Got me! Great use of getting the player focused on a goal so they're that much more surprised when the scary thing happens. Length of the loop made it a little difficult to justify playing again to see if I could get closer. 

The Garden Maze 

Where I'm standing: I've griped in these reviews about download walls costing games their voters, so a build that just opens in the browser — no big gate to clear — earns goodwill from me before I've turned a corner. And I like anticipatory horror, the fear of what's around the next hedge, more than the thing that jumps out. This is built for both.

Theme — Secret Garden — 4.5

The most literal-in-a-good-way take on the prompt: the garden isn't a backdrop, it's the trap. A hedge maze turns "secret garden" into something that hides you from help and hides the thing from you at the same time. [SLOT: the moment the pretty-garden idea curdled into menace for me.] To crown it, one of the bonus challenges folded in — a structure at the centre, a secret to actually uncover — would give the walls a destination.

Gameplay — 3.5

Browser-instant, which I'll keep praising, and the loop is honest: navigate, manage your nerve, find the path before the thing finds you. [SLOT: whether the navigation felt fair or fought me.] Growth edge: a second thing to hold — a lantern burning down, map scraps, a hollow to hide in — so the maze is a decision, not only a corridor.

Story — 3.0

Minimal by design — you're in the leaves, survive — and the atmosphere carries it further than the premise does. But a carved word, a dropped thing, a statue that's wrong, and suddenly there's a why I'm trapped here, which is the difference between a level and a place.

Presentation — 3.5

Leans on claustrophobia and sound, correctly — the "breathing just out of sight" idea is the whole mood in a phrase. [SLOT: the audio cue that made me turn the wrong way or hesitate.] Spatial audio pushed harder — rustle, breath, a whisper that swells at the wrong turn — is the cheapest scare-per-effort you've got here.

Horror — 4.0

Disorientation as the engine: lost, boxed in, stalked by something you hear before you see. That's my favourite kind, and it lands. Loop a corridor when my nerve is highest and you'd have me doubting my own map.

Creativity — 3.5

Estate-garden serenity flipped into an arena is a clean twist. Let the maze live — walls that shift, corridors that repeat when the dread peaks — and it stops being a static space and starts being an antagonist.

Overall — 3.7

A focused, atmospheric scare that fits its theme like a glove and doesn't make me fight a launcher to reach it. Story texture and a living maze are where the next version grows.

Thank you all who played this game, I worked hard on it and learned so much!