PULSE: Echo Maze: play free online

walk that way.

A game for practising sound localization

The "Where is the sound?" mode is calm and has no enemies. Every two seconds the golden exit chimes from the spot where it stands. With headphones the chime is louder on one side, and its pitch tells the top of the screen from the bottom. Half a second after the sound an arc and an arrow appear on screen, and on the first levels a word such as "from the left" or "from above". The child listens first and then checks whether they heard it right. Each level brings a bigger maze and an exit on a different side, so every direction gets practice, not just one corner.

For audiologists, ENT doctors, speech therapists and parents

The game works as play between sessions with a hearing therapist: for spatial hearing, sound localization and auditory attention exercises, including children with suspected auditory processing disorder (APD, CAPD). The start screen has a headphone test: a tone plays in the left ear, then in the right, and the matching side lights up, so it is easy to check that the headphones are on the right way. PULSE is not a medical device or a hearing test and does not replace diagnosis or therapy; it is a game that gives a child a reason to listen carefully.

How to play

On a computer the arrow keys or WASD move the glowing orb and the space bar sends a pulse that shows the stone walls for a moment. On a phone you drag a finger to walk and tap the round button to pulse. The golden light is the exit, the red pulsing stars are hunters. A round takes two to five minutes.

Hunter mode for older players

Older kids and adults play mazes with hunters. Every pulse gives away where you are, a hunter hears your steps up close and sees you down a straight corridor. When it spots you it growls from your side, so you know to run around a corner. The decoy (E key or the purple button) throws a sound ahead of you and pulls the hunters away. There is a training mode with levels and a daily challenge with the same maze for every player.

Online with a friend: runner against hunter

In online mode one player runs and looks for the exit while the other hunts. Both are in the dark and see only what their own pulse reveals, and every pulse and every nearby step gives them away to the rival. The hunter cannot see the exit, so camping it is impossible. A match lasts at most two and a half minutes, you invite a friend with a link, and when nobody is waiting you play the computer. No install and no account, in ten languages.