Answer: Maze 176

Here is the way through Maze 176. The orange line shows Pixel’s route from the top-left corner to the ball of yarn.

The route as arrow code

Each arrow is a direction and each number is how many squares to move. The whole route is 28 moves long and has 19 turns.

↓ 1  → 2  ↑ 1  → 1  ↓ 2  → 1  ↓ 2  → 2  ↑ 1  → 2  ↓ 1  ← 1  ↓ 1  ← 2  ↓ 1  → 2  ↓ 1  ← 1  ↓ 1  → 2

Show the route step by step

1. Go down 1 square.
2. Go right 2 squares.
3. Go up 1 square.
4. Go right 1 square.
5. Go down 2 squares.
6. Go right 1 square.
7. Go down 2 squares.
8. Go right 2 squares.
9. Go up 1 square.
10. Go right 2 squares.
11. Go down 1 square.
12. Go left 1 square.
13. Go down 1 square.
14. Go left 2 squares.
15. Go down 1 square.
16. Go right 2 squares.
17. Go down 1 square.
18. Go left 1 square.
19. Go down 1 square.
20. Go right 2 squares.

Why is there only one way through?

This is a perfect maze. That means there is exactly one path between any two squares, with no loops. It was built by a program that wanders from square to square, knocking down walls as it goes, and backs up whenever it gets stuck. Programmers call that backing-up trick backtracking.

Because there are no loops, the path in the answer is the only way to get from the start to the goal.