A Maze A Week

Not a maze with a start and end, but with a question of how few loops need to be cut to release all of them?

From arrow to arrow

Follow white paths to go from one ring to the other.

travel from one ring to the other

This maze features perhaps three distinct puzzles, each of which start at a black disc and end at the other.

Easy: use teleportation stations (jump to any other identical symbol) using only black noodles.

Not as easy: use red or blue noodles as well, but not both.

Harder: use teleportation stations in all three colors of noodles.

use teleportation stations to get from one black disc to the other

From arrow to arrow to arrow.

from arrow to arrow to arrow to arrow

My friend Michael John Grist suggested a maze with teleportation sites.   That sounded pretty fun to me, so here is my first version.   Start at either of the large black dots and make your way to the other.  The paths cross under and over each other.  colored circles are teleportation stations.  Jump to any other same-colored circle.

The maze is pretty easy that way, so I arranged it so we can use all the teleportation stations exactly once (either coming or going) and still solve the maze.

use each teleportation station exactly once to get from one black dot to the other

Help the blue disc get out of the maze via the exit to the right.

Simple at first, this maze becomes a bit dizzying after a bit!

technically easy, but slightly dizzying: get the blue disc out

This maze tries to mix two types of paths: normal paths, and what I call “noodles,” or paths that cross over and under other paths.

Paths become noodle paths when they are surrounded by thick black areas.

Try to get from the circle to the diamond, or the other way. There are several viable paths; can you find the shortest?

go from diamond to circle. paths become noodles when over dark areas

Navigate from the big dot near the center to the three circled dots on the right.

I just enjoy looking at this pattern. Nevermind that it’s a maze!

Inspired by Andrea Gilbert, this maze is like her Step-Over Sequence Mazes.

To solve it, the pawn can jump over colored bars, landing in adjacent hexagons with each jump. The catch is that the pawn must jump over colored bars in the sequence indicated by the key in the bottom.

Welcome back, Roy G Biv! Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet… finishing a few repetitions, you can jump across violet and out of the maze onto the ball in the lower right.

help the pawn reach the dot by jumping over colored lines in sequence

After scanning this maze, I decided the red and orange bars looked too similar, so I used gimp to fill in the red bars with a brighter red color.

The upper portion of this maze was drawn by hand; try to get from one big bulb to the other.  Paths cross over and under one another.

The lower portion of this maze is much easier to solve, and was much easier to draw.  Most of it I did with gimp, as I toyed around with selections and bucket fill.  Find a path from one big circle to the other.   Paths go under the upper maze.

This piece started with a bunch of right angles drawn on the page, all in one of four different orientations, hence the word “aligned” in the title.   I then drew lots of curves to connect the right angles until they were all used up and a maze had appeared!

Try to get from one dark ball to the other.   There are two distinct paths that I’ve found.

Try to get from one ball to the other, then back by a different route

This maze was named after the lighting I used when drawing it, out on the balcony here in Chigasaki.

I’m publishing it on a non-Tuesday because it was already published online, available at this permalink: http://art.robnugen.com/sm11

Fred decided he solved it by navigating between the two adjacent dots, but I think one might be more satisfied by going from the solo dot to the pair of dots.

get from the lone dot to two adjacent dots

Find a path from the spiral in the top left to the spiral in the lower right.