Enter to drop a barrier on that open cell. The browser confirms the block only if the cell is open; clicking the cat's cell or an already blocked cell does not consume a turn.
- Watch the cat take one step along its new shortest reachable route to the boundary.
- Repeat step 1 and step 2 until every open neighbor of the cat leads to a dead end. The round freezes as a win the moment no reachable step exists.
- Select Restart to play again after a win, an escape, or any time you want to reset the cat, cursor, corridor, score, and turn counter.
- Press Escape twice within 400 milliseconds if you need to hide the board quickly; press Escape twice again to return to the unchanged field.
That loop is the entire gameplay cycle, and each round is short enough to fit inside a keyboard break between tasks.
Reading the Central Corridor
Because most cells begin blocked, the only open cells at the start form a fixed seven-cell horizontal corridor with the cat in the middle. The disclosed shape means the puzzle is reproducible and lets you plan a clean two-turn solution. On the first move, block the cell at one end of the corridor's left approach. The cat, following its shortest reachable route, steps toward the right end of the corridor. On the second move, block the remaining right exit. The cat then has no neighbor that can still reach an edge, and the round freezes as a win.
The two-turn solution earns 800 points. Start at 1,000, subtract 100 per valid barrier, and 1,000 minus 200 leaves 800. A third valid block would drop the score to 700, and so on, down to a floor of 0. The starting 1,000, the 100-point cost, and the exact board shape are Lizely implementation choices rather than a published standard, but together they make the round fast and the result auditable.
Score, Valid Blocks, and Lost Turns
The score formula in this edition is simple: final score equals 1,000 minus 100 times the number of valid barriers, with a floor of 0. The table below lists what each kind of click actually costs you in turns and points.
| Action | Turn consumed? | Score change |
|---|---|---|
| Block an open, non-cat cell | Yes | -100 |
| Try to block the cat's current cell | No | 0 |
| Try to block an already blocked cell | No | 0 |
| Select Restart after a terminal result | No | Reset to 1,000 |
| Press Escape twice (boss key) | No | 0 |
The "invalid attempts do not consume a turn" rule is the reason a stray click on the cat does not ruin a round. You keep the same target position, the cat does not move, and you can move the cursor to a better cell on the next arrow-key press without losing 100 points.
When the Round Ends
Only two outcomes freeze the board: a win when the cat has no reachable step, and a loss when the cat reaches the outer row or column. Both states disable further movement and blocking so the displayed result stays stable while you read it.
| Terminal state | What triggers it | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Win (cat trapped) | No open neighbor of the cat can still reach an edge | Board freezes, Restart available, current score preserved |
| Loss (cat escapes) | Cat steps onto any cell in the outer row or column | Board freezes, Restart required, current round is unrecoverable |
A loss is also the only true deadlock in this edition. Once the cat reaches the boundary, no later barrier placed inside the field can pull it back to safety, so Restart is the only recovery. Automated tests cover this edge case alongside neighbor geometry, edge recognition, invalid blocks, and the forced two-turn completion sequence.
Controls, Mouse, and Keyboard Access
Keyboard users steer the highlighted target with the arrow keys and place barriers with Space or Enter. The target's current cell carries a visible site-theme outline, so you always know where the next Space press will land. Mouse users can click any open cell directly, and touch users can tap the same way; both routes end at the same valid-block check.
Every one of the 49 cells is exposed to assistive technology as an accessible grid item that announces its row, column, and state, including whether it holds the cat, is blocked, or remains open. There is no timer, no public leaderboard, no login requirement, and no network opponent, and the round is purely local. The completed best score may be stored in browser localStorage under a game-specific key; it is not uploaded, associated with an account, or shared with other players, and clearing site data or switching browser profiles removes it without affecting gameplay.
Choosing Better Cells on the Hex Field
Three habits make the next-step choice worse rather than better.
First, do not block a cell that the cat has already passed through on its current shortest route; the cat will simply pick the next cell along the same path and waste a turn. Second, do not block the cat's own cell: the browser treats that as an invalid attempt, the turn is not consumed, and you have moved the target for nothing. Third, do not assume symmetry will save you on the central corridor. The cat's tie-breaking order is fixed by the breadth-first search, so a left block followed by a right block always traps it, but a right block followed by a left block behaves the same; the difference is your score.
Two valid barriers, in either order, is the cleanest route to 800. Anything beyond two valid barriers is a slower solution with the same win state, which is fine for practice but never for a personal best. For readers who want to dig deeper into the geometry and edge cases, the guide on avoiding common mistakes in a hexagonal path game pairs well with the rules above. The same habit of reading the visible state and predicting one step ahead also pays off on other deterministic grids such as Maze Game and Minesweeper.
Reading the Field Like a Breadth-First Search
Because the cat's choice is purely geometric, you can mirror the browser's reasoning by hand. Start at the cat's cell and imagine a wave expanding one ring at a time. The first ring is the cat's six hex neighbors; the second ring is the set of cells those neighbors can reach; and so on, until the wave touches an outer-row or outer-column cell. The cell where the wave first touches the boundary is the cat's likely destination on that turn.
Once you see that destination, your next barrier should land on the cell that sits between the cat and the destination, ideally a cell whose own removal from the field also shortens the wave for the cat's next step. In the central corridor, the wave touches the right edge three cells away and the left edge three cells away, so either end is a valid bottleneck. Outside the central corridor, the same idea applies: pick the cell that the wave must pass through on its shortest path to the boundary. If two cells tie, pick the one that leaves you more open cells for future turns, since each open cell you keep is a future barrier you can still place.
If you're weighing options, How to Choose Your Next Step in a Missing Object Game covers this in detail.