Rules
Memory Maze is a two-player race through a maze you cannot see. The board is a 7x7 grid of squares. Between the squares are 32 hidden walls. One player starts in the bottom left corner and must reach the top right; the other starts in the bottom right and must reach the top left.
A move
- Players take turns. On your turn you plan a path of 3 steps (fewer if the last one lands on your goal), each to a square next to the last one (up, down, left or right, never diagonally, never off the board).
- The move is then walked one step at a time.
- If a step runs into a wall, the move stops at once, you go back to your start, and that wall is shown to both players for the rest of the game.
- If you step on your goal square at any point in the move, you win straight away.
Stepping back to a square you just left is allowed. Both players may stand on the same square.
Double Chance
Each player has two Double Chances. Using one makes that move 6 steps instead of 3. It is best saved for a stretch of maze you already know is open.
End of the game
The first player to reach their goal wins. When the game ends, the whole maze is shown, including every wall nobody found.
Our version
- The maze is generated from a seed: exactly 32 walls, every square reachable, and both players’ shortest routes the same length (at least 14 steps, so the straight staircase never works).
- A coin flip decides who moves first.
- A move ends early only when it lands on your goal (you win at once) or a wall stops it. Otherwise it is always 3 steps (6 with Double Chance).
- You plan the whole move before it is walked; the board will not let you plan a step into a wall that is already known.
- 45 seconds per move. If time runs out, you stay where you are and the turn passes.
- Practice is the same kind of maze with no opponent. Your score is the number of moves you took to escape (fewer is better); walls hit are shown alongside. Practice mazes can be raced online: everyone gets the same maze.
- The “Show explored paths” helper (on by default) draws every gap someone has walked through.
Sources: fan wikis.
Strategy
Watch the other player. Every wall they hit is a wall you will never hit. Their safe steps are safe for you too, so a route they have half explored can be cheaper than your own.
Explore near home first. A wall costs you everything you have walked so far. Early on, when you are close to the start, a wall is cheap; far from home it is expensive. Take risks early.
Save Double Chance for known ground. Six steps through open gaps you have already walked is a big leap with no risk. Six steps into the unknown is six chances to hit a wall.
Use spare steps to bounce. If a move would carry you into unknown ground you do not want to test yet, step forward and back to land where you want.
Count the walls. There are exactly 32. As walls are found, the remaining gaps get safer.