Parallax Maze Puzzle

Two mazes. One move. Zero mercy.

Work in progress

You control two characters at once, each stuck in their own maze, with a single set of inputs. Press Right and both of them try to move right. If a wall blocks one, only the other moves, and that asymmetry is the whole puzzle.

The two of them almost never want to go the same way, and they only get one input between them. Lava sits exactly where the obvious route through one maze would walk the other character into it. The move that saves one kills the other, and both have to be standing on their goals at the same time for the level to end.

The way through is to make the obstacles work for you: parking one character against a wall so it stays put while the other slips past a hazard, stepping onto a trap on purpose to lose a turn, riding a one-way arrow, or standing on a pressure plate in one maze to open a gate in the other. Crumbling floors collapse into lava behind you and portals throw you across the grid.

Marble safe floor

Basalt wall, blocks the move

Lava instant death

Warning crumbles to lava once you step off

Chevron one-way exit, or a closed gate

Ice freezes you for a turn

Rings portal, linked in pairs

Diamond plate, opens a gate in the other maze

Checker goal

Every level is machine-generated, and every one has exactly one solution. For the small boards the generator builds every possible pair of mazes, plays both of them out together, and keeps only the pairs where a single sequence of moves gets both characters home. The bigger boards have far too many arrangements to work through one by one, so those are found by searching at random until a good one turns up.

It's built in Unity 6, though the level generation isn't tied to the engine. It plays the levels itself, which is how every one of them is guaranteed to be solvable and to have only a single solution. The game plays ahead the same way to spot a board you can no longer finish, and says so, rather than leaving you to wander a puzzle that is already lost.

Screenshots for now. There's no public build to play or download yet.

Title screen spelling PMP in three rainbow-coloured mazes, with the tagline Two Mazes. One Move. Zero Mercy. — The title screen builds its letters out of playable mazes.

Two small three-by-three mazes, one with a blue arrow tile, the other with a lava tile in the corner. — Level 6, four moves. The early boards introduce one idea at a time: here it is the arrow, which fixes the direction you are allowed to leave a tile in.

Two five-by-five mazes containing portals marked with concentric rings, crumbling floor tiles and gaps in the grid. — Level 55, five moves. The ringed tiles are linked portals: step onto one and you come out of its partner, so a single input can carry a character clear across the board.

Two dense seven-by-seven mazes with ice, portals, arrows, lava, crumbling floors and holes. — Level 213, twenty-seven moves. By this point every tile type is in play at once, and the boards are mostly floor, so there is very little the walls will block for you.

Two seven-by-seven mazes with pressure plates, crumbling floors, ice and portals. — Level 268, thirty-six moves.

The final pair of mazes, seven by seven, with lava running through both routes. — Level 299, the last one in the set: fifty-five moves, and still only one sequence that works.