Comments on: The Solution to MAZE: Main Puzzle

By: vewatkin

vewatkin — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 11:38:23 +0000

The narrative in Maze is in some ways inconsistent about whether we are meant to identify with one of the visitors to the Maze, or whether the story that accompanies the art is just another layer of the puzzle for us to detachedly ponder. The back of the book and the directions treat us in some ways like we’re meant to be among the visitors, but the actual room-to-room narrative doesn’t actually make sense from this perspective.

There is no exit from the Maze, but in this regard the conceit that we are characters within the narrative has been wholly abandoned–and I’m not sure it was ever really maintained in the text of the Maze proper.

By: sp

sp — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 20:33:13 +0000

vewatkin: once you get back to Room 1, there is no number above the door to exit the Maze, are we trapped here like Hotel California? To repeat the same cycle over again until we go insane and yearn for 24 (which is basically the same thing. at least you have some company here and stories to tell).

By: vewatkin

vewatkin — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 22:23:22 +0000

The crown door can be deduced ro come from room 42, because 42 leads to 25 and there is no doorway back. Maze is consistent about showing the exit points of one-way doors (the exception being room 24, where we can’t see anything).

By: Stallon Silver

Stallon Silver — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 15:57:12 +0000

Considering how cryptic the rules to this game are, I wasn’t sure if I was “breaking the rules” when I first made it to Room 45. Here’s what I did originally:

When I first stumbled upon Room 25 on a failed run, I remembered The Guide mentioned in The Prologue that the children “never noticed my Crown…” which I concluded had to be significant. That Crown Door “must” be the way; I thought.

I just needed to find the number that would correspond to that door somehow and wouldn’t you know it, there happened to be a “Number-17″ lying around on top of a table in Room 29 that I had jotted down in my notes. Confirmation bias deduced “that” was the number to the Crown Door because it’s the only (1) door “without a number” and there are (7) portraits above it. Thus, (1) and (7) is 17.

Here’s the path to Room 45 I took when I thought collecting the “Number-17″ item in Room 29 was required as part of the run:

1. Navigated from Room 1 to Room 29 to collect the upside down “Number-17″ item (1→26→30→42→4→29)

2. Back tracked from Room 29 to Room 25 where the infamous Crown Door awaited (29→8→12→21→44→18→13→25) and from there… onto Room 17 and 45.

3. Obviously this path is 15 steps and too long for it to be the real solution considering we must then venture back to Room 1, but I later learned that the table where the “Numer-17″ is lying on is really a Door which you can go through (I can see that now.) So, naturally the shortest path to 45 is (1→26→30→42→4→29→17→45.)

By: vewatkin

vewatkin — Thu, 25 May 2023 11:40:05 +0000

That’s an interesting point, in conjunction with his desire to “maintain the mystery.” It would be a little odd if “the mystery” was that someone else suggested an unintended solution that he thought was pretty good. Not unbelievably bizarre, just a little odd. But, I guess, even in that case it’s essentially a riddle to be solved, so maybe it’s not that weird for Manson to leave it as an exercise for the reader.

By: ritz

ritz — Wed, 24 May 2023 04:45:43 +0000

You’re probably right. The only thing that threw me off was the weight Manson placed on the second answer being “found.” If we did come across it, would it immediately jump out to us as correct? If not, what’s the functional difference between finding one proposed answer vs any other? Or just independently coming up with it ourselves? His use of “found” makes me feel like we would know when we saw it.

By: vewatkin

vewatkin — Fri, 19 May 2023 19:58:50 +0000

I didn’tctake Manson to mean it had been stated with authority somewhere. If that were the case, it seems like it would have to be either him or the publisher, and it seems unlikely that the publisher would have any cause to.

It’a doubtful Manson “published” the answer anywhere, though it’s posdible that he at some point gave an interview in which it was mentioned.

His uncertainty as to whether it was published, and where, makes it seem more likely to me that he just thinks he read it somewhere. The John Bailey site, maybe?

By: ritz

ritz — Thu, 18 May 2023 06:17:02 +0000

Right- but it implies a sort of authority, like it was released in some lost official statement. Something so important couldn’t have just been forgotten, right?

By: vewatkin

vewatkin — Tue, 16 May 2023 02:03:06 +0000

I take it he means “publish” in the sense of “make public,” not “print and distribute,” though who knows.

By: ritz

ritz — Mon, 15 May 2023 20:17:14 +0000

Ah! This is quite helpful, fantastic work!!
“I believe it is published somewhere.” …what? Where could the alternate solution possibly be published? Unless Manson is using the word in a way I would not? You just got to the bottom of a word-of-mouth path, and Manson has directed us towards another…