Comments on: Room 39

By: britzerland

britzerland — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 22:06:25 +0000

As well as “The Cask of Amontillado”, Edgar Allen Poe also had someone get bricked up behind a wall in “The Black Cat”.

The only room mentioning a black cat in its text is Room 4 – which is the correct answer door in this room. The text in room 4 says “A small black cat ran out of a door to my right… …It was fortunate…” and the use of word fortunate in that paragraph might link with Fortunato.

In “The Black Cat” the dead body is found because the black cat makes a sound. Here in the text we hear about hammering and chopping sounds – and the axe and hammer are in room 4.

Here in the text it says “I said loudly and, with as much commotion as possible, hurried them out of the room to”. I had a hunch that “commotion” is about commas in the text. I ran a quick script on all MAZE text and it appears that the maximum number of commas seen in a sentence in MAZE is 4 and it happens only once: In room 4 when talking about the black cat: “A small black cat ran out of a door to my right, sniffed at us, and, before I could move, ran out of the hall”. Room 4 is a room the player already visited once before when doing The Path, and they may have noticed/recalled the excessive commas in the sentence about the black cat. As much commotion as possible…

By: vewatkin

vewatkin — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 16:55:17 +0000

It has been so interpreted, reasonably so, though it’s not completely clear, on the face of it, that making reference to sounds from an adjoining room is meant as a clue to travel there. The line between “non-clue connection” and “misleading clue” is completely blurred, but there are other rooms where following sounds to adjoining rooms does not serve any apparent purpose. (E.g. traveling from 37 to 10, from 7 to 36.)

That is to say, if it is a clue, it’s one that seems it can’t be everywhere trusted; but whether it’s an untrustworthy clue, or not a clue, may be a distinction without difference.

By: Laser

Laser — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 17:37:41 +0000

Hello!

First timer here, and not sure if this one is too obvious to be plausible, but seeing as how the group hears either hitting or splitting (which the Guide attempts to obscure), and given how on the path they’re guaranteed to have passed by Room 4 (in which there was a hammer and a splitting axe), could that not be considered a hint towards room 4?

By: davidws

davidws — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 19:57:29 +0000

Aria, I think you’re on to something by seeing that the pipes make a T that points to the number 4 on the 4th row of the math sign, and the trowel starts with T and points to the correct door 4. Here’s a bit more along that line of thought. That duck pull toy would often be made so that the wheel axles were not concentric to the wheels and wheels on opposite sides were offset in opposite directions so when the toy is pulled it waddles. The word “sway” also clues us to think of “waddle”. “W add LE” when combined with the pipe “T” and the “RO” = “TROWEL”.

By: davidws

davidws — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 19:39:40 +0000

I think interpreting the sign to read square odds is amazing and that making the connection to room 5 is warranted. Here’s some clues that build on that. The poster of what I assume is an oak tree is very similar to the tree in room five that divides the room into two sides with a dangerous left side and a harmless right side. In this room, there are also two arrows pointing to each door. The arrows are a lot like the minute hand arrow in room 30 pointing to door 15 in that they have a circular base and a pointer. The turned bottle with the oak cask at its base points to door 11. The mixing bowl and trowel make a similar pointer to door 4. Door 11 has that sign leading out of it and probably by now we know better than to follow those things. But, we might also hesitate to go with the trowel because it is basically a murder weapon. If we get the Poe reference, it is responsible for killing off Fortunato which symbolically might mean to reject Fortune and not leave our fates to luck or to square odds. The jester’s hat shape makes two arched paths like doors 11 and 4 without distinguishing between left and right. And the math on the “square odds” sign is questionable. But to be certain, is there more? I think aria is on to something with the objects on the shelves, so I’ll continue this in reply to her post.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 23:18:00 +0000

All been said before, but:

As vewatkin suggested years ago couldn’t the 1st syllable of poor Fortunato’s name also be an indicator?

And to rephrase what DG said even earlier, I only see 10 bottles on the rack, but one of the bottles is turned (in the text “bottles turned” is spoken by the Guide). It looks to me like the turned bottle is pointing not to door 11 but to the 4 upright bottles you mention.

Lots of clues here, the incorrect 1X1=2 saying that 11 and 12 are bad, the trowel leaning toward the Montresor escape door while the wine area means foolishness. To me, the clues in this room make it seem like it isn’t an odd one in type.

By: ritz

ritz — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 00:15:42 +0000

Well, we do know something like this is at least in room 5, by the guide to indicate there are two correct answers.
Hmmm, maybe it refers to how one of the options is 4? And how, since it’s guaranteed you already passed it, the readers might automatically assume it’s a wrong answer? So it’s saying, “no, you have square odds, don’t write it off”

By: vewatkin

vewatkin — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 12:36:45 +0000

Yeah, this would seem to be insufficient motivation to include the math sign. Unless this sort of thing is sprinkled around Maze sort of arbitrarily as an indicator of the odds against you, I can’t think of a good reason to do such a thing here. If “square odds” is meant here, I assume we’re still missing parts of the picture.

By: ritz

ritz — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 02:44:28 +0000

And on the unrelated thing, huh! I like your ability to make connections between rooms (35 and 1, 7 and 15, this one). Room interconnectivity, despite being talked about in the directions, is almost never talked about here outside of vague suggestions of some sort of loop path from yours truly lol. Your specific examples are smart and we should keep them in mind

By: ritz

ritz — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 02:40:53 +0000

So on first read this just seemed like a cool connection, but thinking about the square odds thing… the idea honestly has me enamored.
I mean, it’s SO mansonian. A list of odd numbers times themselves, so they’re squared, = square odds. Thinking about it it’s hard to believe he didn’t intend that, it’s so just so perfect.
In maze it’s rare you can derive expressions through wordplay that make sense. With numbers it’s easier to make it look like they make sense, because you can do any random thing to numbers in a room and act like manson intended for you to multiply 4 chairs by 8 candles. But for words it’s obvious when something is pulled out of nowhere, because either wordplay/rhymes are there, or they’re… not. (cough sorry wbm cough)
Very “F HOUR TREE,” very “flagon wagon.” They’re harder to argue against.

But why did he do it? Not gonna lie, it feels a bit random to slip it into this room. Having a chance to be trapped and a chance to be right is kinda a quality of every room. Also, im not sure if he intended the “you dont really have squared odds” thing. The readers come from 12, so they have 2 options, one is right and one leads to the trap. Those kinda are squared odds I guess?
I want to talk about this more, it’s kind of exciting me because it feels concrete- and has a direct meaning correlating to right and wrong choices.