Jan. 13th, 2013 -
“This site is devoted to the genre of the immersive puzzle,
but until there is another like MAZE, this site stands as a testament
to the brilliance of Christopher Manson, who, in one stroke
launched and mastered a new genre of literature.”
- White Raven
Welcome to the MAZE community where fans of Christopher Manson’s MAZE can come together to share ideas, hints, clues, tips, tricks, solutions, observations, etc. to the multitude of MAZE puzzles that have gone unsolved in the public sphere.
Be part of the solution to MAZE.
Welcome to the Abyss!
Hello all. New to the site but not to MAZE. Finally have some time on my hands to go through this book again! Hoping to offer whatever insight I can gather alongside everyone else.
That means I have yet to comment my thoughts on any of the room pages here, so apologies(?) in advance if I end up typing a lot in quick succession across the site. Right now I am just reading through the chat logs and partial solutions as to familiarize myself with what has already been said, and I will try not to repeat any of those ideas.
Looking forward to working with everyone!
This group is interested in puzzles with $10,000 prizes, right? Well, there’s a new one out. If you’re in the US you can enter The Puzzler Hunt (no purchase necessary) and compete to be the first to solve a series of puzzles inpsired by A.J. Jacobs’s new book THE PUZZLER. More info here:
thepuzzlerbook dot com
Sorry, we only like contests that are already over and were impossible to win.
Greetings,
This is a case of an old dog learning new tricks. I’ve never participated in any forums nor social interaction sites so I hope I do not violate proper procedures or etiquette.
My wife found a copy of the MAZE puzzle book in the charity resale shop where she volunteers and brought it to me since I enjoy solving logic puzzles. It is an interesting book and I set forth to determine the shortest path but ended up in room 24. I told my wife I was trapped and would never be seen again because there was no escape from the room of darkness. However, I awoke the next day to brightness and sunshine so I somehow escaped the dreaded room 24.
I had not written any notes about the path I took to room 24 but I should have, both as a learning diary and as a record of procedures for study and possible modification. I wrote notes for future forays into the maze. I completed the trip from room 1 to room 45 and back to room 1 in 15 steps. Having read the author’s comment of a 16 steps shortest path I rechecked my procedures and found each step proper and verifiable.
Here is the path: 1 – 41 – 35 – 33 – 17 – 45 – 23 – 8 – 12 – 39 – 4 – 15 – 30 – 5 – 20 – 1. I classify all steps which have specific instructions (room numbers) on the various room pages as “hard wired”. The step from room 33 to room 17 is a verifiable logic step and thus legitimate. (If a hard wired path exists from room 17 to room 33 then the reverse path from room 33 to room 17 exists.)
I endeavored to find a 16 steps path in and out of the maze and found one. Here it is: 1 – 41 – 35 – 33 – 17 – 45 – 17 – 33 – 3 – 9 – 18 – 13 – 25 – 34 – 10 – 41 – 1. Again, the room 33 to room 17 step is a logic step and the rest of the steps are hard wired.
On an ensuing trip through the maze I completed the “in to 45 and out to 1″ in 10 steps; 8 hard wired steps and 2 logic steps.
I read in this site of the 16 steps path which utilizes the hidden door in room 29 and apparently it is the path blessed by the author. I have a serious problem with the hidden door in room 29, it is not verifiable, hence a path between room 29 and room 17 is not verifiable and thus the path is not a legitimate solution. And what do you do with the possible hidden door in room 9?
This message is not an attack on anyone but it could serve as a further challenge for solutions. I’ve read some of the comments and my hat is off to those people with the knowledge and tenacity to solve the riddle (or should it be riddles?) generated by the book. I’ve not put much time nor energy into the riddle part and I probably will not but I see many possible riddles in room 45.
With paths shorter than 16 steps finding riddle solutions may become very difficult (or even impossible?) if limited to the “shortest path pages” for answers. I do not know how many paths shorter than 16 steps exist but I have determined that the shortest path into and out of the maze, via room 45 of course, can be completed in 6 steps. That path is verifiable.
Regards,
oldnslo186
You can only go to the room numbers indicated on the doors.
The path from 29 to 17 is totally verifiable. There are too many hints and clues in 29 for it not be. It’s the only way to correctly break through to the second half of the path.
The method oldnslo186 uses is unintended, yeah—it breaks the logic of the book and the officially confirmed contest. (Their misunderstanding the rules of one-way doors isn’t really their fault, though; Maze can be opaque. Maybe we should’ve been more patient with them.)
However, I actually think the path from 29 to 17 is one of the weakest points in the book. Manson constructed Maze in such a way that, to preserve the difficulty of the core path, required the center to be obscured from either the direction of entry or exit. This is so the 16 step path can’t be brute-forced.
And so one door is hidden. But it’s not a door, really, is it? It’s still a table, it just looks like a door when the page is upside-down… also just sorta, because it’s still parallel to the floor in a very un-doorlike way. I think disguising a door was a fine solution for the bottleneck problem, but Manson still invited brute-forcing with 29. If you don’t find the door to 17, which isn’t unlikely (how many of us did?) you might just map out every connection from 1 to the center and see where the blind spot is.
This shark-jumping could have been balanced out by the room being simpler—perhaps being a dead-end like 35. It could’ve even been a room like 24 with no identifiable exit, but the text could refute that. At the very least the room could’ve been decrowded a little. I guess Manson didn’t want to make anything easy so deep into the Maze, but the difficulty of getting to room 17 feels different than the difficult of parsing other rooms. It’s less of a puzzle problem (you will quickly find out if you dislike Maze’s puzzles) and more of a structure problem.
Maze is perhaps my favorite book ever published, but I don’t think it’s beyond critique. Obviously 29 to 17 is intended, but I think the second half of your comment is what DEFINITIVELY proves that, Rob, because using clues to break the Maze’s rules muddies the waters. I think Manson kind of invited that with 29-17, and I don’t blame people for getting confused about it.
(oldnslo186‘s explanation about the path not being verifiable doesn’t make much sense to me, though— if it’s about the one-way stuff, you could just say the unmarked door in 17 is the 29 entrance. Don’t know if I’m missing anything there.)
It’s a door it has a knob, it looks like the other doors…I don’t have any issue with it. In terms of including a door that’s hiding in plain sight, but undeniable once discovered, I don’t know how much better it gets.
The fact that it goes down doesn’t seem like an issue in this place. It isn’t unique in that regard. Other vertical passages just don’t have this sort of door on them, for obvious reasons.
I don’t know, man, I feel like this is one of the best puzzle aspects in the book!
There’s a new book out called “Daedlian Depths” that may be of interest to Mazers. It’s by the same team that did “Codex Enigmatum” and its creator (Innovario/Rami Hansenne) says:
“The book is inspired by Christopher Manson’s “MAZE”, which has fascinated me since I was young. Daedalian Depths locks the reader into an otherworldly labyrinth wherein astute readers may recognize the myriad clues embedded in the text and enigmatic illustrations. Gather your wits, challenge your perceptive and deductive abilities, and try to escape! But make too many wrong choices and the maze may swallow you whole…”
(Sorry, that’s “*Daedalian* Depths.”)
Several of us have the book now. It’s like it was made specifically for this crowd. This is not a false alarm; if you reading this site, you should be reading this book.
typo notwithstanding, I speak with authority
Absolutely!! I didn’t know what to expect with a spiritual successor to Maze but it’s so true to form with beautifully illustrated and creative rooms and a bounty of new puzzles- the format is almost exactly the same as Maze and someone could tell me it was a sequel. Numbered doors, around 45 rooms… it’s crazy.
had a dream some popular creator on youtube made a video on maze, and this site got a ton of attention to the point where dozens of new people were commenting in short periods of time, it was chaos
Oh god, it’s like what happened to Petscop. I both pray that this does and that this does not happen.
The Guide’s GRUESOME SECRET??? We found the Maze IRL??? (Gone wrong)
Imagine a Let’s Play Maze series. And as per the convention of Let’s Plays of cryptic games, the titles would all be obvious pieces of lore that the player was completely shocked at uncovering.
Let’s Play MAZE #582 – THE GUIDE IS EVIL!
Let’s Play MAZE #583 – I CAN’T ESCAPE!