A tilt maze is a maze you never touch directly: you tip the board, and gravity rolls a ball through the paths for you.

Why a dewdrop in a garden tray?

A tilt maze plays differently from a maze you walk. The ball keeps rolling after you stop, so you have to slow it down before every corner. We swapped the metal ball for a dewdrop and the wooden box for a seed tray from the potting bench. The drop is heading for a thirsty seedling in a clay pot.

The holes are the hard part. Roll into one and the drop drips through the tray. It comes back at the last daisy you passed, and you keep your seeds, so a slip costs a few seconds and nothing more. All 30 trays were checked by a test robot that tilts the tray with the same physics you play with. Its times set the par for each level.

A short history of mazes and labyrinths

The oldest maze story is a Greek myth. Daedalus built a labyrinth for King Minos of Crete to hold the Minotaur, a creature that was half man and half bull. Whether a real building stood behind the story is uncertain. Arthur Evans began digging the palace at Knossos in 1900 and linked its many rooms to the myth, but historians still argue about that idea. What is certain is that coins from Knossos, from the late 400s BC onward, carry labyrinth patterns.

Many people use the two words for the same thing. Puzzle fans often split them. A labyrinth in the old sense has one winding path with no choices, and if you keep walking you reach the middle. A maze has branches and dead ends, so you can get lost. The pattern on the Cretan coins is a single path. This game is a maze.

Hedge mazes came much later. The one at Hampton Court Palace near London was planted around 1690 for King William III, laid out by the royal gardeners George London and Henry Wise. It was first planted in hornbeam and later mostly replanted in yew. It is the oldest hedge maze still growing in Britain.

Rolling-ball puzzles took off in 1889, when Charles Crandall’s handheld puzzle Pigs in Clover became a craze in the United States. You tipped a small box to roll marbles through a little maze into a pen in the middle. The wooden tilt maze, steered with two knobs past a row of holes, belongs to the same family of dexterity puzzles.

How to play

1. Press Start, then drag anywhere on the tray. Drag right and the tray tips right, so the drop rolls right. A longer drag means a steeper tilt.
2. On a computer, hold the arrow keys or WASD. On a phone you can tap “Use phone tilt” and tip the phone itself.
3. Roll over seeds to collect them. They are a bonus.
4. Steer around the dark holes. Roll over a daisy to make it your restart point.
5. From level 14, leaf gates slide across some paths. Wait for the gap.
6. Reach the seedling in its pot. Beat par for 3 stars.

Tips

• Small tilts win. Let go to level the tray, and the drop slows down by itself.
• Brake before a corner. Most holes sit where a fast drop would overshoot.
• Trace the route with your eyes first. The clock does not start until you tip the tray.

Questions

Is this maze game free, and does it work on a phone?

Yes. It runs in the browser with no download or sign-up. Dragging works on any touch screen, and phone tilt is an optional extra.

Why does phone tilt need permission on an iPhone?

Safari on iPhones and iPads asks before a web page can read the motion sensors. The game asks only when you tap the button. If you say no, or your device has no sensor, dragging still works.

Is it good for young children?

The first trays are open boxes with a turn or two and no holes, and a small child can finish them in a few seconds. Holes arrive at level 6. The last trays are 10 by 13 mazes with a dozen holes, which is plenty for grown-ups.

Your turn

Tip the tray gently and see how far one dewdrop can go.