Hedgehog Lantern Maze is a free maze game where you walk a hedgehog through a garden maze at night, seeing only the squares near its lantern, to find a key and then the gate.

Why a lantern?

In most maze games you see the whole maze from above, so you can solve it with your eyes before you move. Turn the lights off and it becomes a memory puzzle. You see a few squares at a time, so you have to remember where you have been.

That is close to walking a real hedge maze, where the hedges are taller than you. Here every square your lantern lights stays on your map, drawn faintly, so you can plan. There are no monsters and no clock.

The first mazes are small with a big lantern, so a young child can finish them in seconds. Later mazes grow, the lantern shrinks, you need more keys, and some little gates only swing one way.

Mazes and labyrinths: a short history

People often use the two words for the same thing, but many writers keep them apart. A maze has choices: forks, loops and dead ends. A labyrinth, in the older sense, has one winding path with no choices.

The most famous labyrinth is a story. In Greek myth, the craftsman Daedalus built a labyrinth for King Minos of Crete to hold the Minotaur, a monster that was half man and half bull. Coins from Crete made more than 2,000 years ago show a labyrinth pattern. When Arthur Evans began digging at Knossos in 1900, the palace’s many rooms reminded him of the myth, but he found no proof of a labyrinth. Whether a real building lies behind the story is still argued about.

Puzzle mazes with real choices became a garden fashion during the Renaissance, and in England from the mid-1500s. The oldest hedge maze still growing in Britain is at Hampton Court Palace. It was made for King William III and designed by George London and Henry Wise. Sources give dates from 1689 to about 1700, so the exact year is not certain.

How to play

1. Pick a maze. Level 1 is open, and finishing a maze opens the next one.
2. Move with the arrow keys, WASD, the arrow buttons or a swipe. You can also drag the hedgehog, or tap a square you have seen to walk there.
3. Your lantern lights the squares near you. Everything it lights stays on your map.
4. Find the key. Later mazes have two or three.
5. Walk to the garden gate. It opens once you have every key.
6. Your steps give you 1 to 3 stars. The step limits show at the top while you play.

After level 12 the long night opens: new mazes, one after another, until one earns only one star.

Tips

Follow one hedge. In a maze with no loops, keeping one hand on the same hedge takes you everywhere in the end. It is slow but sure.

Use the fireflies. You can see a firefly glowing from far away. Walk to it and it lights the paths around it.

Save the moon. The full moon shows the whole maze for 3 seconds, but it does not go on your map. While it is up, look for the key and the gate.

Questions

What is the difference between a maze and a labyrinth?

A maze has choices and dead ends, so you can get lost. A classic labyrinth has one path that winds to the centre. In everyday talk the words often mean the same thing. This game is a maze.

How are the stars worked out?

The game finds the shortest walk that picks up every key and then reaches the gate. You can’t see that route in the dark, so it adds room for exploring, more for a smaller lantern or extra keys. A limit is never below what a careful explorer, seeing only what you see, needed. Any finish earns one star.

Is it scary?

No. There are no monsters, nothing jumps out, and there is no timer. The night is a soft blue with stars, and fireflies light the way.

Your turn

Level 1 is a small maze with a big lantern. Light your way to the key, find the gate, and see how few steps you need.