Maze Chase
Maze Chase is an arcade maze game. Guide your yellow hero through a maze full of dots while outsmarting four colorful ghosts. Grab power pellets to turn the tables and eat the ghosts for bonus points.
Key features
- Arcade maze gameplay with dots, ghosts and tunnels
- Four distinct ghost personalities with unique AI patterns
- Power pellets that let you eat ghosts for big scores
- Progressive difficulty with faster ghosts each level
Guide
Maze Chase is an arcade maze game that runs in your browser. The maze chase genre took off in arcades in 1980 and reached a broader audience than the shooting and sports games that dominated arcades at the time. The gameplay is straightforward: you navigate a maze eating dots while avoiding four ghosts. Eating all the dots clears the level. This guide covers the maze layout, ghost behavior patterns, optimal dot-clearing routes, power pellet strategy, and the techniques that separate casual play from high-score play. The maze in Maze Chase is fixed. Every level uses the same layout with 240 dots and 4 power pellets. The maze has corridors, intersections, and two tunnel passages on the left and right sides. Your hero moves through these corridors at a consistent speed, though that speed varies depending on whether you are eating dots (slightly slower) or moving through an empty corridor (slightly faster). Ghosts have similar speed mechanics that change based on the current game phase. The four ghosts, red, pink, cyan, and orange, each have distinct behavior patterns. Understanding these patterns is the single most important factor in mastering Maze Chase. The ghosts alternate between two modes: Chase mode and Scatter mode. In Chase mode, each ghost targets a specific position on the maze based on its individual algorithm. In Scatter mode, each ghost retreats to its designated corner of the maze. The game alternates between these modes on a fixed timer throughout each level. The red ghost has the simplest and most aggressive targeting. In Chase mode, it targets your current position directly. It takes the shortest path toward where you are right now. This makes the red ghost the most dangerous one in direct pursuit. As you clear more dots in a level, the red ghost speeds up in a phase unique to it. When only a certain number of dots remain (the threshold decreases on later levels), the red ghost becomes faster than normal and even ignores Scatter mode, pursuing you constantly. The pink ghost targets a position four tiles ahead of your current direction. If you are moving left, it targets the tile four spaces to the left of your current position. This creates an ambush behavior. While the red ghost chases you from behind, the pink ghost tries to get ahead of you and cut you off. The combination of red pursuing and pink ambushing creates a pincer attack that catches many players. In many versions, when you face upward, the pink ghost targets four tiles up and four tiles to the left instead of just four tiles up. The cyan ghost has the most complex targeting. Its target position is calculated using both the red ghost position and your position. The game finds the tile two spaces ahead of you, draws a vector from the red ghost to that tile, then doubles the vector. The endpoint is the cyan ghost target. This creates unpredictable behavior because the target changes based on where the red ghost is. When the red ghost is far from you, the cyan target is far away too, making the cyan ghost relatively harmless. When the red ghost is close, the cyan target converges on your position, making it dangerous. The orange ghost switches between two behaviors based on distance. When it is more than eight tiles away from you, it behaves like the red ghost and targets you directly. When it is within eight tiles, it switches to Scatter mode behavior and retreats to its corner (bottom-left). This creates a yo-yo effect where the orange ghost approaches, gets close, retreats, and approaches again. It is the least threatening ghost individually but can block escape routes unpredictably because of its oscillating behavior. Scatter mode positions are fixed. The red ghost scatters to the top-right corner. The pink ghost scatters to the top-left corner. The cyan ghost scatters to the bottom-right corner. The orange ghost scatters to the bottom-left corner. During Scatter mode, all ghosts head toward their corners and loop around a small area. This gives you breathing room to clear dots in the parts of the maze far from ghost corners. The timing of Chase and Scatter phases follows a predictable pattern that varies by level but is consistent within each level. The tunnel passages on the left and right sides of the maze are strategically important. When a ghost enters the tunnel, its speed drops significantly. Your hero moves through the tunnel at normal speed. This speed difference makes the tunnels safe zones for escaping pursuing ghosts. If the red ghost is chasing you, leading it through a tunnel gives you a substantial distance advantage. Use the tunnels as escape routes whenever ghosts are closing in from one direction. Power pellets turn the tables. The four large dots in the maze corners are power pellets. Eating one turns all ghosts blue and reverses their direction. Blue ghosts flee from you, and you can eat them for bonus points. The first ghost eaten is worth 200 points, the second 400, the third 800, and the fourth 1600. Eating all four ghosts from a single power pellet yields 3000 points total. On later levels, the frightened duration decreases, and eventually ghosts do not turn blue at all, making power pellets useless for offense. Power pellet timing is a major strategic decision. Using a power pellet when ghosts are scattered across the maze means you might only eat one or two before the effect ends. Using a power pellet when ghosts are clustered near you gives you a chance to eat all four. Advanced players manipulate ghost positions before eating a power pellet, corralling them into a group by moving in specific patterns. Then, when the ghosts are close together, the player eats the power pellet and sweeps through all four for maximum points. Dot-clearing patterns affect your score and survival. Eating dots near the ghost house (center of the maze) early is risky because ghosts emerge from there and the area has limited escape routes. Eating dots on the outer edges and corners first is safer. Leave a few dots near the tunnel entrances uneaten so you have a reason to visit those safe zones when ghosts pressure you. The optimal clearing pattern balances safety with efficiency. Corner-cutting is a technique that exploits how your hero navigates intersections. When you input a direction change before reaching an intersection, your hero begins turning slightly early, cutting the corner. This gives you a tiny speed advantage over ghosts, who do not corner-cut. At high levels where speeds are extreme and margins are thin, corner-cutting can be the difference between escaping and getting caught. Practice pre-inputting direction changes as you approach turns. Ghost reversal at mode transitions is a critical moment. When the game switches between Chase and Scatter mode (or vice versa), all ghosts instantly reverse direction. If the red ghost is chasing you from behind and the mode switches, it suddenly turns around and moves away. This reversal can save you or trap you, depending on the situation. On advanced levels, players memorize the mode transition timings and position themselves to take advantage of the reversals. The fruit bonus appears near the ghost house twice per level after a certain number of dots are eaten. The fruit type and point value increase with each level (cherry 100, strawberry 300, orange 500, and so on up to the key worth 5000 points on later levels). Going out of your way to grab the fruit is worth it for the points, but not if it puts you in danger. If the path to the fruit is safe, grab it. If ghosts are between you and the fruit, skip it. Level progression increases difficulty through ghost speed, shorter frightened durations, and changes to the Chase/Scatter timing. The first few levels are relatively forgiving with long Scatter phases. By level 5 and beyond, Chase mode dominates and ghosts are faster. Around level 21, the behavior changes stop in most versions of the genre. After that, every level plays identically at maximum difficulty. Some early arcade maze games also had a kill screen at level 256, a bug that garbled half the screen and made the level uncompletable. The browser version on WebRecast builds the maze, ghost behaviors, and gameplay mechanics with HTML5 Canvas. Controls use arrow keys or WASD for directional movement. The game renders smoothly at 60 frames per second on modern browsers. No plugins or downloads are needed. You can play instantly on desktop or mobile devices. High-score strategy combines all the elements discussed. Clear outer dots first for safety. Use tunnels to escape pressure. Save power pellets until ghosts are grouped. Exploit ghost targeting patterns by understanding each ghost algorithm. Corner-cut at every intersection. Memorize mode transition timings. Collect fruit when safe. Minimize unnecessary backtracking through already-cleared corridors. These techniques, applied consistently, will push your scores far beyond casual play. The maze chase format works because its design is tight. The rules are simple enough for anyone to understand in seconds. The ghost AI creates emergent complexity from simple individual rules. The difficulty curve is smooth and relentless. And the maze layout provides enough strategic depth for decades of optimization. Every game of Maze Chase is a fresh negotiation with four opponents who collectively create a dynamic, unpredictable challenge from individually predictable behaviors. Start by playing without worrying about score. Focus on surviving. Learn where the tunnels are and use them. Watch how each ghost moves and notice their different behaviors. Once you can consistently clear the first few levels, start incorporating dot-clearing patterns and power pellet timing. Maze Chase rewards observation and pattern recognition over reflexes. The more you understand the ghost AI, the more the game transforms from chaotic dodging into strategic navigation.
Frequently asked questions
How do you play Maze Chase?
Use arrow keys or swipe to guide your hero through the maze. Eat all the dots to complete the level. Avoid ghosts unless you grab a power pellet. Then you can eat them for bonus points.
Do the ghosts have different behaviors?
Yes. Each ghost has its own behavior. The red ghost chases you directly, the pink ghost tries to ambush you, the cyan ghost is unpredictable, and the orange ghost wanders. Learning their patterns is the key to high scores.
Is Maze Chase free with no download?
Yes. Play Maze Chase in your browser with no downloads, no installs, and no account required.
