МЕLINA: SECRET OF THE MAZE

GAME GUIDE


1. Getting Started and Basic Rules


You step into the adventure at the starting point of a map with your health and energy 80% full and 50 torches in your bag. You must complete the mazes and levels in the game in order; you cannot unlock the next level without successfully passing a maze.


Each level, meaning every maze you enter, has its own completion time (time limit). When entering a maze, you must spend a certain amount of torches from your bag, depending on the difficulty and duration of that map. Every step forward you take and every second you spend in the maze consumes your torch duration. The most fundamental rule is to find the exit door before your torch goes out completely.

Torch Location

2. Screen Controls, Movement, and Map


Movement and Turns (Button & Swipe): In the maze, you can move and turn at 90-degree angles either by using the directional buttons on the screen or by swiping. When a door appears in front of you, you can move to the next room/section using the button or by swiping forward.


Strategic Mini-Map: In the first levels, you can keep the map open transparently in front of the screen and walk while seeing your path. However, in the later challenging levels, you will need to open and close the map to see it fully. The most important tip: While looking at the map screen, the maze timer stops automatically. This allows you to examine the map and determine your tactics without being under time pressure.


3. Combat and Targeting Mechanics


Initiating Combat: When you encounter an enemy while walking in the maze, an Attack Button appears on the screen. You must press this button to start the fight.


Attack Mechanism (Stopping Pouches): When combat begins, a crosshair (+) target board appears in the center of the screen, with pouches constantly moving back and forth across it. Your goal is to press the Target Button at the bottom of the screen with the right timing to stop the pouches exactly in the center one by one.

  • If you successfully stop both pouches before the attack progress bar on the screen runs out, your character will throw the pouches at the enemy.
  • Each time you press the target button and stop a pouch, your energy decreases by 10.
  • Depending on your success in stopping the pouches in the center, you deal between 0 and 100 damage to the enemy. If your shots are very close to the center and reach high damage thresholds, your strike multiplies, dealing a Super Strike of 200 damage or a Mega Strike of 300 damage. If the time runs out or you fail to stop the pouches, the attack fails.

Defense (Shield Stopping): After your attack ends, it is time for defense. Before the defense progress bar on the screen runs out, you must stop the two shields so that they overlap exactly in the center.

  • If you time it perfectly and lock the shields exactly in the center, you will take no damage from the enemy.
  • If you cannot stop them exactly in the center, the amount of damage you take is calculated based on a combination of the enemy's attack power and how high up you managed to stop your shield, and is deducted from your health.
  • If the time runs out, the defense fails completely.

4. Inventory, Crafting, and Trading


Guaranteed Map Resources: In every maze, there are resources readily available for you to collect to keep your health and energy high before encountering enemies. Every Health Moss you pick up from the ground increases your health by 20. Every Energy Pouch you pick up from the ground increases your energy by 20 (which gives you the right to attack two extra times).


Emergency Energy System: If you have no energy left to attack during battles or moves (if you drop below 10 energy), a new energy pouch is instantly and automatically generated on the map. By searching for and finding this emergency energy in the maze, you can resume your fight against the enemy from where you left off.


Material Gathering (Hidden Raw Materials): Except for the entrance and exit rooms of the maze, you must personally turn and examine the walls in all other rooms. Because raw materials such as Cloth, Rope, Mint, Black Pepper, and Red Pepper are found in the wall corners of the maze rooms. Crafting materials like Cloth and Rope are invisible when viewed from the front. However, if a material is hidden on the wall you are looking at, it is automatically added to your bag. Therefore, it is of critical importance to progress by checking the walls instead of running blindly.


Crafting Table: By opening the Craft tab from the menu and combining these collected materials according to their recipes, you can craft damage pouches to use against creatures or emergency light sources (Time Torch) to extend your time.


Emergency Bag and Item Usage: Your bag is located at the top of the maze screen. You can open your bag when you encounter a monster or when your time drops below 10 seconds. You can use the magic pouches you crafted at the crafting table against the monster and destroy or weaken it without fighting. Alternatively, you can take the time torch you crafted out of your bag to gain an extra 15 seconds of time.


Merchant / Market: You can sell the excess materials you collect from the mazes in the market area in exchange for Gold. With the gold you earn, you can buy: missing materials to craft items, or items you will use directly in the maze, such as a time torch or a magic pouch. Additionally, you can also buy a maze entry torch.


5. Quest System, Puzzles


Key Collection Missions: Not every maze in the game is a straightforward escape. In some levels, you need to collect a certain number of keys to exit the maze. If there is a key collection mission in the level you enter, the smart indicator on the left side of the maze screen instantly shows the target number of keys you need to collect and how many you have found so far. If you fail to collect this target number of keys before the time runs out, even if you reach the exit door of the maze, the door will not open and you will not be able to complete the level.


Puzzle Rooms and Unlocking: In these special levels where you need to collect keys, you may encounter puzzle boxes of various and different difficulties. When you want to take a key, you are asked to solve this intelligence mechanism that appears before you. The most critical rule: You do not have to solve more than one puzzle within the same maze. When you successfully solve the first puzzle you encounter, the locks for all other keys in that maze are also opened at the same time. Thus, once you overcome the puzzle obstacle, you become able to collect all other keys on the map directly.