Navigate by clicking on doors or door numbers.
…a pleasant room with three doors and a lamp. Looking at the picture on the wall they decided it wasn’t a very good likeness.
One of them almost fell over something on the floor. “Why don’t they pick up after themselves?” he said, sounding like an old man.
“Weren’t you ever irresponsible?” I asked, thinking of my childhood and how wild I had been.
Music was being played somewhere nearby. We stopped to listen for a moment.
Leaving the pictures looking out at an empty room we went on to…
- Images and text copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson
used with permission. [Purchase MAZE from Amazon]
Room Type: LOOP Doors: 16 33 36
Solution Summary: [COLLECTION CURATED BY WHITE Raven. SEE COMMENTS FOR ADDITIONAL SOLUTION PROPOSALS.]
● There are three pictures on each side of the room which show a single eye. 3 eyes + 3 eyes = 33. [Independent Credit: Hello Gregor | White Raven] [See related images]
● The three nails hold up a picture with three clouds. 3 nails + 3 clouds = 33. [Credit: Hello Gregor]
● The monk faces toward door 33.[Independent Credit: Hello Gregor | White Raven]
● The pull toy is ready to be pulled through door 33. [Independent Credit: Hello Gregor | White Raven] The closest and furthest away ribbons of the pull toy look like two 3s = 33. [Independent Credit: Aria | White Raven] [See related images]
● The rug under door 16 is meant to suggest the idiom “pulling the rug out.” The pull toy suggests “pulling.” The rug has two upward curves, one for each hand, which could be easily grasped to pull the rug. If a person were take door 16 they would have to walk on the rug, and if the rug were pulled in the direction the pull toy is facing, the visitor taking door 16 would lose their footing. The result would be a literal playing out of the idiom “pulling the rug out from underneath someone.” Since this would be a bad thing for a person taking this door we should avoid door 16. [Independent Credit: sp | White Raven] Additionally the lamp plug may be meant to reinforce the idea of pulling since it could be pulled out. [Credit: Aria] And if the lamp plug were pulled out, it would be pulled in the same direction as the rug would be pulled reinforcing the rug pulling solution. [Credit: sp]
I wonder if the message to take from the duck is to count all versions of “eye”s on the room walls, both portrait related and letter “i” related. The duck has 1) the one eye profile, 2) the two wheels that look like a forward facing pair of eyes, and 3) the string and pull ring that look a bit like a bendy lower case “i”. So maybe, in one object we see all the versions of “eye”s needed to indicate the best door? When duck toys like that get pulled they’re built to waddle, or w-“add”-le, suggesting addition of the eye-like signs?
From the door frames, there are 6 lowercase “i”s. From the portraits there are 22 eyes. That gets us 28. The picture of the outdoors on the right could be a portrait of the “wild” or “w-eye-ld”: 29. The mirror is capped by horns that orient it as a full frontal portrait of whomever looks into it, placing two more reflected eyes on the wall: 31. The lamp plugs into the wall using one outlet but leaving the other “l-eye-ght” socket exposed: 32. And maybe the phrase “…a pleasant room with three doors and a lamp” suggests we should include the lamp, or “l-eye-ght” in the count too: 33! It’s plugged into the wall after all…
That leaves the square note on door 36 and the rug in door 16 to wonder about. The square note is probably a red herring for door 36 if one just takes the 6 lower case “i”s by the doors and squares them to get to 36. I didn’t come up with that one. The rug appears to have two front facing loops that might associate door 16 with a two-eye only solution. There are 8 total two-eyed portraits that one could use to get 16 “eyes”. But only the duck clue uses everything on the walls.
“Leaving the pictures …”
After leaving something, that something is “left”?
Never mind; The Guide (Manson) says right, left, and leaving a lot, often indicating the wrong door. I should’ve checked some more rooms.
The fact that it indicates a bad door doesn’t mean that is isn’t intentional.
Does anyone else find this room unbearably creepy with all those people staring at you?
Also, the mirror with horns intrigues me to no end.