aMAZE 2

I keep a folder of sub-five-dollar Steam pickups I reach for when I need twenty minutes of genuine head-scratching without committing to anything systemic. aMAZE 2 occupies that folder, though it earned its place only after I adjusted my expectations pretty hard. This is a 2D maze puzzle game, nothing more. You steer a small ball from start to finish across sixty levels, using arrow keys, WASD, or a controller. No story, no upgrades, no meta-progression. The loop is exactly as naked as that sounds. What the sequel actually improves over the original is the shape variety. Rather than sticking to rectangular grids, the sixty levels are split across three layout types: Circle, Delta, and Hexagon designs. That geometric shift genuinely changes how you read dead ends and plan routes, because your instincts trained on square mazes misfire noticeably on angled or curved corridors. The first five levels in each set ease you in, then the difficulty steps up in increments across the remaining fifteen. Reviewers who played the original noted that the later mazes here are meaningfully more elaborate, and I'd agree the hexagonal set especially will send you hunting down paths you were sure were wrong. Difficulty is selectable upfront across three tiers, which makes this accessible to kids or anyone who wants a genuinely relaxed session rather than a puzzle workout. Now for the honest accounting of what does not work. The audio is thin. One looping ambient track with limited variety means long sessions call for your own playlist running in the background. Controls lack a proper rebinding menu, so you get arrow keys or numpad and that is it on keyboard, with gamepad as your only real alternative. The presentation sits firmly in the flash-game visual bracket: colorful but low-fidelity, with backgrounds that occasionally push contrast hard enough to be slightly fatiguing. Collision detection, a problem critics flagged in the first game, has been tightened but was not completely solved according to some community reports. There is also a replayability ceiling that hits almost immediately once you finish the sixty levels. The game claims layouts vary between runs, but in practice the level structure feels static once you know the solutions. Who actually belongs in the target audience here? Achievement hunters, for a start. The full completion set is low-friction and can be cleared in a short session, making it appealing for anyone maintaining a library or completing a bundle. Casual puzzle fans who want something meditative rather than demanding will find the easy tier perfectly serviceable. Parents looking for something spatially engaging for young children will find the simple controls and colorful art appropriate. Strategy or simulation players like myself will not find any decision depth here, no branching choices, no resource allocation, no AI to outsmart. The "strategy" tag on the store page is wishful labeling. Treat this strictly as a casual spatial puzzle game and it meets that bar adequately. Diego, Scout Team

Valve rates this game Steam Deck Verified. Runs flawlessly on Linux out of the box. Based on 5 ProtonDB community reports.

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