This was an experimental maze for me. I had never made a maze of a scene before and I like how it came out. It made the finalist for maze of the year on this site and got some #1 votes. The reason is not so much the maze but the nice colors of the buildings - thanks to the wonderful people of Mexico ! I also used a photo I had taken to make the maze (shown below for comparison). I wanted to give it an update using some new techniques. Here is the original blog post:

Maze of the Week #59 - Walking street in Queretaro, Mexico

Here are the enhancements I made to improve the maze:

1. Added textures. I added texture to all the bushes and the trees. They looked too flat before. Then I added textures to the walls of buildings - first 2 on the left, the first, and third buildings on the right, and the back building. I wanted the walls to look more like stucco. This did change some building colors. Oh, and also the dirt under the plants now includes some texture also.

2. Building Fix. I had to make a minor line fix on the 3rd building on the right to fix design mistake (seen only if zoomed in).

3. Sign Changed. I changed the colors of the the Q sign to be more accurate.

4. Pathways Size. I changed the pathways by increasing their size by 25% to make solving easier.

5. Sign fixed. There was an error in how the La Bar Condesa sign was previously colored - I corrected it.

6. Quality Improved. The quality of the picture improved by using a new saving technique - best seen when zoomed in - i.e. the number on the door on the building on the right is most apparent.

Here is my photo with the before and after mazes:

Queretaro Walking street photo

Queretaro Walking street maze

Queretaro Walking street maze revised

Some data: The new file is 1,280MB from 444MB.

I will be replacing the homepage with the new maze going forward. You can find the maze download there !

If you like this type of content check out all of my case studies:

A Collection of Maze Design Case Studies to Improve your Mazes

Happy maze-ing !

Maze of the Week #87 takes us to the city of Queretaro in Mexico. This statue of the Danzante Conchero Chichimeca is located just outside of the main plaza in the city. If you visit you will be sure to see it. I lived nearby and have walked past it hundreds of times. You mazy not notice but there is some color on the statue, although the feathers near the head of the dancer have faded over time (they were blue and white).

Photos: All taken by me.

YouTube: This is a long video of the festival in Queretaro that shows many different festivities like a parade and dancing. I do not think I am in the background of this video, but…maybe. I did attend many of these things !

The Maze: Originally this maze was abandoned and made my list of mistakes in maze making.

Why I abandoned these 10 mazes - Mistakes in Maze making

Then I went back an made it into another case study, which you can read about here. I did need to cheat to maze the picture I made though !