Eyezmaze: What Else Is on the Site Besides GROW?
Below the GROW thumbnails on eyezmaze.com sit two dozen other games, from a 2004 whack-a-mole to a 2012 award winner. What they are and where to start.
Leshrac
8 min read
In short
- Eyezmaze is the personal game site of Japanese developer On Nakayama. The GROW series started there on February 7, 2002.
- The front page also links 24 games outside GROW, from Vanilla and Tontie in 2004 to Black Box in 2012.
- Old Flash titles run through the Ruffle emulator, a few were rebuilt in HTML5, and the newest release, GROW Kingdom EP1, is played on YouTube.
- Our start-here table ends with Island Evolution, a free order puzzle that runs natively in the browser.
The eyezmaze.com front page is a long grid of square thumbnails with no descriptions. GROW titles fill most of the top rows. Further down, mixed in with more GROW games, are names like PelPet, Purouty and Happy Chelsea, with nothing to say what any of them is.
If you came looking for the site itself, the address is eyezmaze.com. Below is what you find once you scroll past GROW, a table of where to start, and at the end a newer order puzzle of ours, Island Evolution.
What is Eyezmaze?
Eyezmaze is the website of On Nakayama, a Japanese independent developer who makes small free games and posts them there. It is best known as the home of GROW, a series of order puzzles that began on February 7, 2002.
Nakayama has run it on his own; his support page says that until now he did everything by himself. Each game gets one page with a short note in his voice and the game itself, and the site has no store or account system. For the GROW series title by title, see our GROW series overview. This page is about the rest of the site.
What games are on Eyezmaze besides GROW?
We counted 24 links to games outside the GROW series on the front page. The oldest we checked, Vanilla and Tontie, date to 2004. Speedrun.com's EYEZMAZE series page lists 32 games, 13 of them outside GROW. Six are described below from their own eyezmaze.com pages.
| Game | Posted | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Tontie | May 2004 | A whack-a-mole game with 20 stages, played on the numeric keypad |
| Chronon | May 2006 | Free a dwarf from a cage by moving objects around a house before its master returns at 7pm |
| Neighbours | February 2007 | A drag-and-drop puzzle: put each character where they are satisfied, aiming for the shortest way in 9 shots |
| Dwarf Complete | March 2007 | An officially licensed puzzle game with the dwarfs from Lineage II |
| MEET IN | April 2008 | Gather the whole family: click a character's box, then move it with the arrow keys |
| Black Box | July 2012 | A point-and-click puzzle, named best of 2012 in its category by Jay Is Games |
The notes are candid. On the Chronon page Nakayama admits the game is hard to play by intuition, which he calls against the Eyezmaze philosophy. The Dwarf Complete page rates its difficulty mid-high and tells players to lean on the community.
How do Eyezmaze games run now that Flash is gone?
In three ways. Most old Flash games run through Ruffle, an open-source Flash Player emulator. A few were rebuilt or released in HTML5. The newest, GROW Kingdom EP1, is a chain of YouTube clips. Nakayama's note says the Ruffle versions have some bugs but generally work on a PC.
| How it runs | Examples | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| HTML5 | GROW Cube and GROW Planet remakes, DIET | Loads directly in the page |
| Flash through Ruffle | GROW Valley, GROW ver.1, most older titles | Ruffle splash first, then the original game |
| Linked YouTube videos | GROW Kingdom EP1 | Played through option links in each clip's description |
What Ruffle can and cannot handle is covered on our GROW Flash games page, and the GROW Kingdom page explains how the YouTube format plays.
No emulator, no plugin Island Evolution runs natively in today's browsers, on desktop or phone.
▶ Read the rules firstWhat happened to the Eyezmaze phone apps?
The site's app archive lists Android and iOS releases from April 2015, starting with Neighbours. When we checked Google Play in October 2026, the pages for GROW Cube, GROW Park, GROW Jungle and GROW Ornament returned no store page.
The archive also records that the Android GROW RECOVERY passed one million downloads by July 2015. Wikipedia dates the first GROW Cube phone release earlier, to September 2014, and our Flash games page lists the mobile release dates for six GROW titles. We did not check the App Store. The browser versions of these games are still on eyezmaze.com.
Is Eyezmaze still making new games?
Slowly. The newest release on the front page is GROW Kingdom EP1, a multiple-ending game posted on July 17, 2024. A support page dated November 2, 2024 asks players to help fund future work.
On that page Nakayama writes that he was diagnosed with heart failure in 2018, had heart surgery in 2019, and that his body no longer moves as it used to. He asks for support so he can outsource the site's miscellaneous tasks and concentrate on new work. It offers monthly and one-time support in US dollars.
Where should you start on Eyezmaze?
With GROW Cube, the HTML5 remake, because it runs without an emulator and shows the series idea at once. Then pick by mood: a longer GROW game, a non-GROW puzzle, or a newer order puzzle with its rules shown.
| Start with | What it is | How it runs |
|---|---|---|
| GROW Cube | The best-known GROW order puzzle | HTML5 on eyezmaze.com |
| GROW Valley | Seven captioned panels and a listed secret ending | Ruffle on eyezmaze.com |
| Neighbours | A short drag-and-drop placement puzzle | Ruffle on eyezmaze.com |
| Island Evolution | 8 items, every rule shown before you start, 3 perfect orders | Natively in the browser, no emulator |
Our GROW Valley page explains how a Valley run works without giving away the order.
What should you play after Eyezmaze?
Something finished. Eyezmaze is one person's back catalogue, with new releases years apart. Island Evolution is a finished order puzzle with all of it there from the first run: 8 items, 40,320 orders, and a perfect score of 27.
Every rule is on the evolution chart, so the whole challenge is the order. If you want a way of thinking that carries over from GROW, our order puzzle guide lays one out. The no-spoiler hints help when a run lands a point or two short. For anything else, try the game FAQ.
A catalogue of one Eight items on a small island, and an order that is yours to find.
▶ Try your first orderWhere do these facts come from?
- The eyezmaze.com front page, checked October 4, 2026, for the game list, the 24 links to non-GROW games, the GROW titles at the top and the GROW Kingdom EP1 entry dated July 17, 2024.
- Eyezmaze.com game pages for Vanilla (April 26, 2004), Tontie (May 26, 2004), Chronon (May 21, 2006), Neighbours (February 14, 2007), Dwarf Complete (March 16, 2007), MEET IN (April 27, 2008) and Black Box (July 13, 2012), for each game's description, Nakayama's notes, the Lineage II licence, the Jay Is Games best of 2012 award and the paid version being unavailable.
- Eyezmaze.com, the "Online support" page dated November 2, 2024, for Nakayama doing everything by himself, the heart failure in 2018, the 2019 surgery, the request for support and the monthly and one-time options in US dollars.
- Eyezmaze.com, the "Flash GAMES" page, for the old Flash games being revived with Ruffle and the note about bugs.
- Eyezmaze.com, the smartphone app archive, for releases starting with Neighbours on April 3, 2015 and GROW RECOVERY passing one million Android downloads.
- The eyezmaze.com archive, for GROW Comic being a comic strip series and the HTML5 remakes of GROW Cube and GROW Planet and the HTML5 release of DIET.
- Our own check of the Google Play addresses for the Eyezmaze apps in October 2026, which returned no store pages for GROW Cube, GROW Park, GROW Jungle and GROW Ornament.
- Our GROW Kingdom page, from the EP1 YouTube clips checked October 1, 2026, for the linked-video format.
- The eyezmaze.com GROW Valley page, for its seven panels and listed secret ending.
- Speedrun.com, the EYEZMAZE series page, for its 32 games and 13 non-GROW titles.
- The GROW (series) entry on Wikipedia, for On Nakayama as creator, February 7, 2002 as the start of the series and the September 2014 GROW Cube phone release.
- Jay Is Games' 2007 review of GROW Island, for its commission by the Shibaura Institute of Technology.
- The Ruffle project's own site, ruffle.rs, for Ruffle being an open-source Flash Player emulator.
