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How to solve a maze
Two habits beat most printed mazes: keep a hand on one wall, and don’t trust your memory after the third identical-looking fork. Right-hand rule gets you out of many perfect mazes. If the maze has loops (braided), wall-follow can circle forever — then you mark paths or work backward from the exit.
Board’s up there. Try the rule. Cheat with Show path when teaching, not when bragging.
When
When to use
Stuck on paper. Teaching a kid. You want the method, not a CS semester.
When not
When not to
You only wanted a playable hard maze → hard. You want algorithm animations for class → maybe later; batch one is practical, not a textbook.
Defaults
Assumptions
Advice targets perfect mazes first (our generator default). Braided/looped mazes need extra tricks — see Gotchas. Solver page is the button version when it ships later.
Steps
How
- Pick a wall (right hand is traditional).
- Never break contact with that wall as you walk.
- If you loop, stop — the maze may have cycles; mark visited corridors or try from the exit.
- Practice on the live maze above.
Worked notes
Examples
- Kid stuck on a restaurant placemat → right hand, slow feet
- Hard maze online where you keep revisiting the same square → you’re looping; mark it
Watch-outs
Gotchas
- Wall-follow isn’t magic on mazes with loops.
- “Solve” search results sometimes mean answer dumps; we teach, then you walk.
- Showing the full path immediately teaches less. Use it as a last resort.
Nearby pages
Compare
Hard: apply this under stressGenerator: fresh homeworkEasy: warm-up first
Controls
Quick controls
- New maze — carve another with the same mood.
- Show path — pencil the solution when teaching or stuck.
- Print — send the current grid to paper.
- Arrows / WASD — walk; phone: swipe or tap an open neighbor.
- Sound — off until you poke it.
FAQ
Common questions
- Can I follow the left wall instead?
- Yes. Pick one hand and stick with it so you don’t keep switching mid-maze.
- Does wall-following work outdoors?
- Hedge mazes are ruder — loops and open junctions get you circling. Paper and our grids behave better.
- Do I need algorithm names?
- Not really. Recursive backtracker builds many of our mazes; the advice above is for people with eyes and a finger.
- Can I just use Show path?
- Sure. Learning is optional. So is pride.