An old-style maze chase game for PC

Maze Muncher is the maze chase game in Games by Zaweba, drawn in the style of an early-90s EGA PC. You gobble every dot to clear the maze while four gloops hunt you down, each in its own sneaky way. It's free, original and offline, with no adverts.

The gloops have personalities, and learning them is half of the game.

The four gloops

Grumble hunts you directly. Sneak cuts in ahead of you. Wobble flanks. Dozy dawdles. So the four never behave the same way, and a route that dodges one may lead straight into another. Once you know which is which, you can start to predict where each will go.

Watching how they move is worth a game or two on its own. You'll start to see Sneak heading for where you're going rather than where you are, and you can turn that against it.

Pills, fruit and tunnels

Eat a flashing pill and the gloops turn blue. While they are blue you can munch them, for up to 1600 points. Eating several in a row is where the big scores come from, so it's often worth waiting near a pill until the gloops are close before you eat it.

Grab the fruit when it appears for a bonus. And use the side tunnels: slip through one and you come out the other side of the maze, which is a handy escape when a gloop is close behind.

Controls and early turns

Use the arrow keys or WASD. Press early and you'll turn at the next opening, which is the key to smooth play: press the direction you want before you reach the corner, not as you reach it. You can also use the mouse: hold the button on the side you want to go.

Every maze has a new layout, and the gloops get faster as you go. So each maze is a fresh puzzle, and the later ones need quicker thinking.

The early-90s EGA look gives Maze Muncher bright, chunky colours on a dark background in the manner of an early-90s PC. It suits the game well: the dots, the gloops and the pills are all easy to see at a glance, which matters when you're deciding which way to turn in a split second.

A good plan for each maze is to clear the far corners first while the gloops are spread out, and leave the dots near a pill until later, so you have an escape ready when they close in.

Starting a game

Maze Muncher is on the Retro arcade shelf of Games by Zaweba. Press Ctrl+F and type muncher to find it. The title card explains how to play, F1 explains it again, Esc pauses and F11 makes the maze fill the screen. Your best score and plays sit on the tile, in a scores file on your PC.

Everything, from the gloops to the crunch of a dot, is drawn and synthesised in code, so nothing needs downloading and nothing goes online. The retro shelf has 26 original games, and if you like this one, Rock Digger is another game of routes and danger, set in scrolling caves.