xx142-b2.exe

What it's like to play

xx142-b2.exe dresses itself as a leaked executable from the year 2413. You are an AI virus inside an alien network, and the antivirus will delete you thirteen seconds after you start. The intro scrolls past like a command prompt, then the terminal shell drops away and a WebGL maze appears.

Each run gives you 260 simulation ticks at 20 hertz, which is exactly thirteen seconds. WASD or the arrows move in steps of five units; Backspace kills the process early. Touch every switch and reach the core before the clock empties. Switches come in three behaviours, momentary, toggle and single, and they open doors that stay open only as long as the switch is held or latched. Dying is not a reset: the run is recorded, and up to four ghosts replay your previous paths at the same time. Those ghosts press switches for you, so later attempts are built on the corpses of earlier ones. Nothing carries over between levels except the habit of planning a route before touching a key.

Eight levels is the full set, with no level select, no save and no undo. A single mistimed step costs the whole run, and the last two mazes demand routes that only make sense after several failures. The timer turns red under four seconds and the HUD counts each one down, which is atmospheric once and annoying by the tenth retry. Swipe controls exist for phones, but precision at this speed wants a keyboard.

Verdict: The loop is genuinely clever: failure produces the tool that solves the level. It is short, sharp and unlike anything else in the catalogue.

Controls

WASD or arrow keys move in five-unit steps; Backspace kills the process early. Phones get swipe controls.