CUBE MAZE
How to play — a five-minute guide to getting out alive.
How to begin
Launch the game from the Tronsoft Games library. There is nothing to install and no sign-in. A start screen appears first: choose your maze's geometry and size (below), press Enter the Maze, and a fresh, randomised maze is built with you at its centre. Press New Maze at the top of the screen at any time to return to the start screen and begin again.
Choose your maze
Every run is shaped by two choices:
- Cube — a square lattice of rooms. Four sideways directions (north, south, east, west) plus up and down between levels.
- Hex — a hexagonal prism: a hexagon-shaped floor of six-sided rooms, stacked into levels. Six sideways directions (east, northeast, northwest, west, southwest, southeast) plus up and down.
- Size — five presets from Small to Immense, from a quick 64-room cube to a several-hundred-room labyrinth.
Whichever you pick, the rule is the same: every room has up to three exits, and the maze builds into view only as you explore it.
The goal
Three gates are hidden in the maze's outer wall. Reach any gate, defeat the guardian that holds it, and step through it to escape alive — that is the win. If your health reaches zero, the run is over.
Turn order
Cube Maze is turn-based and takes place one room at a time. Each action you take — a step, an attack, drinking a potion — is a turn. Outside of combat the world waits on you. Inside combat, every time you act the creature acts back.
Movement — Cube
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Move North / South / West / East | ↑↓←→ or WSAD |
| Climb up a level | Q |
| Descend a level | Z |
Movement — Hex
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Move Northwest / Northeast | Q / E |
| Move West / East | A / D |
| Move Southwest / Southeast | Z / C |
| Climb up a level | R |
| Descend a level | F |
Only lit exits are open. The on-screen movement pad reshapes itself to a four-way cross or a six-way hex rose to match your maze. The minimap on the right draws the level you are on — square cells for a cube, hexagons for a hex prism — with doors as lines and ↑ ↓ ↕ marks for stairs. Amber cells are gates.
Items
Rooms may hold treasure (gold and gems for score), weapons and armour (automatically equipped if better than what you carry), and supplies. Stand on an item and press G to take it. Use supplies from the pack with number keys:
| Item | Key | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Ration | 1 | Restores a little health |
| Potion | 2 | Restores a lot of health, and cures poison |
| Torch | 3 | Refills your light meter |
Combat
Entering a room with a creature starts a fight. The combat buttons appear beneath the room view.
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Attack | Space |
| Flee to the previous room | X |
| Eat a ration / quaff a potion | 1 / 2 |
The maze holds sixteen kinds of creature, and many fight dirty. When a battle starts, the log shows the creature's traits:
- poison — its hit leaves you poisoned, taking damage each step until it fades
- drain — it heals itself from the damage it deals you
- pierce — its blows ignore your armour
- dodge — it may slip aside and avoid your attack
- regenerate — it mends a little health every round
- frenzy — badly wounded, it may land a heavier blow
Better weapons raise your damage; armour reduces the damage you take (unless the foe pierces it); levelling up raises your maximum health and adds a flat bonus to your blows. Fleeing is not guaranteed — fail the escape and the creature gets a free strike.
Winning & losing
Move through a gate room's outer door after clearing its guardian to escape alive. If your health reaches zero — in combat, from a trap, from poison, or from stumbling in total darkness — the maze keeps you and the run ends. Your score (gold, gems, kills, level, plus bonuses for escaping and for speed) is shown on the end screen.
Saving and restarting
Cube Maze runs as single sessions and does not save progress between runs; each maze is meant to be played through in one sitting. Press New Maze, or the button on the end screen, to build a fresh maze — with a new geometry or size if you like — at any time.