Daily maze ritual
Once you can finish a board, the next step is finishing efficiently: faster, with more battery left, and with cleaner route choices. This guide collects practical habits that help you read the comb under fog, spend battery wisely, judge detours, and post stronger times on the daily leaderboard.
Before every move, scan all the cells currently touching your position. Often the next number is already visible and you can advance with no exploration cost at all. New players tend to explore reflexively; strong players exhaust the free information in view before spending battery on new ground.
Look one or two numbers ahead when you can. If you can see both the next number and the one after it, you can plan a two-step move and avoid walking into a dead-feeling pocket of fog.
When the next number is not visible, you have to peel back fog — but direction matters. The sequence trends across the board, so reveal cells in the general direction the numbers have been climbing rather than doubling back into already-cleared territory. Exploring with the grain of the route finds the next number for less battery.
A useful habit: when you uncover a fork, note which branch points toward unexplored fog in the route's direction of travel. That branch is usually where the next number lives.
Battery is finite, but in Normal mode it is generous enough that disciplined play finishes comfortably. Rather than worrying about each point, think in terms of a budget: roughly how many exploratory moves can you afford between here and 50? Spend the budget on the parts of the board that are genuinely uncertain, and move confidently where the route is already visible.
If your battery dips lower than feels comfortable, prioritise a nearby battery chest, or tighten up and stop exploring speculative directions. See the mechanics guide for exactly how battery is spent.
Every chest is a trade between the battery and time spent reaching it and the value it returns. A few rules of thumb:
Subhive detours lead to the richest rewards, including relics that add a score bonus. They are also the most expensive side-trips on the board. Take them when you have a comfortable battery lead and want to push for a higher score, and skip them when you are simply trying to secure a clean clear or a fast time. They are designed to be optional, so never feel obliged to dive.
Eligible clears are ranked by fastest time first, then battery remaining, then score. If you are chasing the top of the board, that ordering tells you what to optimise:
Because the board is identical for everyone that day, leaderboard climbing is genuinely about route judgement and execution, not luck.
In chase mode a hornet pursues you, adding pressure to linger less and keep moving. The counterplay is to stay ahead of the route rather than backtracking, and to use chase-only rewards such as the Drone Ward when the pursuer closes in. If you are still learning a board, practise it in a calmer mode first, then bring chase mode in once your route reading is quick. The modes guide explains how chase cadence scales with difficulty.
Beeline rewards regular play. Each daily board teaches you new fog and route patterns, and your local streak banks on the first completed run of the day. Over time you will read combs faster, judge detours instinctively, and shave seconds off your clears. Start with today's board and apply one new habit at a time.