Navigate by clicking on doors or door numbers.
… a much warmer room. Shadows danced across the floor to the fire’s music.
“Someone’s lost his hat.”
“Are you sure it’s the hat that is lost?” I asked reasonably enough. No one would answer me.
Ducking behind a curtain and hurrying down a passageway we came out in …
- Images and text copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson
used with permission. [Purchase MAZE from Amazon]
Room Type: LOOP Doors: 3 9 13 44
Solution Summary: [COLLECTION CURATED BY WHITE Raven. SEE COMMENTS FOR ADDITIONAL SOLUTION PROPOSALS.]
● The notes above door 13 in base clef (as indicated by the base clef symbol to the left) are A & C, using alphanumeric substitution these read 1 & 3 = 13. These notes are over door 13 the correct door. The notes over door 3 are E G C & E in treble clef which do not translate into the correct door number. [Credit: Rebecca Sweat]
● The dragon’s head and tail are arched so that the dragon looks as if it may bite it’s tail but it is not. The dot (head) of the base clef doesn’t curve back to touch the rest of the symbol while the treble clef spirals in so the dot (head) bites the center of the symbol. Reinforcing this, the eyes of the face under the dragon are in the same position as the two dots in relation to the base clef. The base clef is associated with door 13, the correct door. [Independent Credit: LoMoody | White Raven]
● The chair that is lit up (from our perspective) stands in front of the correct door the frame of which is also lit up. [Independent Credit: Kon-Tiki | White Raven]
● The lit up chair’s slats slant downward at similar angle to that of the musical staff above door 13. While the darkened chair’s upward angle matches that of the wrong door’s musical staff. [Independent Credit: Vewatkins| White Raven]
● The lit up chair spells out the number thirteen in roman numerals moving upward from the “X” in the leg supports to the “III” in the chair slats. [Shared Credit: Beelzebibble & White Raven / A confluence of serendipity]
● The chair slats resemble a 3 and the bowling pin resembles a 1 and both sit directly beneath the C A riddle mentioned above which also produces a 3 and a 1. [Independent Credit: Beelzebibble / Vewatkins | White Raven]
[Note: The chair related solutions are incomplete.]
One other comment on word counts here – there are plenty of examples in Maze of simply counting things to get exit indicators. Dots on the frame of the mouse in room 9 come to mind – 10 and 8. But there are many. So I don’t think we need to treat this one as a completely unique clue. I think is would pass tests even if we did treat it that way, but it seems unneeded is my point. It’s not like oh say a theory that Michael Jackson is the guide for example. That would qualify as a unique and unprecidented idea, I think,.
There are plenty of Michael Jacksons that are revealed to be the guide in Maze.
Because what he plausably intended is the result we are looking for – it should not be our starting point – then all we will get is what WE would have put in Maze if we were designing it.
Oh – my actual countS might be helpful. The first paragraph has 13. The last sentence has 13. The quoted consecutive text has 13 and “Are…enough” is one sentence and has 13. The only text that does not participate in a 13 is “No one would answer me” which as an aside could be about exit 3 ( no one ) saying something about the guide (answer me) because I do think the notes over door three are a contribution to the whole guide identity thing.
Vince – the point of making up numbers is to try to pick reasonable ones (and use them), and then often by even quick calculation you can establish that unless you were orders of magnitude off in your guesses then the answer is clear, that is – the exact numbers you pick will make no real difference. Now – if your order of magnitude calculation comes up with something boarder-line, see my post on room 39 today for example, then hand-waving arguments are no good any more. My ‘1/100’ number is reasonable because it is of the same order of magnitude as the types of different indicators we have speculated that Manson used. He does not have an infinite tool box or potential tool box. What have we found maybe 20 different types of potential solutions at the most? 100 is a very conservative number based on that fact. This is not an infinitely deep pool of possible types of puzzle clues.
Also unlike a “personal believe” that most machines are designed to kill people, we have in Maze an actual fact that Manson did put many types of door indicators in these rooms. There are multiple indicators per room – that seems indisputable. Given that as a fact, a consequence is that it is an epistemic error to believe in coincidence here. That is not an a priori believe, prior to looking a data, but rather a result that emerges from the data, because of the environment we are in.
How about this – picture being in a standardized testing environment. In real life if we see objects 1,2,4,7,11 just walking along, we are not going to think anything of it. If it is a standardized test of some sort we know it is an intentional pattern, because, as part of our background information we know that people ARE putting patterns here for us to find, while in real life they are not in general. Maze has some important differences when compared to the standardized text, I will grant, but it is much more like that than it is like real life. There are patterns here, intentionally placed for us to identify.
Yeah, I got it, but as long as we’re making things up and doing math that doesn’t matter, why don’t we just jump straight to saying whether or not the suggested solution seems like something the author would have plausibly intended? That will significantly speed up the rate at which everyone disagrees.
“alphanumeric substitution these read 1 & 3 = 13. ”
Interesting because the text has 4 doubles, 1 + 3 also.
5 doubles.
There are 13 words in the 1st line, and 13 words in the last line, and there are also 13 words in quotation marks. The backs of the chairs can be interpreted as 13′s also. In fact, the only numbers they (the backs of the chairs) can be interpreted as (using “all” of the parts of the backs of the chairs only once) is either 13 or 8. And 8 can be considered an “unbroken 13″, so maybe that’s why the dragon isn’t biting it’s tail; so as to to convey the idea of a broken 8 (yes i know this is tenuous at best). And the two columns on either side of door 13 are well lighted, as opposed to the others. Well those are all the straws i could clutch at for the moment…
I like the 13 words stuff for sure, and I think that’s new.
Kon-Tiki,
The 13 words thing seems like it could be coincidence unless we find a hint saying we should be counting words.
If there were an award for getting close on almost everything you won it. Everything else you mentioned is partially correct. There is nothing I can put on the summary yet but you are damn close.
Welcome back, you make quite an entrance!
White Raven
Yes, even David Gentile’s comment has 13 words ;) coincidence?
Hold it! You know what this means? David Gentile is actually Christopher Manson!
There is a fourth set of thirteen words there too. Not a coincidence.
Kon-Tiki,
I try to personalize all these invitations but if you’re keeping up on the recent comments, which is the only way I’d expect you to see this, then it seems a little superfluous. Welcome back! If you’d like to get involved with a Maze-oriented chat room, get involved with the Maze podcast, or with the Maze wiki, let me or someone you find less overbearing know. (vewatkin at gmail dot com)
Hmm, Room 3 also has 18 words in its opening paragraph.
DG “I like the 13 words stuff for sure, and I think that’s new.” = 13 words
WR “Hold it! You know what this means? David Gentile is actually Christopher Manson!” = 13 words
DG “There is a fourth set of thirteen words there too. Not a coincidence.” = 13 words
Yes but it is very common for a sentence to have thirteen words. = 13 words
Well, yes, 13 word sentences are common, but some of ours were intentional. (I know for sure how many of mine were). To know how common they are in Maze we’d have to count, and that would be work. lol. I have frequencies by individual words now, but not sentence length. Once we had good counts, the math would be easy. Four occurrences is well past cut-off, I’m sure. Now – Vince’s 18 word first paragraph in room 3, without any other 18s there, that’s one we’d have to judge random.
Er…OK…I’ll do counts on first and last sentences for first 10 rooms. 13 words happens 1 time – in room 7, and based on eyeballing the distribution that seems reasonable. 12 happens 3 times and 14 happens zero, etc. So the chances of getting 3 or 4 groups of 13 AND having it be the door number are well high enough to demonstrate non-randomness here. Two occurrences is enough actually, but once is not enough.
Well…depends on assumptions…two sentences may not be enough…depending…blah…blah…but 3 or 4 sentences the correct length is clearly enough.
I love talking MAZE theory!
Actually neither of my sentences were intentionally 13 words, though the last one may have been influenced by my subconscious – who knows?
Determining probabilities in Maze is quite complicated. It is not enough to isolate an incidence since this will always inflate the unlikelihood. A machine exploded out in the country near where a friend of mine lives. A part from the machine flew over a hundred yards and killed his neighbor, the only person around for over 5 miles. Only adding in the odds of the machine tossing out a part at high velocity and the tiny target, and direction and strength of the wind (it was a very windy day) I calculated the odds of this event at about 900 Trillion to one. If you add in even one other element such as the odds of the person being there, or the odds of the machine exploding in the first place,the odds exceed the number of atoms in the universe. But if instead you try to calculate the odds of something freaky like this happening at all, it becomes a certainty that something like this will happen on Earth in multiple locations every second of every day.
So the fuller question is what are the odds of something in the text-illustration interplay adding up to a particular room number. For instance: We are in room number X. What are the odds that something in the text or illustration will alphanumerically = X? What are the odds that the number of letters in something seemingly significant will = X? What are the odds that the number of words in a something will = X? In the quote? In two quotes put together? Even if we just stick to numbers of words in a sentence/quote/line with the text in this room we can make the numbers 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 9, 9, 13, 13, 13, 18 without messing with the line breaks. It goes on and on, once you have compiled a list of ways the text could indicate a room number (without being paired with a clue indicating we should be looking for it) I think you will see that finding something in the text that coincidentally, in a very intentional looking way, adding up to the room number in more than one room of MAZE is almost a certainty. Just imagine all the textual calculations and changes Manson would have to do to avoid having the text add up to room numbers.
The real probabilities to be asking about are 1) what are the chances that Manson would add this as a clue without any indication or it being a book-wide uniform principle, and 2) what are the odds that he would make it work for the two sentences of line one put together, but not line two, the first sentence of line three, but not the last sentence of line three, and not line four, but also the last sentence. I’d venture it’s pretty remote.
Gotta get back to work.
WR, we should probabaly move to email with this and avoid clogging up the page.
Real life examples are a poor choice, because things are intentionally hidden in Maze in ways they would not be in real life. So I’m sort of passing over that example.
Also – I’m not sure what you are getting your PhD in but I’m a statistician by trade and have academic experience working with frequencies in texts. So this is familiar ground.
But to try to get to your point. Yes the number of the room could come up accidentally in many ways and given the number of possible things one could think to look for some of those things will happen. So we need to look for confirmation. You suggest looking for a planted hint we should look for this form of clue and I agree that is one way. But another way is simply to repeat the same clue over many times so that they have the effect of confirming each other.
But let’s make up some numbers. Suppose we can think of 100 sorts of clues Manson might plant and each of them is 100 to 1 by random chance. That is more ways than I can think are reasonable but let’s go with it. Now suppose we find 5 clues in the room – all 100 to 1 against – then yes – one will be accidental on average and the rest real. I’m shooting for 95% accuracy so in this example I would need a higher significance threshold but not a lot higher. Typically however Manson’s clues come in more like 10,000 to one by random chance and that is sufficiently high to deal with the issue you raise. The closest thing I’ve seen is the 9 “to”s in Rom 14.
For the “13 word” thing – finding it 4 ways – by very rough quick calculation is something like 32,000 to 1. Even if Manson has 1000 different indicators we could search for this is still a fairly certain hit.
Summing up my view – because we know he has planted clues in odd ways – I think it is nearly always an epistemic error to call something a coincidence in Maze. Either one of two things should be true. 1) once we take the number of opportunities for the event or something like it to occur in to account we should conclude it is really not all that coincidental after all or. 2) it is intentional.
We won’t be perfect. The best we can do is try to minimize overcoming and under counting errors. But I think we can do this. Most signals are actually fairly clear once all the parts are found. So far I only have one remarkably weak signal it my “accepted” category – the 9 “to”s in room 14.
We know that machines are designed to kill, often in weird ways. We know of the guillotine, the gas chamber, the machine gun, the grenade, the canon, the fighter jet, the atomic bomb, the land mine, the trebuchet, the petard…
So when I hear about an “accident” like the one that happened to your friend, I’m naturally a bit skeptical. What are the chances of that happening? You said it yourself: practically infinity to one against.
On the other hand, let’s make up a bunch of numbers: let’s say there’s a 1/100 chance that any particular machine might be invented, and then a 1/100 chance that it will actually work, and then a 1/100 chance that it was designed for the purpose of killing somebody, and then a 1/50 (to be conservative) chance that it would in fact be used to kill somebody assuming the prior conditions were all met. Then let’s ignore those numbers because of my personal belief that human beings almost always design machines for the purpose of killing people and when people get killed by machines it’s almost always on purpose.
Next, let’s note that this there are a lot of other clues suggesting that this homicide was not accidental. It turns out the machine’s owner also owned a shotgun, a machine obviously developed for killing, so we are dealing with someone known for using killing machines. Also, the dead man’s great grandfather was killed by a boiler explosion during the industrial revolution, establishing the the victim’s family has a history of being killed by machines. Lastly, this event occurred on SATURDAY, the TENTH of OCTOBER, and if you rearrange the letters in those capitalized words you get the phrase “Torso, brace: nutty death!” And although we lack more particular details, a “brace” could be part of a machine, and it might have struck him in the torso, so this is fairly compelling evidence that the “accident” was intentional.
In short, WR’s example proves exactly the opposite of what he intended, and his friend should flee the area as soon as possible, lest he meet a similar fate through his neighbor’s exploding death machines.
The decoration to the left of the bass clef could be one stick with 3 balls on it. (and maybe the darkness next to it connects to the darkness down passage 13 – thanks Vince for noticing blackness and connection).
Interestingly the right part of the fireplace grill would be expected to cast a shadow and it does not. The shadow lines of the chairs all point to the left side of the fire. Perhaps the fire is only on the left and that is an indicator for the left or warmer door. The shadow of the grill then falls way in the left bottom corner of the curtain leading back to room 9.
F A C E is a mnemonic device for remembering the notes between the lines on the G-clef, which is a bit of misdirection, since we need to more importantly read the notes on the bass clef.
There is a very dark piece of wood the hat rests on, and with the 3 near-by, that can be a 1,3 and the hat points in the general direction of 13.
The decoration to the left of the bass clef could be one stick with 3 balls on it.
The dragon has three visible legs and one tail, 1,3 and the tail points to the sign for 13 at its very tip
These have been said before but maybe not together. The hat is by 3 pieces of wood grouped together.(1,3) It points roughly towards 13 but certainly not to 3.
The pin and the chair by it also make a 1,3 various ways and the chair back points up to 13.
Vince and I turned our attention to 18 and so far have this major breakthrough: The text says “warmer” and 13 is closer to the fire and therefore “warmer” more Yang-like, etc…
The presence of music and dance here should make us ask if we should invoke the medieval philosophy that seeing=direct experience and “hearing”=faith found elsewhere in Maze. Musical notes give us the right door here. Something that dances to music/faith we know from room 10 is a soul, and here the shadows dance. I think this helps us make the connection between soul and shadow for what we find in 35.
“Shadows danced across the floor to the fire’s music.”
>F<ire's music, eh? An indication to use the music following the F-clef? (Also known as the "bass clef.") The music over the door to 13? Eh? Eh?
The text mentions ducking behind a curtain on the way out. Behind 13 is a black curtain that comes down about halfway to the floor, that you could duck under.
I don’t really buy that as a clue, but I think it sets up a trick, where people will think that because the curtain to 13 is open the group must have ducked behind the other curtain. Because the much harder to spot black curtain is behind 13, either door remains an option.
Did not see that.
Lines of the chair back under 13 pass either side of number 13. 3 backslats. 1 seat.
Or 3 slats one pin.
That chair back, the slats and spaces, looks a bit like the black and white keys on a piano.
The G clef probably goes to room 44 where the time is much later. Gc. Then the “Base” F clef would go “Backwards”.
Some other places we might look: The chairs have a number of 3s. Three back slats, three bottom supports. We can only see 3 legs of one. These could be false indicators, or if you pair them with a hat of a pin they can be true indicators. The hat also sits next to 3 pieces of wood.
There seem to be two half room puzzles here, both related to the Raven poem. The Raven poem can be found by first following 4 clues by the thoughtful one, leading us to a circle of rooms starting in 33 and ending in 35. Then rooms 16 and 7 give us a very good idea what to look for, so finding evidence of the Raven poem recited over consecutive rooms is just confirmation. This is one of the rooms it passes through. But if you have no mastered Maze timekeeping you could take a wrong turn. If you know timekeeping then it seems obvious to follow consecutive “notes” A-G, that is the times in the various rooms on the path are EA,EB…EG. But if you don’t know timekeeping, you might take a wrong turn leaving room 3 and come straight here, by-passing room 9. So, let’s say you are just inclined to follow the shortest path clues. Then there are two places you would take a wrong turn in following the poem. You need to go from 3 to 9, and from 25, to 35. The thoughtful one tells us about the latter part, but not the former. What are the times in rooms 9 and 35, the ones we have to take special care to get to? They are EC and EG. Look at the pairs of notes on the staff above room 3. They are EC and EG. And we could read “if you’ve come from 3, on way to 35/EG you “lost a step” in 9/EC” (see below for “lost a step” part).
The “pin” is right below the cinched curtain. We should think “tie” or “bind” but “tie” is what we want. Nearby we have “dancing” shadows, and notes representing lengths of musical “time”. We have “lost” twice in the text, and that they hurried away. Once we have time and dance we can think step, and then “lost step”.
OK – now the other half of the room. “Top” hat + “chop”ed wood = top. The drangon + the fireplace = “fire”, and this chair gives us “sit”. “sit fire top”. What is the most obvious thing fire top, other than the dragon we used? “Eyes”. OK eyes. Where does that get us. Well we need the Raven poem, and the stanzas that go through this room. We have: “But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only, That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour”. Raven poured his soul out via his eyes, it seems, and we have yet another clue to look into the eye of Raven to escape the Trap in room 6.
Other features of this room that go with the poem – “Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore”, “Dirges” fits the music and feel of this room. “A cushioned seat, in front of bird and bust and door”. Well we have a set in front of 13. And then we have one in front of the fire, and if we take the huge face as a bust and the dragon above it as both “bird and beast”, we have a good match. “Whose fiery eyes now burn into my bosom’s core” – this is self explanatory.
Here is the whole section of the poem:
…For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being.
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -
Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as `Nevermore.’
But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered – not a feather then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.’
Then the bird said, `Nevermore.’
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
`Doubtless,’ said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of “Never-nevermore.”‘
But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking `Nevermore.’
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
I have links to the sites I had available to me at the top of my first page. Wiki changes of course. But if it was here home.roadrunner.com/~jbxroads/maze/
Then I probably saw it back then. If not then I found it independently.
As far as only finding only room 26 in 2012 – I still dispute your answer counting system in a lot of places it seems. For example room 12 – you need to add the fingers and bones, the only parts of the picture that change besides the darkness across both rooms. Part of the solution there is realizing this is a copy room and using both of them. To me what you have is just the 3 false indicators without the true one, which while it will find you an exit, is incomplete to me. But anyway – We will just have to keep count by our own systems since there is no official score card available.
Not sure when Rebecca found A and C solution but that was up in 2012 I know. Found more for this room today – but it is more poe raven poem stuff. Well plus some easy 1,3 stuff. 3 slats on chair back. 3 legs showing on one chair. 3 lower supports on both. One hat. One bowling pin. 3 logs near one hat.
2000 – The John Bailey site.
Of the many correct solutions that were on your site in 2012 the only four which were not also on the John Bailey site were Room 26, and a bit of Room 32, 38 & 14. While I do not fault you for coping material to complete a walkthrough, unfortunately there is now no way to tell if you solved or copied since you did not credit your sources.
It seems to me like a lot more of the stuff on this site came from Bailey’s site, but I honestly can’t be bothered to check for everything. But, for instance, a number of people are credited with Room 38′s “no escape,” but that solution was common knowledge back around 2000. (I reference that solution in a 2001 email, but there, I was compiling information, not creating it : http://mazearchive.tk/mailnotes/a3_watkins.txt . I have no clue who discovered it in the first instance, but it entered collective Maze consciousness a long time ago.)
And when it comes to solutions like the most recent in 25, it’s just a matter of verbalizing what we all know. Someone gets credit for saying it, but it’s not like Greg’s Room 7 solution, for instance, where he really saw something none of the rest of us did.
Which is all just to say, let’s take it easy on these credits. They’re there for whatever purpose, and you can enjoy your brownie points when you get them, but let’s not take it too seriously as a measure of puzzle-solving prowess, or even as an accurate historical record.
There is a sort of F in the legs and cross-supports on the chair, particularly the leftmost one. Yeah, big deal, it’s a chair. The leg shadows do lack a line to make a proper staff, and while the bowling pin could provide a fifth line, it basically just doesn’t.
If you indulge the four-line staff, there,is an identifiable capital A in there.
I’m trying to help you with bad solutions, essentially.
I noticed the capital A in the chair’s shadow too. And is it just me, or are there a lot of things in this room that start with musical note letters? Face, Firewood, Dragon, Gap in the teeth, Chairs, Bowling pin. Maybe an E in the back of the chairs.
And, uh, not to state the obvious but the curtain to 13 is open.
CA= “See A”?
- If so, what are we supposed to see?
- Note that the notes above 13 are played separately whereas the notes above three are played as a chord.
Teeth or Bricks = Keys?
- There is a gap.
What are the standard tunings of various four stringed instruments?
Three boards on the backs of the chairs.
That dragon is somewhat symmetrical.
That hearth is asking for a house fire.
“Are you sure it’s the hat that is lost?”
We’ve seen the top-hatted man in rooms 16, 10, 3, and possibly 34.
A clef in music shows the relationship between the lines of the staff and their corresponding note names. Thus, the notes over door 13 when read in bass clef are C and A. The notes over door 3 when read in treble clef from the bottom up are E, G, C, E.
Hat pin = pin head?
I came up with the same letters you did. I tried spelling everything under the sun but the only word that works in context is CAGE if you drop a C and E. But Manson is more careful than to have extra letters. I wonder if this is a red herring.
Since the bass and treble clefs are also referred to as the F-clef and the G-clef, respectively, I wonder if those letters are also available to use?
That would give us FCAGEGCE.
C EGG FACE
Yeah, it’s not great.
FCAGEGCE looks like musical notes, or chords.
OK. Stupid comment. Didn’t read thread carefully!
Have you considered trying non-English words?
Are the notes all the same? Are some eighths and others sixteenths, for example?
Was just looking at 36 considering the connection between The Guide’s music criticism and a solution to that page. He starts by saying “The viol brings the right sense of warmth to the piece…”
A bass viol is tuned D-G-c-e-a-d’ for what it’s worth.
I tried in vain to find something in the shadow of the chair. It must be a red herring, there are only four lines so it can’t be a musical bar, and it doesn’t spell anything.
If you put the hat and the pin together it makes “hat pin.”
The bass and treble cleft are certainly part of the solution. I wonder if the dragon and hat pin and chairs are as well. If room 1 is the guide, probably.
Please, please, please stop