Most maze game guides describe the ghosts by personality. Maze Chase ships the personalities as arithmetic you can read in getGhTarget and moveGhost. Audit the four rules below and the maze becomes a schedule you follow instead of a chase you fear.
What each Maze Chase ghost targets in this engine
The red ghost aims at your current tile. Move left and its best direction shortens the line to where you are right now.
The pink ghost aims four tiles ahead of your facing direction. Face up and its target shifts four tiles up and four tiles left, because the engine subtracts 4 from the x coordinate only when your direction is up. The classic arcade aiming quirk is reproduced here on purpose. Face up near a wall and the pink ghost drifts sideways off your line.
The cyan ghost takes the tile two steps ahead of you, draws a line from the red ghost to it, and doubles it. Its target sits as far past that tile as the red ghost sits behind it. When the red ghost is on you, the cyan ghost aims near you. When the red ghost lags behind, the cyan ghost cuts you off from the far side.
The orange ghost chases your tile only while its squared distance to you exceeds 64, which means more than 8 tiles away. Inside that radius it walks toward its scatter corner at tile 0,22 in the bottom left. Pull it close and it turns away. That is the coded reason the orange ghost appears shy.
The scatter and chase clock in Maze Chase
All ghosts share one schedule. Scatter runs 7 seconds, chase 20, scatter 7, chase 20, scatter 5, chase 20, scatter 5, then chase without end. Every switch forces each active ghost to reverse direction on the spot, and that reversal is your visible signal.
Count from the moment play starts. The timer also restarts on every death, so the schedule after a death begins with a fresh 7 second scatter. Scatter windows fall at 0 to 7, 27 to 34, 54 to 59, and 79 to 84 seconds of level time. From second 84 on, all four hunt you with no further break.
One twist matters for planning. The clock only advances while no power pellet is active. Fright time freezes the schedule, so a pellet eaten early in a phase stretches that phase by up to 8 seconds at level 1.
Speed facts that decide your escapes
You move 5.5 tiles per second at level 1 and gain 0.3 per level. Ghosts start at 4.5 and gain 0.35 per level. Ghosts stay slower than you through level 20 and draw level only at level 21. If a corridor is open, you win the footrace at every level you will realistically reach.
Frightened ghosts drop to half speed and pick uniformly random valid turns. Eaten ghosts return home at double speed. On the tunnel row, row 10, ghosts inside the outer three columns on either side also halve their speed, so a frightened ghost in the tunnel crawls at quarter speed. You keep full speed there. The tunnel is the safest lane on the board whenever a ghost follows you.
At intersections where two exits measure equally close, the tie break prefers up, then left, then down, then right. Expect a ghost to take the upward exit at symmetric junctions more often than your gut suggests.
What each item is worth in points
A dot scores 10 and a pellet scores 50. Ghosts eaten during one fright pay 200, 400, 800, and 1600 in order. All four in a single pellet add 3000, and the level holds 4 pellets, so fright chains can add 12000. Dots alone pay 1740 across the 174 dot cells.
The fruit spawns at tile 10,13 when your eaten count reaches 70, and again at 170. The board holds 178 items, so both windows are reachable. The fruit sits for exactly 10 seconds and pays from the level table, 100 on level 1 rising to 5000 from level 8 on.
Maze Chase rules to play by
1. Count seconds from the start of play or from your last death. Move toward open corners during the 7 and 5 second scatter windows and hold the tunnel row during the 20 second chase phases.
2. Treat any sudden mass reversal as a phase switch. You know the schedule, so confirm the second mark and reposition.
3. When a pellet is active, hunt the nearest frightened ghost first. The payout doubles with each ghost in the chain.
4. Cross to the fruit the moment it appears at 70 items eaten. Ten seconds is shorter than one chase phase.
5. In the tunnel, run past followers rather than away from them. They move at half speed there, quarter speed when frightened.
What this audit does not give you
Frightened movement is a random draw among valid exits, so a planned four ghost chain can break when a ghost randomly doubles back down the corridor you just entered. The fright window also shrinks by half a second per level and floors at 1 second from level 15, so late level pellets buy almost no hunting time. Finally, this engine has no forced up turn restrictions above the ghost house, so ghosts can take exits that the classic arcade maze rules forbid. Advice written for those arcade quirks can mislead you here.
Pre-pellet checklist
- [ ] Counted seconds since play started or since the last death.
- [ ] Identified the current window, scatter or chase.
- [ ] Kept the tunnel row reachable from your lane.
- [ ] Eaten count past 70 with the fruit tile on your route.
- [ ] Pellet saved until at least two ghosts sit within one screen of it.
Run the [Maze Chase game](/en/pacman) with the engine file open beside it and test the clock claim first. If your ghost reversal times disagree with the 7, 20, 7, 20, 5, 20, 5 schedule, send the level number and the second mark. Reversal timings are the most useful correction you can contribute.
