mazer

A retro maze game with CGA-style graphics. Navigate a procedurally generated 36×36 maze from S to F before your time runs out, collecting items and dodging whirligigs along the way.

How to Play

You start at the green flashing S marker and must reach the red flashing F. The game ends when you run out of time, run out of hearts, or reach the finish.

Controls

Keyboard / Gamepad

• Arrow keys / D-pad or Left stick — Move and navigate menus
• Shift + Arrow / Right shoulder + D-pad — Place a block in that direction
• Tab / Start — Pause / unpause
• ` (hold) / Right shoulder (hold) — Show the solution path
• Enter / A — Confirm / select
• Escape / B — Back / quit
• Alt + Enter — Toggle fullscreen

HUD

The top bar shows — left to right — your hearts, score, block count, and time remaining. Time turns red when under 10 seconds.

Items

• · (pellet) — +1 point
• Clock — +10 seconds, +10 points
• ♥ (heart) — +1 heart, +20 points

Whirligigs

Whirligigs are spinning enemies that wander the maze. Colliding with one costs a heart, shakes the screen, and spawns a new whirligig elsewhere. Up to 16 roam the maze at once.

Blocks

You can place one block at a time by holding Shift and pressing an arrow key. The block appears in the adjacent cell in that direction. Blocks stop both whirligigs and the player, and last 10 seconds — visually fading from █ to ▓ to ▒ to ░ as they decay. Your block slot is returned once it expires.

Scoring

The end screen tallies your final score:

• Each remaining heart × 20
• Each remaining second × 2
• Pellets and items collected × 1 each
• Finishing the maze: +1000 bonus

After scoring you are asked to play again. Completing a maze advances to the next seed — mazes are deterministic, so the same seed always produces the same maze.