@vimazing/vim-maze

Lightweight, typed React hooks and utilities for building interactive maze games with VIM-inspired controls.

Part of the VIMazing project.

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Contents

• Features
• Installation
• Quick Start
• Core Hooks
• Utilities
• Example App
• Build & Release
• License
• Acknowledgements

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Features

• Drop-in hooks for maze generation, player control, scoring, and key logging.
• Typed API with generated declaration files for editor IntelliSense.
• VIM-style navigation (h, j, k, l, counts, i to start, etc.).
• Composable architecture – bring your own rendering and platform-specific bindings.
• Tree-shakeable exports to keep bundles lean.

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Installation

Using npm:

npm install @vimazing/vim-maze

Or with bun:

bun add @vimazing/vim-maze

Optionally pull in the default maze styles:

import "@vimazing/vim-maze/maze.css";

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Quick Start

import { useEffect } from "react";
import { useGame } from "@vimazing/vim-maze";
import "@vimazing/vim-maze/maze.css";

export function MazeGame() {
  const { containerRef, gameStatus, startGame } = useGame(20, 16);

  useEffect(() => {
    startGame();
  }, [startGame]);

  return (
    <section className="mx-auto w-fit space-y-4">
      <h1 className="text-2xl font-bold">VIMazing Maze</h1>
      <div ref={containerRef} className="relative" />
      {gameStatus === "game-won" && <p>🎉 You escaped!</p>}
    </section>
  );
}

Default controls:

Key	Action
i	Start game
h / j / k / l	Move player
<count><motion>	Move with count
q	Quit game
Esc	Cancel / pause

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Core Hooks

Hook	Description
useGame(cols, rows, platformHook?)	One-stop hook that wires maze generation, rendering, player state, scoring, and keyboard bindings. Returns refs, status helpers, and managers you can compose with your UI.
useMaze()	Generates maze paths, keeps references to the current maze instance, and exposes helpers to reset or rebuild.
useKeyBindings()	Provides VIM-style key bindings, including repeat counts and movement helpers.
useScore()	Tracks timers, optimal steps, efficiency, and final score calculation.

Each hook is exported individually, so you can cherry-pick only what you need:

import { useScore } from "@vimazing/vim-maze/useScore";

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Utilities

Besides the hooks, the library exports:

• MazeGenerator – procedural maze generation class.
• MazeRenderer – canvas renderer tailored for the generated mazes.
• types – shared TypeScript types such as GameStatus, MazeCell, and KeyLogEntry.

import { MazeGenerator, GameStatus } from "@vimazing/vim-maze";

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Example App

A demo application lives under example/ and consumes the package directly.

cd example
bun install
bun run dev

During local development the Vite config aliases @vimazing/vim-maze to the source folder so you can iterate without rebuilding. When publishing, run the build first (see below) so editors consume the generated declarations in dist/.

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Build & Release

Build the distributable bundle and type declarations:

bun run build

This writes JavaScript, type definitions, and styles to dist/. The prepublishOnly hook reuses the same command to guarantee fresh artifacts before publishing.

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License

MIT © André Padez

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Acknowledgements

Inspired by The Art of Web – Random Maze Generator and extended for the VIMazing platform.