Hidden Message Maze challenge - Part 2

April 28, 2022

So you decided to come back for more of my hidden message challenge ! If you missed Part 1, I suggest you start there, but if you are back you know what to expect. I will show you 10 hidden message mazes. Try to figure out what it says by solving with your eyes (or any other method you want). When you are ready, scroll down and find the answer. Good Luck !

Hidden Message Maze 11

“Friday”. Not sure how I would use this maze. I think the word is well hidden.

Hidden Message Maze 12

I need to tell you I constructed this differently than other mazes as a test.

“Yes”. Looking back on this experiment, I would say this does not work the way I intended, If you missed this one, sorry, my bad.

Hidden Message Maze 13

I like this maze a lot. Tons of false letters and words. SEE YOU SOON is the answer and this would make a nice card for someone (especially someone you haven’t seen in a long time).

Hidden Message Maze 14

Bravo.

Hidden Message Maze 15

Dream.

Hidden Message Maze 16

Another maze where I packed the maze with letters and possible words

Hidden Message Maze 17

I tried to trick you on HELLO by placing it in a new place in the maze.

Hidden Message Maze 18

I made this to be used as a greeting card, Have a nice… and then you fill in the rest with your word of choice. Day, Wedding, Vacation, Trip, Weekend, Summer…you get the idea !

Hidden Message Maze 19

Surprise ! Are you ready for the final maze ?

Hidden Message Maze 20

Did you believe you could solve that one ? How did you do ? Ready for Part 3 ? Spanish ? Or do you want to try some maze mistake observations ?

If you enjoyed it there are a total of 2 more hidden message challenges for you to try:

Hidden Message Maze challenge - Part 1

Hidden Message Maze challenge - Part 3

For a higher degree of difficulty try these mensajes en Español !!!!!

Laberinto De Mensajes Ocultos

And if you are good at spotting things you might also enjoy a collection of my maze mistakes !

Hidden Message Maze challenge - Part 1

April 28, 2022

I take pride in my ability to make hidden message mazes. Some of them have well hidden words and some have words that can easily be spotted. How are you at solving mazes with your eyes ? If you think you are good at it, this is the challenge for you. The challenge is very simple in principal - I will show you a hidden message maze, and when you are ready with your guess scroll down for the answer to see if you got it right. This challenge has a total of 10 mazes, each with the answer after it.

It is also Part 1 of a 3 part series (plus a 4th Spanish language version if you want to try that - all links below!) Good Luck !

Let’s get started !

HIDDEN MAZE #1

Hmmmm. Do you have any idea what the answer is ?

I added the “It’s a” last minute…”It’s a boy”. A perfect maze to announce the birth of a child.

HIDDEN MAZE #2

“Miss you”. I could Have done a larger dump for “I Miss You” which is also an acceptable answer

HIDDEN MAZE #3

PARTY is the answer. This maze was made to be used as a party invite

HIDDEN MAZE #4

I used larger letters for this one, Thank You !.

HIDDEN MAZE #5

I spaced them out, but here we have It’s a Girl, of course solved in pink !

HIDDEN MAZE #6

I went back to big letters to mix things up a bit. Congrats if you solved this one correctly, I feel like the letters are well hidden !

HIDDEN MAZE #7

Our largest message so far, Happy Birthday !. Obviously I made this to make a greeting card. I think it would be fun to give someone for their birthday.

HIDDEN MAZE #8

A hidden hidden maze. I couldn’t resist making this one.

HIDDEN MAZE #9

I went back to back, this time with hidden “message”. I also tried to fake you out by putting the maze solution at the top of the page. Did I fake you out ?

HIDDEN MAZE #10

Maybe is the final answer. I tried to fake you out again with other words and placement of letters.

How did you do in this hidden message challenge ? 10 of 10 I’m sure !

If you enjoyed it there are a total of 2 more hidden message challenges for you to try:

Hidden Message Maze challenge - Part 2

Hidden Message Maze challenge - Part 3

For a higher degree of difficulty try these mensajes en Español !!!!!

Laberinto De Mensajes Ocultos

And if you are good at spotting things you might also enjoy a collection of my maze mistakes !

Maze Design Case Study - Designing a Grid Maze in Different Difficulty levels

September 18, 2021

I wanted to do a case study showing how to create a maze in a few different difficultly levels. I thought the best way to illustrate this was to design a create a maze with a variety of different branch types included then have you solve them and compare how enjoyable each was for you to solve. Let’s jump into the example and you’ll see what I mean. (Hopefully).

Example - Part 1. Please solve this small 10x10 grid maze. Yes this is an interactive example !

OK. Take note of how your experience was solving the maze. Did you enjoy it ? How quickly did you solve the maze ? Anything you did not like about the experience ? Did you find it to be enjoyable or frustrating ?

Now lets try this maze made on the same grid structure. We have 10x10 grid maze with the Start and Goal placed in the same locations.

Example - Part 2. Please solve this small 10x10 grid maze.

I have the same questions for you as before. How was your experience was solving the maze ? Did you enjoy it ? How quickly did you solve the maze ? Anything you did not like about the experience ? Did you find it to be enjoyable or frustrating ?

An finally in Part 3 we will group 2 additional mazes together for evaluation. Same questions will apply.

Example - Part 3. Please solve each of these small 10x10 grid mazes.

So what have we learned ? Before I go into some explanations on the design of each maze take a minute to hypothesize on what you think just happened. 4 similar mazes. Hopefully they gave you different experiences for you when you were solving them.

4 Maze Comparison - The Differences and Design Choices

First, did you notice each maze has the same exact solution ? Mazes 2 & 3 have the inverse (or flipped) solution of mazes 1 & 4. So the solutions are essentially all equal.
Each numbered maze should have gotten more difficult as the numbers increased (although with a small maze size this may have been somewhat less obvious)
Maze 1 - Short dead ends. Incorrect paths do not have branches. Pathways are wide. Some paths are “filler” and unusable.
Maze 2 - Longer dead ends. Incorrect paths do not have branches. Pathways normal width.
Maze 3 - Long dead ends with additional branches off of them. Pathways slightly smaller.
Maze 4 - Long dead ends with choices and branches off them. 4 way choices included. Small pathway widths.

So to summarize I used the following to change the difficulty of the 4 mazes:

The length of dead ends - How fast you know you have made an incorrect choice
Dead end branches - When you make a wrong turn are there multiple incorrect choices on that branch
Expanded pathway choices - Some intersections have multiple choices
Pathway widths - Smaller pathways are more difficult to see and navigate.
Unusable pathways - Filler sometimes used to fill a maze out while keeping it at the desired difficulty level.

Let’s look at the pathways coded to show what I mean. The red line is the solution. The blue line is the false pathway. The purple line is an unusable pathway (Did you know some mazes use this ?)

What you need to notice in the below deconstructed mazes:

Maze 1 - Thick pathways make this maze easier to solve. The purple lines to not connect to anything - essentially they are filler and unusable pathways. Most likely you did not notice them. They make the maze easier. The blue lines, the incorrect dead end paths - are short and only extend 2 levels before letting the solver know it was the wrong choice.
Maze 2 - Normal pathway width. No purple pathways from here on out. The blue lines are long but have no branches off of them. Longest length is 11 blocks.
Maze 3 - Pathways are a bit thinner. The blue dead end lines now have branches, so wrong turns have additional wrong turns. None of these, however has more than one additional dead end branch. There is also a dead end choice at the starting block.
Maze 4 - Pathways are very thin. There are now 3 intersections where 4 pathway choices are included (they look like a plus sign in this grid maze). Dead end branches also have multiple dead ends off of them.

four 10x10 grid maze solving example solutions

Hopefully this explanation and example shows you a small piece of how maze difficulty can be designed and changed with a few different choices. Most solvers would prefer Maze #1 because the wrong turns are not overly punishing. But a nice amount of people would prefer something a bit more challenging also, so remember the audience you are designing for when you create your mazes !

I will say that there is a balance between making a challenging maze and poor maze design. Do the pathways need to be ultra thin or are you just straining the eyes of the solver ? I think a re-design of Maze #3 with thick pathways would be both enjoyable AND challenging ! Happy maze-ing !

Additional popular posts you may like:

How To Make A Grid Maze

44 Different types of Mazes and Labyrinths

Comparison of the Top 10 Maze Generation Websites

Maze options - Conditional Path options

April 11, 2021

Welcome to Part 3 of my 3 part series on maze construction options. Previously, I gave you step by step instructions to make over 40 different maze constructions. But making a maze also means making a series of different decisions, each that will change the look and difficulty of the maze. Here are the Parts we will cover in the series:

Part 1 - Starting and Ending a Maze

Part 2 - Maze Path options

Part 3 - Conditional Path options

Let’s get started with Part 3: Conditional Path Options

In Part 1 we looked at starting and ending your maze. In Part 2 we looked at all the different options for making your pathways. Today we look at a specific subset of maze construction that I call Conditional Path Mazes. This group of mazes is a choice you make as a maze maker to give your solver a bit of an extra challenge. Call them what you want, but can they follow a set of guidelines, conditions, or rules to solve the maze ? Let’s look at types:

1 - Find Items Maze

This is a simple condition mostly. You move through the maze from start to finish, but along the way there are places you need to visit to essentially find items, thus the name. It also works well for Map mazes, where finding the item, or visiting the city is the goal of the maze. Here’s a Germany maze for example:

Note: A subset of this version would be the find items in order maze, where you stipulate the order things must be found/visited.

2 - Avoid Items Maze

The opposite of finding is avoiding, at least for maze construction. This is a natural option for mazes, after all you are already avoiding dead ends !! Really these Avoid Items just create artificial dead ends within the maze, and hopefully help tell a story. Like this example of a Fish avoiding hooks. I could have made more walls but what fun is that ?

3 - Directional Mazes

A maze that states the directions you may move in is a directional maze. To reference Part 2 in the series on pathways, this could be a regular pathway or online. Below is an On Line Maze with the condition that you can only turn left to solve it.

4 - Puzzle Maze

The condition of this maze type determines your movement. This means solving a puzzle to determine your movement thru the maze. In the first example below the movement is determined with a key - you must follow the directions to solve the maze and there are no choices, but with the 2nd puzzle movement is determined by rules - and there are multiple possible ways to move between grids.

5 - Letter Maze

Simply the rules involve letters…and in this version you have choices on where you move…i.e. this M or that M from START.

6 - Number Mazes

Or similarly, numbers to determine movement. This particular variation is based on division and is a Counting maze.

7 - Color Grid Maze

Movement thru the maze is determined by following a series of colors in order.

8 - Conditional Color Path Maze

Similar to #7 but the pathways change colors rather than being colored blocks. As someone who makes a lot of mazes these are both fun and challenging to create. The non grid format gives you options to get complicated and math-y !! If you are a maze maker I suggest you try to make one of these.

9 - Non Reusable Pathways

This is used in a Go & Return Maze and sometimes in Find Items Mazes. The solver is asked to move thru the maze and never visit the same place more than once while solving. These tend to have “open floor plans” when it comes to walls. You want freedom of movement and choice to complicate the solve.

10 - Go & Return Maze

A Go & Return Maze is part #9 Non-reusable Pathway and part #1 Find Items Maze combined with a Start/Goal that is the same. So maybe this is a combination of things we have already covered, and maybe it isn’t. I thought it was unique enough to get it’s own option. In a Go & Return Maze you go from start to an internal part in the maze, then return back to start without using the same path. Those are the conditions to solve ! Here is an example:

11 - Math Maze

A variation of the number maze where your movement is determined by needing to solve a math problem to correctly advance. If you are interested I have made 11 different Math Maze Templates that are free to download.