For saying something.
This and that.
- Image copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson
into the abyss . net
Solving Christopher Manson's MAZE and the Genre of the Immersive Puzzle
For saying something.
This and that.
- Image copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson
Abyssians,
Important Notice: Mr. Manson and I have revised our contract enabling me to post the text and images (according to very specific criteria) of MAZE on this site. The change will occur shortly.
White Raven
A form of “children” is found in 5 places. Prologue, 19, 26, 7, and 16. 26 has a separate function I believe. And we are supposed to infer “children” in 14 I think. The others are very guide connected places. In the prologue they don’t see who he is because of being impatient. The other places a places we should pause to look for the guide. And then we have the child’s toy in 7 – which I believe we are suppose to connect to the guide.
Maze fans may get a kick out of an episode of Xena. Season 3. “The bitter suite” start about 10 minutes in and see how many maze connections are mentioned or are visible. It is a musical episode and it uses tarot and other archain references. Right now I’m intrigued that the opening musical number ( and the first two might be the only ones worth watching for Maze) takes place on a black and white tiled floor….
Holy cats this looks productive:
w.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=166794
Type “anagram” into google. It asks “Did you mean ‘nag a ram’? Cute.
We do appreciate the site however. The process is certainly increasing what is known about the maze.
Abyssians,
Caught up with the comments. I’ll check back in a week or so. I am in the middle of a project bordering on insanity.
White Raven
Podcastians,
1. Again, again, again, I had solved MAZE “to my satisfaction” which means that I had the central solution for each room and almost all items accounted for in the rooms except for Room 22 in which I had zilch. I am absolutely certain there are more solutions I have not discovered that will continue to be uncovered by others. I have an awful lot but do not claim to have it all, I am just a guide.
2. I miss the hats.
3. Thank you all for the positive feedback. When I started this site I fully expected to get trashed regularly by frustrated MAZE fans, which has certainly been the case. I did not expect a group so skilled at solving and so kind, thank you. You may now resume beating me like a pinata.
4. Played six person Dixit this weekend, we had a blast. I believe Dixit is the most unusual and well thought out board game I’ve played. I’m definitely buying the booster packs. Thanks for the suggestion!
White Raven
We want candy!!!
Haha, sounds like you watched podcast #4! Way to beat a dead horse, Alex!
There is a section of the #5 podcast that I briefly wear a hat unnoticed. See if you can spot it and what kind of hat it is.
OK so this is the whole note, since everyone wants to see it. In the past he said notes were no problem but here he suggests, essentially, I stop asking him questions, so I will.
David:
I am glad you continue to find my book entertaining. I don’t really like to get too specific about the contents, but I will respond to a few of your questions: some rooms do have an overall “organizing” principle that informs the clues; the change the publisher insisted on was the title of the book as I wanted to call it “Labyrinth” but there was a movie of the same name at that time so it was changed to avoid confusion; I have no references to the 2nd amendment in the book. As for “Alchemist” there are many paths, but a single true path all the way through.
And now let me urge you to use White Raven’s site as a forum for your questions and solutions. I am pleased at your level of interest to be sure, but as you know I hesitate to reveal too much, which I feel diminishes the mysteries. I appreciate that some people have, for instance, made elaborate maps of the Maze, but I think the best way to enjoy it is to wander along relying only on memory and intuition, which gives everyone a very personal experience.
Thanks again for all your interest!
-Chris
The part about “general overall principle” was in response to this:
Would it be reasonable to say that for most rooms, even though there may be many ways to find the correct door, there is generally one solution that unites everything in the room and either gives the correct exit, or something else fitting (checkered flag in 20, etc…)?
This seems “crystal clear” (to me) in 37 where ice and water give H20, and the rest of the room is all conflicting indicators. On the other hand room 2 is where I most wonder how much is my imagination and how much is yours. I have 3 scenarios now and none of them seem to be WRs scenario.
…Many of them feature some sort of ironic twist or humor… Lately I’m amused by what seem to be 3 blind mice chasing an angle, and extensions thereof. “Look at Jack of Spades” is quite clever, I thought, etc…
“Put your weight on 3” in 33 is amusing. So is “don’t forget to remove the hats” is 26. And more.
The bit about “organising principle” was in response to me asking about my room level solutions. I tried to post whole question but it didn’t go through.
Abyssians,
There has been some confusion regarding Manson’s sentence…
“I appreciate that some people have, for instance, made elaborate maps of the Maze, but I think the best way to enjoy it is to wander along relying only on memory and intuition, which gives everyone a very personal experience.”
Manson is not against map making. MAZE is (as far as I can tell) the only book ever made that allows a reader to truly explore and get lost. This experience of wandering is the core of the MAZE, it is what makes MAZE the sole representative of it’s own genre. Maps are helpful but have the side effect of distancing the traveler from the journey.
White Raven
Also regarding Mansons comment – it was in part related to my plan of rerouting exits. It might have been a subtle statement that he liked the change (if indeed it was made) – the point may have been that 1000s of people wandering around randomly and having a bad experience by getting dumped into hell from 42 outweighed the fact that thirty years later one person might think the map was less elegant.
I think we took Manson’s comment correctly, but what’s probably confusing is that we took the comment about people using intuition and memory to have a personal experience in the Maze and then said, “Good point, let’s take a group of people and help guide them through all at once.”
But I think it will make for great television!
Maze is classified in the Library of Congress catalog under the subject heading “literary recreations.” That is the lead subject, even before “riddles.” I can’t find a source that explains what exactly the “literary recreations” subject means in this context; anyone know?
recreations as in recreational, rather than reproduction, I would assume?
Nailed it. Five puzzle points. (With the Library of Congress.)
My book collection does not feature anything on Jewish mystics. The closest I have is one book on Sufism, the Islamic equivalent. I pulled it off the shelf this morning and browsed the table of contents, and flipped to a page. I found a parable of guests with amnesia at a Mansion full of objects…how “coincidental”…
Room 17 still is counted among the 5 point rooms on the room completion page, but has (alas) only four stars on its own page.
“Rooms by completion” page does not update when the room counters themselves do.
No, that is why I added “Updated June 29th 2014″ at the top. I will update the page regularly but not immediately.
OK – got it.
Abyssians,
Have not had a chance to check comments for a couple days, and it will be a few more.
White Raven
Abyssians,
A momentus moment!
There are now more rooms in the Solved? category than any other. Up till this week, the Entirely Unsolved category was the largest. Good job Abyssians!
White Raven
In the “by completion” list, Room 17 appears in the five star category, but has only been 4-starred.
Oops! Thanks vewatkin!
A thought about exit indicators. we should not treat them as if they need to be iron clad definitive by themselves. If you find half a dozen fair indicators all pointing the same way it is clear you have found the correct exit regardless of what you think of their strength individually.
The third in our series of Maze-related podcasts is now on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttDuNRmK_gU
This week, we’re joined by Beelzebibble as we discuss Room 33.
MAZE Podcastians,
Regarding Room 37: It’s not complete but the remaining riddles are mostly supporting riddles.
Regarding Room 39: It’s not complete. The central puzzle has not yet been solved.
Regarding Room 34: I thought the needle-eye solution was brilliant, elegant, wonderful. It is one of my favorites. I complemented Manson on it and we talked about it a bit.
Here’s what he confirmed as we spoke:
> The needles are ones, the zeros are eyes.
> The couch stripes and pillow are meant to suggest 10.
What we did not talk about:
> The obelisk and moon or the mast and the eye.
While I love the needle-eye solution there are others in MAZE I don’t care for as much. I like riddles that use linguistic-to-spacial conversion. Fortunately for all of you (and not for me) Manson only uses this kind of riddle twice. MAZE is a lot easier to solve if you let go of what kind of puzzles you hope are there and accept that Manson uses such a wide variety of riddles that no one person is likely to appreciate them all.
Thus far you all have been solving a lot of the easier riddles (triangles over doors = three) and fewer of the harder ones (the trap is a key) this has given the incorrect impression that I favor simple riddles…I greatly prefer the more complicated ones.
Loved the podcast especially – MAZE HATS! Great hat variety! It made the podcast wonderfully surreal.
White Raven
Well, for those that dislike my room-level solutions I suppose there is good news. They are complete. I now feel I have used every object in Maze as a puzzle part once if not multiple times, and found all the room level solutions that exist. If it were not for the fact that Raven has a number of “medium complexity” puzzles out there I would say there are only small details and simple exit indicators to find. And, I do have a fair idea what I’m looking for, for these smaller solutions. It’s Raven’s less simple puzzles that I’m wondering about. Until I see one I can’t analyses it, decide if I like it, or find others like it.
Then there are always things to watch for that Raven and I both missed. And as he says, I can’t judge how many for those there are.
Anyway, I suppose the next reasonable step would be to go after the rest of the low hanging fruit to isolate the more complex puzzles.
And as a side note even general predictions have limited utility. You just need many more of them to be statistically significant.
Does anyone have an example of a “bigger” solution of Raven’s that someone has uncovered which was not previously known? Or are they all still unsovled?
Not sure what you’re looking for in a bigger solution. Most of the things we’ve uncovered have been acknowledged as only partial solutions, or seem pretty small in themselves.
If by “bigger” you mean something like your running list of references to The Raven, then no, and I’m pretty confident he knows of no solutions that are so big, and none will ever be discovered.
Well then let’s say “medium solution”. Something more than a door indicator describable in one sentance. But yet not needing multiple paragraphs.
And , yes , of course, White Raven would not subscribe to any theories of that complexity, despite the fact that he has talked of multiroom puzzles. And that idea of looking into the eye of Raven? Never. But then you might want to take a look under the “About|White Raven” tab above. Notice the image?
In fact the Raven here in Maze is publicly confirmed better than some accepted scientific theories by now I’d wager.
I fail to understand what about your paradigm causes your blindness in this regard. More examples does not make the theory worse – every example just makes it more rock solid. Unless you have some preconceived notion that such a thing is not possible, and then, well , no amount of evidence will ever be enough.
The application of your methods don’t make things better or worse. It’s just like you’re reading your horoscope everyday and using the fact that it describes you so well as mounting proof that astrology is valid. If the base objection is, “Horoscopes provide descriptions that can apply to nearly anyone,” repeatedly finding satisfaction with your horoscope doesn’t address your critics.
Here, the abstractions and loose associations you allow yourself would enable you to find messages in just about anything, like a schizophrenic in a movie who has newspapers and magazines tacked to the walls and ties strings between words and circles words in red ink. The way you connect things just doesn’t impress anyone else as bearing any relation to what the author intended. Making those connections over and over doesn’t change the basic disagreement.
Unfortunately you miss that the method is not random. Nor are the results general. Water in room where H20 marks an exit is not a general “something good will happen today” Once you find it there is a fairly well defined method that yields precise answers. You can assemble objects in random order but you won’t keep getting meaningful answers by doing that or keep getting confirmation of very specific predictions. Just finding a Censor right where it should be should have made you highly suspicious there was something correct about the theory . The room level solutions are there because the same
Method of assembling bits by visual proximity works in room after room to give precise and correct answers. That is not astrology that is the method of hard physical sciences.
Hard observational science like astronomy. Not experimental science.
Why Maze is better than the bible:
While both books are full of animals, the Maze contains 1 cat, and the bible zero.
Abyssians,
A new link called “Rooms by Completion” is available on the sidebar and under the MAZE tab.
White Raven
Abyssians,
I am out of the Abyss for a few days again.
Great progress people!
White Raven
Not sure how big of a pain this would be to implement, what with solve-o-meters shifting all the time, but it would be nice to be able to see the rooms enumerated by completeness; e.g. to be able to view all the rooms that are mostly solved, or all the rooms that are completely unsolved.
Sometimes you’re in the mood to clean up what’s left, and sometimes you want to strike out for the territories.
vewatkin,
Love the idea! I’ll think about how to do it without it being a pain to maintain.
Some cool books that fit this theme, I think.
Kit Williams’ “The Bee on the Comb” (http://goo.gl/S4p07p) The book was a puzzle and contest in which the reader tries to find the name of the book (It’s “The Bee on the Comb”). The puzzles are on each page and not that hard. The contest was to win a curious contraption made by the author, Kit Williams, who was himself an inventor and craftsman. The writing is a bit rhymier and with less depth than Maze, but all in all a great book for kids. The artwork is very detailed oil and/or airbrush. Kit Williams’ other works include “Masquerade” (http://goo.gl/rFjJRB), drawn in the same style as “Bee” and equally fantastic. Both are out of print but available on Amazon.