Dot Muncher

Made by the twittyn team · Updated August 2026

An original maze-chase arcade game. Steer a gold crystal muncher through a 19×21 lattice, clear every dot, and stay ahead of three scanner drones that each hunt you a different way.

What is Dot Muncher?

Dot Muncher is twittyn's own maze-chase game, built on an HTML canvas with its own maze, its own gold hexagonal crystal muncher and its own angular scanner drones. The board is 19 cells wide and 21 tall, laid out as a lattice: every second row is a full-width corridor, with vertical links on the even columns between them. The maze is therefore almost all junctions — no dead ends to get stuck in, and nowhere to hide.

Across those corridors sit 224 dots worth 10 points each and 4 power pellets worth 50, one per corner region — 228 pickups and 2,440 points for a clean sweep before capture bonuses. The centre row is the exception: it runs off both edges as a wrap-around tunnel, so leaving on the left puts you straight back on the right. No other edge wraps. You get three lives, a level counter and a saved best score.

How to play

1. Start the run. Press “Start”, hit Space or Enter, or tap the board. A short “READY!” freeze plays before anything moves.
2. Steer with the arrow keys or WASD. Nothing blocks a reversal — you can flip 180° mid-corridor at any time, which is an escape tool rather than a mistake.
3. On mobile, swipe or use the d-pad. Touch devices get an on-screen d-pad automatically. You can also swipe on the board: it must travel 20 pixels and the larger axis wins. Anything shorter counts as a tap, which starts or restarts a run.
4. Use buffered turning. Your input is stored as a requested direction and fires the instant the corridor opens that way, so a turn called a cell early lands exactly on the junction. If you hit a wall head-on with nothing legal queued, the muncher stops dead until you steer.
5. Munch everything. Dots are 10 points, pellets 50. Clear all 228 pickups and the maze refills for the next level.
6. Avoid contact. A drone catches you within 0.6 of a cell, measured continuously, so a head-on pass counts even mid-corridor. Losing a life resets your position and sends every drone back to the pen.

Know your hunters

Each drone picks its next direction greedily — the legal turn that most reduces distance to its own target — and never reverses unless it has no other option. Only the choice of target differs.

The teal tracker — direct chase

It targets the cell you are standing on: relentless, but readable. Since it never anticipates, a late buffered turn forces it to commit to the corridor you just left, and two perpendicular turns usually put a whole lattice block between you.

The violet interceptor — ambush ahead

It targets the cell four steps ahead of your facing, so it shows up in front of you instead of behind. Change what “ahead” means: reverse, or turn toward it. The moment you face it, its aim point lands behind your back and it steers away for a beat — usually the window you need to slip past.

The green rover — semi-random

Every decision is a coin flip between your cell and a wander point picked at random from anywhere open on the board, re-rolled every one and a half to three seconds. Treat it as a moving hazard and never let it pin you against the other two.

Chase and scatter phases

Each level runs fixed waves: 7 seconds scatter, 20 chase, 7 scatter, 20 chase, 5 scatter, then chase for good. In scatter each drone drops its target for its own corner — tracker top right, interceptor top left, rover bottom left. Every flip also reverses all active drones on the spot, a free tell that the phase changed.

Power pellets and the frightened state

A pellet frightens every active drone at once: they turn ice blue, reverse, drop to 55% speed and choose directions at random. That lasts 7 seconds at level 1, with a white flash for the final 2. Captures pay 200, then 400, 800 and 1600 within the same window; with three drones the practical ceiling is 1,400 per pellet, since a captured one returns to the pen unfrightened. The chain resets with each new pellet.

Tips for a higher score

• Use the tunnel to break a chase. A drone locked onto your cell must cross the whole board to follow you through the wrap; you arrive on the far side while it is still committed to the corridor it chose.
• Bank your pellets. A pellet eaten while the drones sit in their corners is worth exactly 50 points. Wait until two or more hunters are within a few cells — the reversal happens next to you and you chain 200, 400 and 800 in one sweep.
• Learn the buffered-turn timing. Call the turn a cell before the junction so it fires the moment the corridor opens; turning late means overshooting and doubling back.
• Clear the outer corridors first. The top and bottom rows are furthest from the centre pen, so you get the most warning there. Sweep them while the drones stagger out, and save the crowded centre for when you still hold a pellet.
• Reverse without guilt. A drone can only turn around on a phase flip, on fright, or at a true dead end — you can do it anywhere. And when all three spin round at once, the wave just changed.

How the levels escalate

Clearing the board bumps the level, refills all 228 pickups and sends the drones back to the pen. Score and lives carry over, and there are no bonus lives, so your three have to last the session.

Two things tighten. Speed: you always travel at a fixed 5 cells per second, while drones start at 4.3 and gain 6% per level until they cap at 1.5× — roughly 6.5 cells per second from level 9, permanently faster than you. Fright time: the 7-second window shrinks 0.6 seconds per level to a floor of 2.2, making multi-captures much harder to set up. Both curves flatten rather than rise forever, so late levels reward positioning over reflexes.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to install anything, and can I play on my phone?

No install, no account: it runs in any modern browser. On touch devices a d-pad appears automatically and you can swipe anywhere on the board; swipes under 20 pixels read as a tap, which starts or restarts a run.

Why didn't my turn register?

Turns are buffered: the request waits until the corridor actually opens that way, and a newer input replaces an older one. Queue two turns quickly and only the second is still pending at the junction.

How many points is a captured drone worth?

200 for the first capture after a pellet, then 400, 800 and 1600. The ladder resets with each pellet, and with three drones 1,400 is the realistic maximum from one.

Can I earn extra lives?

No. You start with three and there are no bonus lives at score thresholds. Clearing a level refills the maze and speeds the drones up; your remaining lives carry over.

Is my best score saved, and is the game free?

Your best is stored locally, so it persists between visits on the same device and browser. The game is free, with no time limits or paywalls.

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