Maze Dash

Maze Dash turns a classic maze into a race across a frozen world. Five ice-crystal labyrinths wait in a row under the northern lights, each one fully visible the moment it rises out of the lake, and a single clock runs across all of them. Swipe in a direction and your glowing ball dashes along the corridor until it hits a wall or reaches a junction. Reach the crystal gate and the next maze rises at once; clear all five and the time left on the clock becomes your bonus.

Because you can see the whole labyrinth, the challenge is reading it fast. Trace the route from your start in one bottom corner to the gate in the opposite top corner, then commit. Hold the arrow key, or keep your finger down after a swipe, and the ball runs straight on through every junction until it meets a wall; let go and it stops at the next junction again. You can also plan ahead: swipe your next direction while the ball is still dashing and the turn is queued, so the ball swings into it at the next junction or corner where that way is open instead of stopping there. On a phone one stroke can bend into several turns, so a quick up-then-right flick queues both. A chevron beside the ball shows the turn you have queued, and a clean chain of turns plays a rising scale of notes.

The mazes grow as you go, from a small 7 by 9 grid that a newcomer clears in seconds to 9 by 13 labyrinths with long, winding dead ends. Gold gems sit at the ends of short side paths: dash in, bounce off the end and dash back for 150 points each, plus a 250-point bonus for taking every gem in a maze. From the third maze a crimson crystal door seals the route until you touch its switch, a glowing rune at the end of its own side path before the door, so spotting the switch early saves a long trip back. Every maze is generated fresh, but each one is exactly as long and as twisty on every seed, so every run and every daily challenge is equally fair.

Your score is 1,000 points per maze, plus the gems, plus one point for every sixtieth of a second left on the clock when you clear all five. That makes every route a real choice: grab the gems for points, or skip them and chase the fastest time. There are two leaderboards, the top score and the fastest clear, where the quickest players finish the whole set in well under a minute. After every maze a banner rates your split, from CLEAR! up to PERFECT!, so you can see which labyrinth cost you time.

Maze Dash suits anyone who likes a quick mental workout with a dash of reflex on top. A first run usually reaches the third maze, a casual player the fourth or fifth, and once you clear all five it becomes a speedrun against your own best time. There are no lives and nothing can hurt the ball, so a wrong turn only costs a moment; just keep moving, because fifteen seconds without a swipe ends the run.

Maze Dash plays with swipes on a phone and with the arrow keys or WASD on a computer, so it is at home among our mobile games and PC games. It is a favourite among our maze games, brain games and speedrun games, and it fits neatly into a coffee break alongside the rest of our puzzle games. Free play is unlimited; press Ranked attempt when you want a run to count, and every top result is verified by replaying it on our servers. In Swipe mode, Maze Dash is also part of the Speedrun Duo and Marathon gauntlets.