Alice Amazed

How to play

Get Alice to the way out in as few moves as you can. The White Rabbit is waiting there, and he's already counted the fewest.

A move

  • One move is one step, up, down, left or right. Tap the next square, swipe, press an arrow key, or use the four buttons under the maze.
  • Undo takes a move back, as far as the start. Start again clears them all.
  • There's no clock and there are no lives. Take as long as you like.

Alice's three sizes

Alice is always the wrong size for something. Drink Me shrinks her, Eat Me grows her, and what she can get past depends on her size.

  • Small. Small enough for the little door. Too small to reach the key: she walks under its table.

  • Herself. She takes the key, and fits through a doorway.

  • Tall. Tall enough to step over a hedge. Too tall for a doorway, and too big to go down a rabbit-hole.

What's in a maze

  • Drink Me. A bottle. Stepping here makes her one size smaller, and uses it up.

  • Eat Me. A cake. Stepping here makes her one size larger, and uses it up.

  • The key. On a glass table. She takes it as herself or tall. Small, she walks under the table.

  • The mushroom. Stepping on from the side with the up arrow makes her one size taller. From the side with the down arrow, one size shorter. It's never used up.

  • The Cheshire Cat's grin. Step onto a grin, and she comes out at its twin. It works both ways, again and again. With more than one pair, the dots under a grin say which is its twin.

  • A rabbit-hole. Step onto one in the garden, and she goes down to the burrow, to the square straight beneath. Step onto one in the burrow, and she comes up. Tall Alice is too big for it, and steps across. It's never used up.

  • A card guard. He walks his beat, a square for each of her moves, to its end and back. She can't meet him, or pass him face to face: that move isn't made. She can follow close behind him. Small Alice slips past unseen.

  • The tea-table. Its places move round. Step onto one, and she's carried one place on, the way its arrow points. With the turn she goes two places in a move. Against it she ends where she began: a move spent standing still.

  • Alice's reflection. She steps as Alice steps, the other way round: left for right. A wall stops her, and Alice goes on without her. What she drinks, eats or takes, Alice does too: they're one size. Only Alice goes out. A room only she can reach has walls of glass.

  • The White Rabbit's round. In his own house he doesn't wait at the way out. He runs his round, a square for each of her moves, to its end and back. She's out when she catches him: when the two come onto one square, or she meets him face to face.

  • His gloves and his fan. Step onto each to take it. Until she has them all the White Rabbit won't stop for her, or let her out: he hurries past.

  • The little door. Only small Alice fits through.

  • A doorway. Too low for tall Alice.

  • A low hedge. Only tall Alice can step over it.

  • A locked door. A key opens it, and stays in it. The door stays open.

A maze uses only some of these, and says which beside it. The first has none at all.

The White Rabbit

  • His count of moves is the fewest there are. It's worked out, not guessed.
  • Match it with no hint for three stars. More moves cost a star, and so does a hint.
  • He gives hints, each telling more than the last: "Follow the White Rabbit", then "Which square?", then "Show me".
  • If no way out is left, the maze says so at once, and offers a step back to where there was one.
  • When you're out, you can look back over your way, move by move, and see what each wrong turn cost.

Try it: the first maze

A plain walk, to learn to move. The mazes after it add the rules a few at a time.

After the Rabbit

Your moves
0
The White Rabbit
still counting

Alice is herself.

Tap the next square, swipe, or press an arrow key.

Alice is herself, at row 4, column 4. Up: an open way. Right: the edge. Down: the edge. Left: an open way.

All the mazes

Then