My 2020 Year in Review

I wanted to write a year end review for the website to reflect on what I accomplished for the year. Yes, I made a lot of mazes, but I did more than that, expanding what I did and how I did it. This post might just be for me, but I am happy to take you along on the journey. Enjoy.

Daily Mazes posted:

366 in 2020 vs. 365 in 2019

Well the number is somewhere near this. Some days I did post more than one to commemorate something happening in the news or to celebrate a holiday. Either way for the last 2 years I have posted a new maze each and every day. And this year, thanks to the leap year we got an extra one ! Yea us !

Blog Posts:

102 vs. 26

I took a break in the Summer from posting blog content to work on my How To Make a Maze content. When I completed them I was able to post 40 different maze construction step by step instructions and an overview post. They were posted starting daily October 1. That really added significantly to my content. I followed those up with how to draw a labyrinth instructions. Overall, a great year for my blogging !

Name Mazes Made

247 vs. 1,499

Well, they can’t all be winners ! I spent a huge amount of time in 2019 researching the most popular names in the US, then the world and making mazes from them. You can read about how I chose the names HERE. I had a lot of fun, but felt I needed to branch out into other projects. I figured out I had over 70% of all Americans covered, and most likely similar high percentages of Western names. So 2020 meant only doing requests when they were submitted, until I wrote the draft of this and started back up !

Books posted online:

8 vs. 19

In 2020 my monthly daily maze themes allowed me to create monthly themed books from their content. It allowed me to practice making book covers, collating mazes, pagination, creating solution pages, converting images to different file types, and even more. Now in 2019 I made many books to create some interesting content for the site. But, making a book each month is great practice for…..

Books Published on Amazon:

3 (13 versions) vs. 0

I published my first 3 books on Amazon. And with a bit of help I translated 2 of them into 3 additional languages. Then I realized that Arrow Maze Books do not need to be printed (no pencil needed!) , but then I had to figure out how to correctly make what is essentially a picture book for Kindle. Well it took awhile, but I now understand how to do it, giving me 4 more Kindle versions of my Arrow Maze Book. So 3 books, 13 versions ! I have to say, all the practice throughout the year definitely help make these books better !!!

Website Traffic growth:

+1000%+

The website traffic grew year over year by more than 1000% and it has the potential to grow by the same in the future as I learn more about image SEO. There is plenty of content on how to improve your written SEO with key words, and great content etc. But not much at all on how to improve your Image SEO. This is basically an image website - that is how people stumble upon it. Then if I do find it, how does it relate to my website builder template (the answer is not well). So I am running blind a bit here, but optimistic for the future.

Different countries visiting the site:

99 vs. 20

Without getting in the weeds on the analytics of the site, I believe the maze images are multilingual friendly. I also published books into 4 languages on worldwide Amazon sites. I have multiple sections of the site and blog posts that are focused on other languages than English. Well, depending on where you look the number of countries in the world is around 195, so I hit half of them in 2020 ! Definitely have a goal to raise this number in 2021 ! (as I keep hoping for a new country to hit 100 these last days of December…nope…….again…nope)

Requests for Maze use:

YouTube Videos Created and watched:

YouTube Subscribers:

RSS Subscribers to the blog:

Books Sold on Amazon:

Up higher by infinity

I had multiple requests this year to use my mazes in classrooms, in a newspaper, and for use in creating some new digital mazes. I like to collaborate and was excited for each of these opportunities ! I also did a few basic videos for some of the blog posts to better explain how to make mazes/labyrinths. They are private on YouTube, but I still managed to get my first subscriber ! And finally I have a group of people who subscribe to this blog and might be reading this right now ! Hi ! All these are small numbers, but they were 0 last year, so each has grown.

So that is my year in review. I learned a lot. I hope to continue growing the site, making more books, and of course posting at least one new maze each and every day !

And because this is the internet, we can travel into the future and see what happens:

MY 2021 YEAR IN REVIEW

MY 2022 YEAR IN REVIEW

How to Race Mazes - Rules, and ideas for Maze competitions

Mazes are usually a solitary pursuit. But if you are a competitive person I have some ideas for you that will make your maze solving competitive - Maze Races ! Simply put, a maze race is a race between multiple people to see who can solve the maze the fastest. Let’s look at how a maze race works.

HOW TO HAVE A MAZE RACE

1. Select a maze - Ideally this will be an easy to medium difficulty maze. A difficult maze will take too long to complete and tension and speed will wane as the time passes. You want the maze used to be able to be solved quickly to add some drama to the competition. I also suggest a black and white maze (or grey). I have found that a maze printed in color being solved with a pencil can be problematic. Really it depends on your printer, but if the color has a glossy finish it’s a problem.

2. Print the maze - Although it is possible to race mazes digitally in theory, the best way to race is with printed mazes. Many online mazes are not able to be solved ‘on screen’ so paper solves this issue. Print as many mazes as there are racers.

3. Follow these 6 maze race rules - Ideally you want steps 1 and 2 above to be done by a neutral party. This prevents a solver from giving the maze a glance and pre solving a portion of it beforehand.

   1. Place the printed maze face down

   2. Solvers flip the mazes over when start is called

   3. Solve the mazes with a writing utensil

   4. Mazes must be solved from start to finish (no backwards solving is permitted) This is an optional rule and with large groups may need to be suspended since each solve may not be able to be monitored.

   5. Once the maze is completed sit down your writing instrument and say “solved”

   6. A neutral party checks the answer to confirm the winner.

How to Have a Maze Team Waterfall Race

A maze waterfall race is simply a race between two teams with an equal number of people. You use the same 6 rules as above except for rule #2. Instead of solvers flip the mazes over when start is called this becomes - the first solver flips over their maze when start is called. When they are done and say solved, only then can the next person on the team flip over and start their maze. This means only 1 person at a time is solving a maze on a team. If you want to make sure this is adhered to, give each team ONE writing utensil which must be passed from player to player as a maze is completed. Additional optional rule - no helping. You should use a different maze per slot on each team, because if you use the same maze for all competitors, once one solver on a team solves the maze, the temptation to see their work for clues is strong.

Some additional ideas to make the races even more competitive:

1. Solve 3 different mazes - For a bigger challenge place 3 different mazes in front of the solvers (they may solve them in any order they choose). The winner is the first to complete all 3 mazes correctly. This is better for large groups that are maze racing. A large group racing only 1 maze will most likely have a very close finish.

2. Solve 3 different maze types - Same as above but using 3 different types of maze constructions. I suggest one standard maze, a puzzle maze and an arrow maze. Each construction is solved in slightly different ways and presents a different challenge for the solvers.

Introducing : My Newly Designed 2 person Maze race competition mazes

I think all of the options work well above, but if that is still not quite what you are looking for I have designed mazes specifically for 2 person Maze Races ! So far we have the prototype example below, but I hope to add new versions and a dedicated section of the website once I have made enough ! How does the 2 person race work ? Well I have designed a maze on half the page ending in the center. I then copy that exact same maze on the top of the page inverted also ending in the center. This makes a page where 2 people sitting across from one another can race the same maze on the same piece of paper at one time ! Both are trying to reach the same center goal from different directions. I have made these to be printed on letter size paper, but the larger the paper they are printed on the better.

Some tips: 1. Consider taping this down to a table. In the rush and excitement of solving the maze can easily be moved…people get upset. 2. If this IS done, cover the maze by putting another piece of paper over the maze before the start so neither person can “pre-solve”. 3. Decide beforehand if the non writing hand can be on the table. Some players tend to want to block what they are doing from the other player. I suggest NO blocking the other persons site.

2 person Racing Maze

Single person Maze races

My attempt to make a maze race game for 1 person was the golf game mazes. How do these mazes work ? Well, like the game of golf your goal is to get the lowest score possible. The faster you solve a maze, the lower your score is. Each maze has a time and score printed on the page. In the example below, solving the maze in 30 seconds or under gets you a score of 3, etc.

golf game maze hole#2

This particular golf game as you can see sets scores with a range of times. So someone solving in 33 seconds and another in 42 seconds would tie. However, this can of course be adjusted so the raw time determines the winner. The scorecard was set-up specifically for one person challenges. Scoring well on the example above is often a case of luck in some of your early path choices. This is because the wrong pathways purposely do not dead end for a longer time than normal. Try for yourself and you should notice that wrong turns are not as apparent in the maze quickly.

Additional Maze Competition Ideas

1. Challenge yourself with any maze just by timing yourself to see how quickly you can solve it. Unfortunately, once you try to solve a maze, you’ll need to set it aside before trying to beat your score as the correct solution will come too easily.

2. Add some puzzles, math or word games into the race. I have a word puzzle book with 151 different word puzzles. While I mention missing maze types together for a competition, there is no reason you can’t mix in some real schoolwork. This gives a competition the added difficulty of using both speed, knowledge and accuracy to determine a winner.

Here is an example of what a 1 page sheet might look like for kids. Although any time you are making one for children it takes skill to line up the different subjects age appropriateness correctly. But if you are a teacher this should be much easier for you !

I hope you have found an idea to make your mazes more fun and competitive ! Happy mazing !

2 Person Maze Race

Other posts that may interest you:

The Top 12 Maze Generation Websites

The Largest Arrow Maze in the world (probably)

The 12 Best Maze / Labyrinth Movies of All Time

Can You Find the Maze Design Mistake ?

One of my favorite types of mazes to make is the Weaving Maze. I think the construction helps make relatively small mazes much more complicated to solve. It is certainly difficult to “eye solve” a weaving maze by quickly eliminating possible paths that have a dead end near the intersection you are at. But, it also presents some challenges for the maze maker and that’s what we talk about today.

When I wrote my How To Make A Maze blog post to show how I make a Weaving Maze, it became the only maze that got a second post with a revised, improved option. I was making so many of them (enough for multiple books on Amazon) that I came up with a new way to create them with a more consistent look. What I still have trouble with is breaking a key rule when creating the maze, and that is missing a path and letting it dead end under another path. How does it happen ? Well, during the construction there are many balls in the air (possible paths) so to speak. To make the paths weave there need to be multiple paths to cross over. Creating the maze can look a bit like chaos and mistakes get made. I have let multiple slip through the cracks during editing. Let’s see if you can find the mistakes and test your observation skills !

Here are the 2 main types of mistakes I made:

Examples of mistakes you might find.

Let’s get started with our first maze. When you are ready, scroll down to get the answer !

Observation Maze #1

Observation Maze #1 Answer.

I left a path under another and didn’t end it properly. Let’s try your luck another with this clover maze.

Observation Maze #2

Observation Maze #2 Answer.

Same mistake, new spot. Can you be money and solve the next one ?

Observation Maze #3

Observation Maze #3 Answer.

Another path to nowhere…How this next one ?

Observation Maze #4

Observation Maze #4 Answer.

Did you find the mistake hidden in the clouds ?

Observation Maze #5

Observation Maze #5 Answer

Did you reach home plate and find that one ? Did you find the almost mistake in the upper middle right ? The path only slightly comes out the other side. Let’s try a Spade Maze.

Observation Maze #6

Observation Maze #6 Answer

A dreaded double mistake ! I was looking to link those up I bet…probably ? How about this stop sign ?

Observation Maze #7

Observation Maze #7 Answer

How are you doing ? Eyes getting buggy ? Last one is the sailboat.

Observation Maze #8

Observation Maze #8 Answer

And that does it. My mistakes became a game. I’d like to say this is the last time we do this, but I know it is not !

The Name Maze Project Returns...Part 2 including Name Data

I have made a lot of Name mazes. And after awhile I got tired of only updating one page on the website. I expanded into new types of mazes and less repetitive maze making. In 2019 I made 1,499 name mazes. in 2020 I only made names when I got a request to make a name into a maze. Today I tell you about the updated names I added to Name maze section of the website. (If you are just interested in HOW to make a maze of your name, I have that covered.) Now the story of how I added new mazes.

Here were the stages I went through in Part 1 (to read the full blog click here):

Stage 1 - Names of my Close Friends and Family

Stage 2 - The Ten Most Popular Male and Female Names

Stage 3 - My LinkedIn Connections Names

Stage 4 - Close variations of Existing Names

Stage 5 - Top 100 Male/Female Names

Stage 6 - Top 200 Male/Female Names

Stage 7 - Top 300 Male /Female Names

Stage 8 - Regional names page - “The Land”

Stage 9 - Top European names

Stage 10 - Top Americas and Oceanic names

Stage 11 - Top African Names

Stage 11.1 - National Bubba Day

Stage 12 - Male names from Asia

Stage 13 - Female names from Asia

Stage 14 - Names from Movies

And now the new stuff:

Stage 15 - Name requests by readers

It was a long time between updates, but site visitors kept me busy throughout the year. Name mazes are always fun because I tend to get non-Western names since most of those are already covered on the site. New names added by request include Sadat, Farhan, Rehan, Protha and Fahim. And of course I always like to learn a new Z name like Zasia and Zarif. Overall I added 43 names from requests during this time frame.

Stage 16 - Dating Site name mining

I used a dating site, set the location to worldwide and picked the first 50 New names I did not have on the site. The worldwide search really gave me some diverse names. Eishah, Fyokla, Jamuna, Kaisa, Kia, Lupine, Miu, Neta, Rea, Remi, Shalina, Tiana, Yu, Yuko and Zsu all were added this way. I also captured some new calendar names with Summer, Autumn and May (June, August and April were already on the site). And of course if you add Dagny you need to add Ayn (it’s a rule). Overall with some spelling variations this added 58 new names to the site.

Stage 17 - Popular Names from Mexico

I want to continue to add more international names and Mexico seemed like a logical choice. Many names are spelling variations on existing names with an O or A added or an E becoming IO (Leonard became Leonardo, Marc became Marco, Maurice became Mauricio, and Justin became Justina for example) . Also there were a large number of Hispanic names already on the site from the Top 300 males/female US names. I was surprised I was missing Juana, Marco, Margarita and Arturo. This added 38 new names.

Stage 18 - Popular Names from India

I have been watching a lot of Bollywood movies and I notice so many new names. So I researched Indian names and found a list broken into 2 categories, Hindu, and Muslim. This gave me a nice long list of names to add ! My favorite section was when I added Tanisha, Manisha, Anisha, Nisha, and Isha. I just kept dropping one letter ! Anyway, I had gone 5 steps without adding any V names, but that was changed during this step with 3 new ones, Vinod, Vikash and Vijay ! I also added Zaid and Zuhaib to give the Z’s some love. Overall this added 59 new names to the website !

Stage 19 - Names I was surprised I missed

I ran the query for additional names that are not yet on the website for the next 100 male/female names and selected 12 names each that I was surprised have never made it onto the site. Surprised because I know people with the names or just because I thought they were more popular and already on there. Usually I don’t list every name I added in a section, but this time is an exception. I grouped them into these categories: Names of people I know, Evan, Stuart, Rudy, Lindsay, Lindsey, Joanna, Monique, Opal, and Sheryl. Popular names I missed: Blake, Devin, Damon, Dominic, Edmund, Grant, Homer, Neal, Rex, Brandi, Harriet, Lynda, Maggie, Natasha, and Whitney. AND THEN I said how about a few more and I added 16 more…

Name Maze Data

And now, I am going to go through some of the data from the names on the site. Maybe you find it interesting like I do. Maybe you like playing in spreadsheets like I do. For fun, see if you can guess the answers before I give them to you !

Most (and Least) Popular Starting Letter

The Letter that starts the most names on my site is A with 182, or over 10% of the total. This is followed by M,S,J,C,L, and R. These 7 letters represent over 50% of the starting letters (52.6%). None of these surprised me. The least popular letters did, however, led or not led? by the letter U with 2 and Q with 3. I have 6 X names, 14 O’s and 22 Z’s. I think I am going to work on finding more names with these letters.

Most (Least) Popular Ending Letter

Not too much surprise here with A leading the charge with 403. Both N and E are solid with 225 and 223. Add in Y with 147 and the first 4 letters represent 58.5% of all last letters. The worst performing ending letters on the site are Q at 3, X and W at 4, and J at 5.

Most Common Length of Names

The most common name length on the site is 5 from 467 Names, then 6 and 4. 11 is the longest which has been used 3 times, most commonly with Christopher. And the shortest name length is 2 which has been used 20 times. I did go to school with a guy named R but he didn’t make the cut.

Most Popular First 2 Letters

Of the 676 possible first two letter combinations to start a name, I have 197 of them on the site. These range from AA 3 times to ZY once. Any idea what the most common (by far) 2 letter combination is appearing 89 times ? MA. Next with 46 occurrences is AN, then AL (41) SA (40) and JA (39).

Double Letters used to start a name besides AA (Aaron, Aasha, Aarav), include LL (Lloyd) and, well that’s it. Only 4 names start with double letters.

Most Popular Second Letter

This was a blowout that I will have to make a bar bet out of somehow, A is used 457 times as a second letter in the name on my site, about 27% of the time. This is followed by E 228, 211 I , 191 O and 106 U. That’s an easy pattern to see. Vowels make up 70% of all second letters (But only 18% of first letters). All letters were represented except one……..X.

So what is next for name mazes ? What is Stage 20 ? Here are the options I am considering:

1. The next 100 names for men/women

I need to research the next 200 overall names, 100 from each gender (both thru #400). Hopefully a nice number of them are covered already on the site.

2. MORE Top international names

Keep with International by doing the most popular names in the world.

3. The uncommon letters

Search out names that start with uncommon letters like U, Q, X, Y, and Z

4. Maze the names of everyone I meet in a day

5. Pick a random sports roster and maze all names

Have an idea you’d like to see ? Let me know in the comments.