Keymaze Daily

🧩 About the Project — KeyMaze Daily

Inspiration

Puzzle games that rely on fast reflexes often reward repetition more than thinking. I wanted to build something quieter and stricter — a game where one bad move matters, and planning is more important than speed. KeyMaze Daily was inspired by classic grid-based logic puzzles and daily challenges like chess problems and newspaper riddles, where a single decision can define the outcome.

What it does

KeyMaze Daily is a daily 2D maze puzzle where players must collect required items and unlock passages using limited movement. Each puzzle is:

Generated once per day
Guaranteed to be solvable
Designed to punish careless exploration

The goal is simple: think first, move second.

How I built it

The game is built as a 2D grid-based system where each cell encodes walls, paths, collectibles, and locked exits.

Key technical components:

Deterministic daily puzzle generation using a date-based seed
Movement constrained to grid adjacency (no diagonal shortcuts)
Automatic solvability validation using Dijkstra’s algorithm
Pre-submission checks to ensure the exit remains reachable after item placement

To verify solvability, the shortest path to the exit is calculated:

[ d(v) = \min_{u \in \text{adj}(v)} (d(u) + w(u, v)) ]

If no valid path exists, the maze is regenerated before being released.

Challenges I faced

Balancing difficulty: Small grids can become trivial, while larger ones can overwhelm players.
Preventing soft-locks: Random item placement can accidentally block progression if not validated.
Designing meaningful constraints: Limited moves must feel fair, not arbitrary.
Scope control: Keeping the game minimal while still engaging was harder than adding features.