• Passion for Puzzles has a link to an interesting game called Open Doors.  The game is played in a maze that’s filled with doors that only open in a specific direction when you move through them or move by them.
• Logic puzzler had a type of puzzle on the site called “Architect puzzle.”  This puzzle came from from a site called Wydawnictwo LOGI, that has more architect puzzles available and plenty of other puzzles.

• Logic puzzler has a post about a puzzle called Trigon.  Trigon puzzles involve a grid made of triangles, each with a number in the center.  The goal is to fill in a number on each of the edges such that the numbers  in the centers of the triangles are the sums of each triangle’s three edges.
• Passion for Puzzles has a post about a Creative Commons cross platform implementation of Theseus and the Minotaur mazes called Nimuh.  The game is pretty nicely made and it tells the story of an extra terrestrial who visits Spain.

I got an email asking me to check out a new puzzle type called a number maze designed by Mike Reilly. The number maze is a very simple puzzle with a few easy rules, which is always a good thing. You start with a grid that resembles a standard maze. The idea is to lay out the numbers from 1 to 12 in either ascending or descending order. Any orthogonally adjacent numbers must be sequential unless there is a “wall” of the maze between them. And each of the numbers must appear in the maza an equal number of times.

There are a number of sample puzzles on the site. The smaller ones tend to be easy, but the larger ones can be quite challenging. I’ve noticed that a fair number of these puzzles have multiple solutions, though all that’s really needed is a little refining. Also, a number of the puzzles have no initial clues. In theses cases, I would think that any of the puzzles should have at least 12 solutions, if they have any. If you were to increment all of the numbers in a valid solution by 1, with 12 incrementing to 1, you would get another valid solution. And so 12 valid solutions. In this case, the valid solution might be the pattern of numbers rather than the numbers themselves.

Also of note, there are a number of “poker” mazes that use card ranks instead of the numbers 1-12.

I recently received an email from Jeffrey Montanye about his site called Maze Zing.  Jeffrey has taken common items (paperclips, fish hooks, marbles, children’s blocks) and arranged them into mazes which he then photographed.  The maze photos are published on his site and in a book called Maze Zing: Junk Drawer Jewels.

He’s featuring a Maze of the Month on his site and there are currently six available.  With each photo, there is a series of accompanying challenges.  The challenges include finding paths between different objects in the photo and locating specific objects Where’s Waldo style.

I recently came across this funny variation on a traditional maze called chopstick mazes. It doesn’t test your mind so much as your manual dexterity. The maze is actually two intertwined mazes divided into four colored regions. The goal is to solve both puzzles simultaneously with two pencils held like chopsticks. To add a layer of difficulty, both pencils must always be on the same color at the same time.

Ok, it’s not earth shattering, but it’s cute.

Things like this always seem to escalate.  I blogged a while back about a site that boasts one billion mazes, and pointed out that there were enough mazes there to keep you occupied for a couple millenia.

Well, someone has come up with one trillion puzzles (a combination of mazes and word searches.)   And you have to wonder why.  Sites like this are probably made to keep computers busy more than people.  But for anyone who’s worked through the first billion mazes, head on over.  Your work  has only just begun.

Through a homeschooling blog, I came across a website boasting one billion mazes.  I certainly don’t have time to verify this, but this seems to be true.  (Ok puzzle maniacs: If you did one maze a minute, how long would it take you to finish one billion puzzles? Answer at the bottom.)

These mazes must be computer generated (the alternatives are too hard to imagine, really.)  They are all in printable PDF form where page one is the maze and page two is the solution.  And they vary considerably in difficulty.  If you’re into mazes, check it out.  But I suggest you don’t try to solve them all.

On the same blog post that led me to the mazes, there was also a brief description of a “touch Rubik’s Cube.”  It’s a standard Rubik’s Cube that has six different materials covering the six different sides so that you can solve the puzzle without even looking at it.

(Answer to above question:  Assuming you took no breaks and lived long enough, you would finish the mazes in just over 1902 years.  Or just under two millenia, depending on how you look at it.)