GLYPHBOUND — The Cursed Labyrinth

What is GLYPHBOUND — The Cursed Labyrinth

GLYPHBOUND is played on a grid of stone tiles, five by five in the first chambers and up to eight by eight further down. Each tile carries one of three glyphs: sun, moon or serpent. You may step to a neighbouring tile only when its glyph differs from the one under your feet, which usually leaves two of your four neighbours open, sometimes only one. Somewhere in the chamber lie the relics — a single one in the opening rooms, up to four later on — and a sealed gate. Take every relic and the gate opens; step into it and the chamber is done.

The second law is what makes it a puzzle. The tile you step off advances one place along the cycle sun, moon, serpent, sun. The labyrinth rewrites itself behind you, so the state of the game is not just where you stand but the whole trail you have left. A corridor you crossed on the way in may be closed on the way back, and a tile you have left twice shows a glyph it never had at the start. Every chamber is built from a legal walk, so the par under the board is a route somebody really took.

How to play

1. Step to a tile that touches yours on a side and shows a different glyph. Two tiles carrying the same glyph will never connect.
2. Every tile you leave rotates one place along the cycle sun, moon, serpent, sun, so the floor behind you keeps changing as you walk.
3. Collect every relic in the chamber. The gate stays sealed until the last one is yours, and then it accepts you from any glyph at all.
4. Tap a highlighted tile, swipe, or use the arrow keys or WASD. Z undoes, R restarts the chamber, Q spends the whip on one lawless step.

Strategies that work

• The three glyphs form a cycle, so read each step as arithmetic. Moving onto the glyph that follows yours — sun to moon, moon to serpent, serpent to sun — leaves the tile behind you carrying the glyph you now stand on, and your retreat is sealed. Step to the preceding glyph instead and the way back stays open.
• Count the exits of the tile you are aiming at before you commit, with the rotation already applied: the tile you leave advances one place and may no longer be one of them. A corner with a single free neighbour is a trap unless that neighbour carries the preceding glyph.
• Undo costs three seconds of torch and permanently kills the two hundred point flawless bonus. Retry costs six, but restores that bonus, refills your three undo charges and restarts the seventy-five second window that feeds the time bonus. On a chamber barely begun, restarting is the cheaper mistake.
• The gate ignores the Law of Contrast, so it is the one tile you can always land on — but only once the last relic is yours. Plan backwards and make the relic nearest the gate your last. The walk back over floor you have already cursed is where runs get sealed in.
• Two tiles you can bounce between form a closed cycle: six shuttle moves return both to their starting glyphs, and a shorter shuttle re-phases them. Use it when a junction is one rotation from opening. The move bonus pays eighteen points per move under twice par, so pump only to save an undo.

A little history

GLYPHBOUND was written for this site; it has no ancient original and no inventor to name. It belongs to the family of trail puzzles, where the board is altered by the act of crossing it — the ice-sliding rooms of tile games, the parity grids where a square flips as you leave. What it adds is a three-state cycle instead of a two-state flip, turning the whole thing into arithmetic modulo three: what matters is the difference between the glyph you stand on and the one you want. A tile left twice is passable again, but only a third departure restores its first face.

Frequently asked questions