In the Labyrinth maze module, the Defuser sees a grid with a light, a goal and two ringed dots, but no walls. The Expert uses the rings to pick one of nine mazes in the manual, then talks the light to the goal one step at a time. A step into a wall or off the grid is a strike.
What the Labyrinth grid shows and what it hides
The Labyrinth grid is six dots across and six down, with four arrow buttons for up, right, down and left. Two dots have a ring around them. A white light marks where the Defuser is. A red triangle marks the goal. The walls exist, but only the Expert's maze drawing shows them.
That split is the whole module. The Defuser can see where the light is and where it needs to go, but has no idea which way is open. The Expert knows every wall but has no idea where the light is until told. Neither can finish alone.
The two rings are the module's fingerprint. They do not move during the round, they are not obstacles, and the light can pass over them freely. Their only job is to tell the Expert which maze is in play.
The goal is never a quick hop from the light. The game always places it at least four steps of walking away, even when the two look close on the grid, so every Labyrinth needs a short conversation, not a single word.
How do two rings pick one Labyrinth maze?
Each of the nine mazes has its rings in two places that no other maze uses. The Expert asks where the two rings are, then finds the maze whose caption lists those places. One ring is enough to pick the maze, and the second is a check that both people read the grid the same way.
The Labyrinth section of the manual prints each maze as a small drawing with a caption such as "Maze 4. Rings at column 2, row 1 and column 5, row 4." Those captions are the fastest index. The Expert can scan nine short lines of text without studying any drawing.
Because no ring position is shared, a single ring place is unique. That gives the team a fallback when a call is noisy: if the second ring place was lost in the noise, the first still names the maze. But if the two ring places the Defuser gives point at two different mazes, something was misread, and the team should stop and check before moving at all.
Ring places and mazes come from the rule seed, along with every wall. The same Labyrinth on two different seeds is effectively a different puzzle, so both screens must use the same seed before the round starts.
Naming Labyrinth places: column from the left, row from the top
Name every Labyrinth place as a column number counted from the left, then a row number counted from the top, both from 1 to 6. "Column 2, row 5" means two dots in from the left edge and five down from the top. Always say the words "column" and "row" with the numbers.
The manual uses exactly this format in its captions, so the Defuser who speaks in that order is speaking the Expert's language. It costs a few extra syllables compared with "two, five", but bare numbers are where swaps happen. With the words attached, a swapped pair is obvious the moment it is said.
Some teams prefer letters for columns, like a chessboard. That works only if both people agree before the round, and the manual's captions use numbers, so the Expert would be translating on every lookup. Sticking with the manual's own words is simpler.
Describe all four things the same way: both rings, the light and the triangle. "Rings at column 2, row 1 and column 5, row 4. Light at column 1, row 6. Triangle at column 4, row 3." That single sentence gives the Expert everything needed to plan the route.
Guiding the Labyrinth light one step at a time
Give one move per instruction, wait for the Defuser to press it, and wait for the new position before giving the next. Every maze in the manual has exactly one path between any two dots, so there is never a choice of route. The only risk is a move given too early or pressed twice.
Each maze is built with no loops, which means the route from the light to the triangle is fixed once the maze is known. The Expert can trace it with a finger on the drawing before saying anything, then read it out one step at a time. There is no need to look for a shorter way.
Pacing matters more than speed here. "Up, up, right, right, down" said in one breath tempts the Defuser to press five times quickly and lose track after the third. One word, one press, one confirmation is slower per step and much faster per module. The guide to giving one instruction at a time, then waiting explains why that pattern holds up under pressure.
The Defuser's half of the loop is just as short. Press the arrow, then say the new place: "column 2, row 5". That reply lets the Expert follow along on the drawing and catch a wrong press before it turns into a second one.
A worked Labyrinth route
All values here are invented. The maze, the rings and the route will be different on your seed.
- Rings at column 2, row 1 and column 5, row 4, which pick Maze 4 in this example.
- Light at column 1, row 6, the bottom left corner.
- Triangle at column 4, row 3.
On the example maze, walls block the direct way up from the bottom left, so the single route makes a short dip before it climbs. The spoken moves, one per line, with the Defuser's reply after each:
- "Up." Defuser: "column 1, row 5."
- "Right." Defuser: "column 2, row 5."
- "Right." Defuser: "column 3, row 5."
- "Down." Defuser: "column 3, row 6."
- "Right." Defuser: "column 4, row 6."
- "Up." Defuser: "column 4, row 5."
- "Up." Defuser: "column 4, row 4."
- "Up." Defuser: "column 4, row 3." The light reaches the triangle and the module goes green.
Eight moves for a goal only three columns and three rows away is normal. The walls decide the length, not the distance.
What counts as a Labyrinth strike?
A Labyrinth strike happens when the Defuser presses an arrow that would cross a wall or step off the edge of the grid. The light does not move. It stays on the dot where it was, and the team carries on from there with one more strike on the case.
That rule makes a strike easy to recover from. Nothing resets: the maze is the same, the light is in the same place and the goal has not moved. The Expert only needs to confirm the light's position, look again at the walls around that dot, and give the right move.
What a strike does change is the clock. Strikes speed up the bomb's timer, as the how to play page explains, and three strikes end the round by default. A Labyrinth is cheap to get right and needlessly expensive to guess at, so a moment of checking before each move is time well spent.
The edge of the grid counts the same as a wall. A light on column 1 cannot go left, and a light on row 1 cannot go up. The maze drawings show the outer border as a solid line, which is a useful reminder.
The Labyrinth mistake: swapping rows and columns
Swapping rows and columns means saying or hearing "column 4, row 1" when the place is really column 1, row 4. For a ring, that sends the Expert to the wrong maze, or to no maze at all. For the light, it puts the Expert's finger on the wrong dot, and every later move starts from the wrong place.
The ring swap is the dangerous one. If a swapped place happens to be a ring place in some other maze, the Expert finds a match and starts guiding confidently through walls that do not exist on the real bomb. The first sign of trouble is a strike several moves in, by which time nobody suspects the very first sentence.
Two checks catch it. First, insist on both ring places and confirm they belong to the same maze; a swap rarely lands on a matching pair. Second, have the Defuser read the light's place again after the first move. If the reply does not match the dot the Expert expected, stop and recheck the rings before moving again.
Labyrinth beside the other modules
The Labyrinth is one of the eleven regular modules in Bomb Appétit, the free co-op game played in a browser with one Defuser and up to four Experts. It is the module where precise spoken directions matter most.
Next, the Passcode module word list swaps directions for spelling, and Pressure Vent questions show what happens when a needy module interrupts in the middle of a maze. For where each page sits in the manual, see how the bomb manual's pages are organized.