Hex Mazes: rules, strategy, and free play

THE RULES

1. Start at the marked start hex; finish at the marked end hex. Both endpoints are marked. Your route must begin at the start and finish at the end.
2. Move between open hex neighbours only. From a hex you can step to any of its up-to-six edge-sharing neighbours — but only where there's an open passage. A wall on an edge blocks that move.
3. Build one continuous route. Tap each next hex to extend the route. Every step must cross an open edge from the hex you're on.
4. Back up at dead ends. If a corridor closes off, tap back along your route and try another opening. The maze has a connected route from start to end — keep exploring until you trace it.

BEGINNER STRATEGY

• Work from both ends. Trace inward from the start and backward from the end at once. Dead-end corridors near each end get ruled out fast, and the two partial routes tend to meet in the middle.
• Follow forced corridors. Even with six possible exits, most hexes have walls on most edges — leaving a single open way through. Follow these forced corridors freely until they open into a real junction.
• Slow down at the big junctions. A hex with three or more open edges is where the maze actually asks you to choose. These are rarer than they look but decisive — read a step or two down each branch before committing.
• Prune dead ends early. A branch that closes into a pocket can't be on the route. With more exits to check, it pays to glance ahead and rule out pockets before you wander into them twice.
• Never guess blindly. There's one route through. If you stall, back up to the last open junction and take the exit you haven't tried yet.

COMMON MISTAKES

• Trying to move through a wall. Two hexes can share an edge and still be blocked by a wall on it. Always move across an open edge — sharing a border isn't the same as a passage.
• Looking for numbers to follow. Hex Mazes have none. It isn't a numbered-path puzzle — only the open edges between hexes decide where you can go.
• Misreading hex adjacency at the edges. Hex rows are offset, so the neighbours of an edge hex aren't where a square-grid instinct expects. Check which hexes actually share an edge before committing to a turn.
• Rushing the six-way junctions. The extra exits make autopilot turns more costly — a wrong fork on a hex grid sends you further astray. Pause where several edges are open.

HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT

Hex Mazes are spatial route-finding with the branching turned up. The same open-passage logic as a square wall maze, but six possible exits per hex means more — and more interesting — junctions. The productive posture: let the forced single-exit corridors carry you, and concentrate at the genuine forks where three or more edges open. Working from both ends shrinks the search to where the two routes connect. The higher branching makes the maze feel richer, not harder, once you're reading corridors and junctions instead of individual hexes.

WHY THIS PUZZLE REWARDS YOU

Hex Mazes are GridJoy's spatial-reasoning showcase. The hexagonal grid is the only one of its kind in the app, and the six-way branching gives junctions a richer feel than any square maze — more directions to weigh, more satisfying when the route clicks into place. It's a natural step up for players who enjoy Square and Circular Mazes: identical route-finding instincts, a grid that rewards reading the maze as corridors and forks rather than cell by cell.

HEX EXIT COUNT REFERENCE

On a pointy-top hex grid each interior cell shares an edge with six neighbours (NW, NE, E, SE, SW, W). Boundary and corner hexes have fewer edge-sharing neighbours. Walls then further reduce how many of those edges are open passages — most hexes in a well-formed maze have just one or two open exits, leaving the real choices at the rarer multi-exit junctions.

VARIANTS

• Square Maze. The same wall-maze route-finding on a rectangular grid — four exits per cell instead of six. Tighter junctions, GridJoy's most familiar maze.
• Circular Maze. Wall-maze route-finding on concentric rings — move inward, outward, and around through open gaps. A different shape, the same idea.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

• Number Maze →

  GridJoy's other 'maze' — a jump puzzle where each cell's number is a leap distance. No walls.

• Square Maze →

  Wall-maze route-finding on a rectangular grid — four exits per cell.

• Circular Maze →

  Wall-maze route-finding on concentric rings — inward, outward, and around.

• Shikaku →

  Spatial-reasoning cousin — divide a grid into rectangles.

• Starlink →

  Number puzzle — fill the grid with one chain 1..N², each step 8-directionally adjacent.

• How to play Hex Mazes (visual guide) →

  New here? The picture-led walkthrough — trace one route across the honeycomb, step by step.

• How puzzle difficulty works →

  What changes between Tier 1 and Tier 5 — pick your challenge level.