Tested in Safari 5.0, Google Chrome 5.0, Firefox 3.6. A few issues in Opera 10.6. Untested in Internet Explorer.
New: to keep competition fair, published mazes now need to be approved. Publish only once and be patient!
New: you can register your email address. You will receive notification of when your maze is moderated
help
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new
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edit
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play
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rankings
news
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my mazes
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published mazes
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overall rankings
arno AT marooned.org.uk. Built with HTML Canvas & Javascript (client), Python (web.py) & Sqlite3 (server). Last modified: Sun Jul 17 21:12:23 BST 2011
Load solution
Load board
Save board
You can't edit the circuit board while the maze is playing.
Click the "restart" button on the left to edit the circuit board
Maze
Author
Description
Select a maze from the list below to preview it on the left. Click the red "play" button on the left to program the robot to catch the flag(s). To sort by a heading, click it.
Maze↓
Author
Lowscore
My points
Rating
Date
Rank
User
Points
Mazes solved
16 July 2011
A new floor color is available to maze authors. It's white and it kills the robot!
5 July 2011
Maze authors can now adjust the cost of circuit board chips and the cost of robot moves. Each can be set to Free, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 or 100. This should give maze designers more power!
18 September 2010
Circuit board can now be saved. For each published maze a logged-in user can save a working board. This is useful if your solution is not working quite right yet but you want to refine it later. Moreover a user's best solution is now saved automatically as well.
Maze solutions are now checked on the server as well as in the browser. Previously it was very easy to cheat, you just needed to send a well formed request with the desired score.
Some minor improvements to the UI.
20 July 2010
The circuit board editing tools are now hidden when the maze is playing.
Fixed a bug in the codepath highlighting routine.
19 July 2010
Added the news panel.
In the circuit board editor, changed the behaviour of the delete tool so that transitions can be deleted more easily (one can now go over them in any direction to delete them)
18 July 2010
In the list of published mazes, changed the column showing the user's best score to showing the user's points. This makes it easier for a user to find which mazes they don't have the lowest score in.
In the circuit board editor, changed the behaviour of the tools so that no assumption is made about the next tool a user is going to use.
16 July 2010
Fixed a bug which allowed a user to edit a circuit board while playing the maze. It would have allowed cheating!
You have to direct a robot through a maze so that it collects all the green flags. But instead of directing it in real time, you have to design its circuit board using a number of chips at your disposal.
Play
Click "published mazes" at the top of the right panel, select a maze from the list then click "play" at the top of the left panel to try to solve it. The circuit board editor will then appear in the right panel. Click on the various chips above the board to select them then click on the board to position them. You need to link the chips with transitions (arrows), starting from the "start here" chip which is always at the same location. Once you are happy with the design of the circuit board, click the "play" button above the maze. The robot will then follow the instructions on the circuit board. As it moves you can see highlighted in red which instructions the robot is currently executing. You can also use the "step" button to execute instructions one step at a time. Avoid white squares! Finally you can adjust the speed of the robot using the volume-type control labelled "speed".
Register and log in
The login and registration box is in the top right corner of the screen. Once you've logged in, your score for each maze you solve will be recorded, you will be able to rate each published maze, you will appear in the rankings lists and you will be able to design your own mazes for others to play.
Compete
When you solve a maze, you will be given a score. Your aim is to score as low as possible (this is called a lowscore, of course). By default, the score is calculated as follows:
10 points for each chip used on the circuit board.
1 point each time the robot moves or turn.
1 point each time the robot paints the floor.
But these can be adjusted by the maze author.
Moreover, there is an overall ranking system which works like this: for each published maze, you get a decimal number of points ranging from 0 (if you haven't solved it) to 1 (if you are the lowscore holder). Adding all those together gives you a total which is used to rank you against all other users.
Design your own mazes
To design a maze, click "new" at the top of the left panel. The panel will then contain the maze editor. You can place the robot and as many flags as you want in the maze (using the robot and flag tools), paint the floors red, blue or yellow and also place walls between squares (using the floor tool - click to change the colour of the floor or place/remove a wall, drag to do this for a whole area)
Publish your best mazes
If you want to let others play one of your best mazes, your should select it from the list in "my mazes", play it and solve it first - this is so that only solvable mazes can be published. Once this is done, a "publish" button will appear in the left panel above the maze. Just click it to publish the maze.
Give feedback
This is still work in progress and I would be grateful for any comments, as long as they are constructive of course! Email me at arno AT marooned.org.uk.