Mind Trap

Turn the cogs. Sort the dice. Don't run out of time.

A remake of Mindtrap, Mastertronic's 1989 ZX Spectrum puzzler, with 100 levels of cog-turning dice puzzles. Play it right here in your browser (on a phone, too) or download it for Windows.

This was the last game I made for #1GAME/One Game a Month, and the game was started while spending the weekend in a supposedly haunted manor house with two other guys from Retro Remakes (Bob and Andy). 

How to play

The board is a grid of dice with cogs between them. Pick a cog and turn it, and the four dice around it go round with it. Your job is to sort every die into its proper row: ones on the top row, twos on the next, all the way down to the sixes. Dice in the right row glow so you can see how you're doing.

It starts gently, then the later levels bring in linked cogs: cogs marked with the same letter all turn together, and they share dice. Solve a level in under 50 moves for three stars, and you lose a star for every 25 moves over that. You have five minutes per level. Each level you solve unlocks a new one.

Controls

	Touch / mouse	Keyboard	Controller
Choose a level	Tap / click it	Arrow keys	D-pad / stick
Play the level	Tap / click it again	Enter / Space	A
Pick a cog	Tap / click it	Arrow keys	D-pad / stick
Turn clockwise	Top-left arrow	X / Space / Enter	RB or A
Turn anticlockwise	Bottom-right arrow	Z	LB or X
Reset the level	Hold Reset	Hold R	Hold Y
Pause		P	Start
Back to menu		Esc	B

Fullscreen: F in the browser, F11 or Alt+Enter on Windows.

Features

• 100 levels, from a three-cog warm-up to big boards full of linked cogs
• Star ratings and best moves and times saved for every level
• The C64 Mindtrap music, with raster bars and a chunky arcade font
• Browser version: portrait on phones, widescreen on desktop, and it saves your progress
• Windows version: a single 3.5 MB exe with nothing to install. Widescreen 16:9 layout, resizable window and fullscreen, with mouse, keyboard or Xbox-style controller

Credits

Mind Trap (c)2014 Andrew Pointon / TCKSoft. Written in Monkey X; 2026 web and Windows edition.

A remake of Mindtrap by Predrag Beciric, Aleksandar Petrovic, Vojislav Mihailovic and Predrag Milicevic of Active Magic, published by Mastertronic for the ZX Spectrum in 1989.

Music is from the C64 version of Mindtrap, arranged by Vojislav Mihailovic from "Good Morning Delta" by Sanja Ilić and Slobodan Marković.