Neon Labyrinth

Navigate glowing corridors, collect energy gems, and escape through the pulsing exit portal before time runs out.

Date: 2026-07-15 Genre: maze Status: Playable build

Concept

Neon Labyrinth drops the player into a procedurally generated synthwave maze rendered in glowing cyan on deep midnight-blue. Every session generates a unique labyrinth via an iterative depth-first-search backtracker, ensuring a solvable, perfect maze each time. The fantasy is that of a glowing energy orb threading its way through a circuitboard city — urgent, spatial, and satisfying.

How to play

Navigate the green orb from the top-left start (0, 0) to the magenta ★ exit portal at the bottom-right. Yellow diamond gems scattered through the maze award 50 points each. Reaching the exit awards a time bonus (10 × seconds remaining). A countdown timer runs continuously — hit zero and it's game over. The game advances through levels, each with a larger maze and a tighter effective clock.

Keyboard: WASD or Arrow Keys to move · R to restart after game-over or level clear
Mobile: Swipe on the canvas in any direction, or tap the on-screen D-pad

Core mechanics

• Maze navigation — walls are toggled on/off per cell; the player can only move into adjacent cells where the shared wall has been removed
• Procedural generation — iterative DFS backtracker builds a perfect maze (exactly one path between any two cells) on each level start
• Gem collection — picking up a gold diamond gem adds 50 points and increments the gems counter in the HUD
• Timer pressure — a 1-second interval countdown; collecting gems and moving fast extends the effective value of remaining time
• Level progression — COLS and ROWS grow by 2 each level (capped at 22 × 16); time budget grows with maze area but shrinks with level penalty

Progression & scoring

Level 1 starts with a 10 × 8 maze and roughly 60 seconds. Each level adds 2 columns and 2 rows, giving a larger search space, but the per-level penalty (−4 seconds) squeezes the effective time. From level 7 onward the maze is at its maximum 22 × 16 size and time is at its tightest. Score accumulates across levels: 50 pts per gem + 10 × time-remaining bonus on exit. There is no level cap — the game continues as long as the player can clear each maze.

Look & feel

Dark midnight-blue-black background (#060618) contrasts sharply with neon cyan walls rendered with canvas shadow blur for a glow effect. The green player orb, magenta exit portal (with a slow rotating dashed ring), and gold diamond gems all pulse with sinusoidal animations driven by a shared phase counter. A live minimap in the top-right corner of the canvas shows uncollected gems (yellow), the exit (magenta), and the player (green) at reduced scale. Audio is absent by design — the pacing and visual feedback are primary.

What makes it fun

• Always a new maze — the DFS backtracker produces a different perfect maze every time, keeping replays fresh and the spatial exploration genuine
• Minimap tension — seeing gems and the exit on the minimap but not knowing the exact route to them creates goal-directed urgency
• Escalating maze size — early levels fit comfortably on screen with large cells; later levels fill the viewport and require careful reading of the minimap
• Time-bonus scoring — speed-running to the exit rewards skill beyond pure collection, encouraging players to weigh gem detours against clock pressure