The floor is lava! And so are the walls, the ceiling, the curtains and the coffee tables. This is the premise of Maze Evolution, a sweet new puzzle game where you have to reach the finish line without touching anything.

To start a level, click on the little black star. From that point on, the star is bound to your mouse and follows its movements, so be very careful. If you so much as graze a pixel in one of the walls, you'll end up with a big, humiliating "FAIL" all over your screen. The first few levels go easy on you and serve as a kind of tutorial but, after that, you're on your own. The game's most appealing quality is that it's not static; rather, some levels respond to your movements and change as you go along. Others are moving all the time, and its up to you to catch up with parts of the maze, which makes them feel like a weird game of hopscotch. To make things more interesting, your poor little star gets occasionally shot at, so you must dodge black block bullets as well as navigate the maze. There are twenty-eight levels, each with its own quirks, but don't expect the difficulty to rise evenly. The levels are too diverse, so their individual difficulty depends a lot on your various skills and preference.

The best thing about Maze Evolution is how well the design fits in with the gameplay. The clean, two-colour scheme works perfectly in a precision game. The background colour changes as you play, but it's a subtle fading of muted shades which won't distract you. The overall effect is very stylish and a little retro, a joy to behold if you like minimalism, making it really easy to focus on the task at hand. So grab your best mouse and concentrate!

Play Maze Evolution