TITLE Ariadne's Thread PROMPT A labyrinth game drawn in the style of ancient Greek black-figure pottery: black glaze figures and walls on terracotta, with incised detail lines, meander borders and bands of pattern. The player walks a small figure through a generated maze to its centre and back out, unspooling a red-brown thread behind them; something else is in the maze. Concept: the myth as a mechanic: the thread is the map, the memory and the way home. Palette: terracotta #C8622D as the main ground (the fired clay), black glaze #17110D, buff cream slip #EAD9B8 for highlights and text panels, dark oxide red #7A2E12 for the thread and accents. Surface texture: subtle clay grain, faint horizontal wheel marks, a few hairline cracks and a chipped edge; the black has a slight glossy sheen. Colour-field page, no dark mode look. Composition: the maze is presented as the decorated field of a large vessel: either a circular composition like the interior tondo of a drinking cup (a round maze with the centre as the goal: preferred on square-ish screens) or a frieze panel; framed by a Greek-key meander band above and below, with a band of lotus/palmette or running-wave ornament, all generated as SVG patterns. Walls are thick black lines; the corridor floor is bare terracotta. The player figure is a small black silhouette in profile with incised cream lines (a youth with a short tunic and a ball of thread), animated with a simple two-frame walk and turning to face the direction of travel; the Minotaur is a larger horned silhouette. Game: mazes generated by a depth-first or Wilson's algorithm on a grid (or on concentric rings for the circular version), sized to the screen (small on phones), with a few loops added so there are choices. Phase one: reach the centre, where the Minotaur sleeps; arriving wakes it (a drum-like beat begins if sound is on, the border meander starts to scroll). Phase two: get out. The Minotaur pursues by pathfinding at slightly less than the player's speed, pausing at junctions to sniff; the thread the player laid on the way in shows the way out; walking back along it rewinds it. If the player strays from the thread into unexplored corridors, they must rely on memory. Being caught ends the attempt ("The thread goes slack.", the thread visibly sagging) with the option to try the same maze again or a new one. Three sizes of labyrinth (small / great / Daedalus's own). Fog of memory: corridors not yet visited are drawn with fainter, thinner walls; visited ones stay strong; the outer wall is always full glaze. Movement is screen-directional: each key picks the open passage that best matches its direction on the round plan. Signature moment: the thread: a smooth red line that unspools behind the figure with slight slack and curvature (a rope simulation or a smoothed polyline with a little sag at corners), lying along the corridor floors, wound and unwound precisely as the player retraces; a faint scored line stays in the clay wherever the thread has lain; on escape, the whole thread springs back along the remembered way in, then tightens, straightens, lifts off the maze and winds itself into a ball of thread on a cream roundel beside the title while the whole pot does a slow celebratory turn (the pattern bands scrolling) and an inscription appears. Controls: arrow keys/WASD move cell by cell with smooth eased motion (hold to keep moving, with corner-buffering so turns feel responsive); swipe on touch, plus tapping a corridor ahead moves the figure there along the straight; a designed on-screen four-way control appears on touch devices as a small meander-ornamented disc. Pause with P. Visible focus styling on all buttons. Typography: inscriptions in the manner of vase lettering: spaced, slightly irregular capitals in a classical face (a stack like "Lithos Pro", "Trajan Pro", Optima, Georgia with uppercase and 0.2em tracking), written in cream on black bands or in black along the border; names beside figures as on real vases ("THESEUS", "ASTERION"). Title "ARIADNE'S THREAD" in large tracked capitals on the upper band; small instructions phrased in-world: "Walk in. Wake him. Follow your own thread home." Status band at the bottom: thread paid out in "cubits", time, maze name. Entrance: the pot's bands paint themselves in from left to right like glaze being brushed on (clip-path wipe), the maze walls draw in from the centre outward, then the figure steps in at the gate. The upper band also carries two small vase-painter's inscriptions ("ARIADNE KALE", "DAIDALOS EPOIESEN") on wide screens; palmettes flank the tondo. Optional sound toggle (off by default): soft frame-drum pulse that speeds as the Minotaur nears, a lyre-like pluck on reaching the centre. Reduced motion: no pot rotation or scrolling bands; movement remains but without sag animation. DESCRIPTION The page is the decorated surface of an Attic black-figure drinking cup: a terracotta ground with clay grain, wheel marks, hairline cracks and a chipped rim, black glaze bands carrying the title in spaced, slightly uneven cream capitals, a Greek-key meander above and below, a running-wave band, and two palmettes flanking a round tondo. Inside the tondo is a freshly generated ring labyrinth. A small black silhouette of Theseus steps in at the gate paying out an oxide-red thread that lies along the corridor floors with a little slack; Asterion sleeps in the central chamber under his own name. Reaching him wakes him, the meanders begin to scroll, and the way out is the thread itself, rewound step by step while the Minotaur pathfinds behind, stopping to sniff at junctions. Escape sends the whole thread springing back along the remembered route, pulling taut, lifting off the pot and winding into a ball on the cream roundel beside the title while the vessel makes one slow turn and a cream slip panel delivers the inscription. VISUAL TECHNIQUES - Polar maze on concentric rings (cell counts doubling outward) generated by seeded depth-first search with added loops; breadth-first pathfinding for the pursuer - Canvas 2D rendering of walls as arcs and radials, batched into five opacity "glazes" for the fog of memory, with a thin cream sheen pass on the black - Thread as a polyline sampled in polar space, Chaikin-smoothed at corners, with arclength-keyed slack that settles in behind the walker and is cut precisely on retrace; cream edge, drop shadow and twist dashes - Finale on a full-viewport overlay canvas: resampled thread morphs from the maze path to a taut line with a lifting shadow, then reels into a parametric ball of thread - Black-figure silhouettes drawn procedurally with a terracotta halo and cream incised lines, two-frame walk, facing by direction of travel; names lettered along arcs - Inline SVG patterns for the Greek-key meander and running wave, scrolled by pattern transforms; SVG palmette symbol; circular meander generated for the touch disc - Procedural clay grain and wheel-mark tile painted at load, SVG hairline cracks and a chipped rim, gradient sheen and vessel-curvature shading - Clip-path brush wipes for the bands, centre-outward wall draw-in, staggered per-letter inscription reveal, custom cubic-bezier easings - Web Audio frame drum (pitched sine drop plus filtered noise) whose tempo follows the Minotaur's distance, and lyre-like plucked tones INTERACTION MODEL Arrow keys or W A S D walk Theseus cell by cell; holding a key keeps him walking along the corridor and a key pressed early is buffered so the next turn is taken as soon as it opens. On touch, swipe to set off in a direction, tap a cell further along a straight corridor to walk there, or hold the four-way meander disc. Walking forward pays out thread; walking back along it rewinds it, and the status band counts cubits paid out, time by the water-clock and the labyrinth's name. Entering the central chamber wakes Asterion, who rises and then hunts; leaving by the gate wins, being reached ends the attempt with "The thread goes slack." and a choice of the same labyrinth or a new one. Three buttons choose the size (Small, Great, Daedalus's own), P or the Rest button pauses, New maze redraws, and the Drum button turns sound on (it is off by default). With reduced motion the bands appear at once, nothing scrolls or turns, the thread lies still without settling, and the finale shows the wound ball directly.