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XL-up maze

In 2005 I turned the grand old age of 40, so here is a maze to mark the passing of the years. Starting from the central square, step out the roman number sequence from I to XL (1 to 40), starting I, II, III, IV etc. The roman-numeral sequence doesn't stop at 40 however, so as a secondary challenge why not see how much further you can go... 50? 60? 70? Email me, if you think you find the true upper limit.

No doubt some people will use software to solve this maze, especially the second challenge (no brownie points for this, it isn't very tricky at all). So for these people I reserve a special third challenge... is it possible to construct a maze, on the same 7x7 grid, where the sequence can run even deeper? I used software to help develop this maze, but I can't (yet) claim it's optimum. So if you find you can improve on it, please let me know.

Update April 2007: In September 2006 Ben Small cracked my final challenge and found a maze grid that runs deeper than my original maze. Ben used software again, but again cannot be sure his grid is optimum. So now I can relaunch the second and third challenges afresh! Email me if you find the upper limit of Ben's challenge and definitely let me know if you can do any better.

XL-up maze click below to play

Aim Step out the roman numeral sequence from I to XL (1 to 40) using grey squares to punctuate the sequence. So that's I,II,III,IV,V etc using a grey square to mark each comma. Hint: keep an eye on the rolling ticker-tape underneath the grid if you can't remember how to count in roman numerals. Controls Use Restart (Action), or hit space, to reset the puzzle. Hit 'u' to unwind the move-sequence to last grey-square (can be repeated to unwind as far as desired). Movement Use the cursor keys to move. At each move you can step to any adjacent square (left, right, up, down). Note, the same letter can be used many times, even within the same numeric.