Blog / Release notes
Muddle Maze: build the maze, trap the bots
Muddle Maze turns the usual maze game around. You get a page of grid dots, some ink and a limited amount of drawing time. Then six kinds of maze-solving bots try to get out, and every one of them has to stay lost until the clock passes the page's target.
There's one firm rule: you can't seal them in. If a wall would leave any reachable square with no way to an exit, the game refuses it. The fun is in making the way out as long and confusing as possible.
How to play
- Drag along the grid dots to draw walls. Each edge costs 1 ink.
- Use Undo, the Eraser or Clear to change your mind. You get the ink back.
- Press GO! or wait for the drawing timer to run out.
- Reaching the target earns one star. Lasting 1.3 times the target earns two, and 1.6 times earns three.
- Win or lose, Tweak maze brings your walls back with half the drawing time.
Meet the bots
| Bot | How it thinks |
|---|---|
| Righty and Lefty | Follow one wall. If they notice they're going in circles, they change tactics. |
| Dizzy | Wanders at random, though it leans toward the exit half the time. |
| Mapper | Explores methodically and backtracks to anything it hasn't tried. |
| Smarty | Plans the quickest path before it moves. |
| Chomper | Plans a path too, but eats through pencil walls and leaves holes for everyone else. |
What's on the page
Later pages add eraser rocks, mud that slows bots down, puddles you can't draw near, pairs of sharpeners that teleport bots, and permanent pen walls that even Chomper can't bite. The last eight pages use much bigger paper. The final one is called The Final Exam.
The sandbox lets you set the grid size, ink and timers, place every obstacle yourself, and field up to 16 bots to see who gets out first.
Tips
- Long back-and-forth corridors are hard on Smarty, because the shortest path has to go through all of them.
- Wall followers depend on the shape of your walls, so test which side of the page they'll hug.
- Box a sharpener in on all four sides and it's plugged, which also shuts off its twin.
- Against Chomper, a wall is only a delay. Use pen where it's available, and watch for the holes it leaves.
Release log
- First release, with 12 pages and six kinds of bots.
- Added 8 bigger pages and a sandbox mode.