The 1980 arcade maze
RAGA-MAN
every dot sings the ragaThe yellow circle, the maze, the four ghosts — rule for rule. Only now every dot you eat sings the next note of a raga, the ghosts hum the wrong notes, and the power pellet plays the raga's pakad.
Who is playing
Just like the arcade: player one plays until a ghost catches them, then the phone passes to player two. Each keeps their own maze, score and lives. The best score wins.
Open a room and send its word. Everyone plays the same maze, in the same raga, at the same moment, on their own phone. Best score wins.
Got a word from a friend?
How you play
Sa Re Ga Pa Dha · G A B D E
More options
Which scales
Start from
How the maze makes music
The dots sing the raga
Sa is G. The first dot sings Sa. Every dot after it sings the next note of the raga — climbing its aroha while you run out, away from the ghost house, and falling down its avaroha as you come back. A raga that zigzags (Yaman climbs Ni Re Ga, Bhimpalasi skips Re and Dha going up) zigzags under your feet exactly the way it is sung.
The ghosts hum wrong notes
Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde each hold one note from outside the raga — the ones that rub hardest against the tanpura's Sa and Pa. In Bhoop that is komal Re (Ab), tivra Ma (C#), Ni (F#) and komal Dha (Eb). They grow louder as they close in, and sit in your left or right ear where they really are.
The power pellet plays the pakad
Eat an energizer and the raga's pakad — the little phrase that says which raga this is — rings out. The ghosts turn blue and their sour notes melt into consonant notes of the raga. Eat them and each one climbs the chord — in Bhoop Sa, Ga, Pa, then the Sa above — for 200, 400, 800, 1600.
Everything else is music too
The fruit rings a small bell phrase, a lost life spirals the melody down an octave and a half, and a cleared maze runs up the whole aroha. Plain note names everywhere: G, F#, Bb. Swaras in sargam: Sa re Re ga Ga ma Ma Pa dha Dha ni Ni, komal in small letters.
The four ear challenges
Wrong notes — about one dot in nine is a note from outside the raga and looks like the rest; every dot whispers its note ahead of you, three sour bites cost a life. Phrase order — only the next note of the pakad can be eaten, and it hums from where it waits. Dark maze — the lamps go out and you track the ghosts by their wrong notes, left, right, above and below. Scale journey — five-note scales first, then the blues, the seven-note ragas and modes, the whole-tone scale and the exotic ones, a new scale every maze, each heard first.
The arcade rules, kept
The 28 × 31 maze with 240 dots and 4 energizers. Blinky chases you, Pinky aims four tiles ahead, Inky works off Blinky, Clyde loses his nerve up close. Scatter and chase waves, Cruise Elroy, the tunnel, fruit after 70 and 170 dots, an extra life at 10,000, and the intermissions after mazes 2, 5 and 9.
Controls: swipe anywhere on the maze, or use the arrow pad on a phone; arrow keys or W A S D on a keyboard. P or Space pauses.