Maze of the Week #17 - Tough Guy Lanes Sign Maze

Our 17th maze of the week features our second bowling alley sign maze. Bowling alleys really do have some great looking signs and I love to make them into mazes. From Pocatello, Idaho we have the Tough Guy Lanes Sign Maze. The maze construction is free drawn. Because the spacing and empty spaces on the sign are small this maze is less difficult than most featured mazes.

Some information about Tough Guy Lanes

What a great name for a bowling alley. Located at 403 E Lewis St, in Pocatello, Idaho, this bowling alley seems like a great place to knock down some pins. With a restaurant, lounge, birthday party packages, and tons of leagues to join, if I am ever in Pocatello, I will be stopping by !

My video to accompany this maze unfortunately shows some difficult times for the business during the covid outbreak, but you do get to see the inside and outside of the bowling alley, including the wonderful sign.

Check out Pinterest for a photo of this sign

The maze:

One version in full color.

Tough Guy Lanes Sign Maze

I hope you enjoy the maze. You can find downloads of the maze at the mazes permanent home.

Coming next week:

A maze of a monument that is very appropriate for this time of year !

Cube Zero (2004) Movie Review

Cube Zero (2004) IMDB Prime

I have previously reviewed the movie Cube which I enjoyed. The Cube concept is interesting and it starts out with a group of people waking up and don’t know where or why they are where they are. They end up being in an intersecting maze of cube rooms, each with it’s own particular booby trap that can kill them. Their goal is to survive and escape. This movie, Cube Zero, is the third in the trilogy.

The second movie in the trilogy is not reviewed on this site so I will do it now as a public service message.

Cube 2 : Hypercube (2002) IMDB Prime

It is terrible. Avoid. 3.6/10.

Okay now that I wasted our time on that back to our main movie, Cube Zero. What I like about this movie is that as they tell the story we learn the who and the why of people coming to be in the Cube. We also have a storyline that looks at the perspective of the workers who are managing the maze on a day to day basis. We get insight of what they think about the situation and how the Cube is monitoring the participants. They speak about the morals of what they are doing, which eventually leads to one of the workers entering the Cube to help save a person they think is there incorrectly.

If you found yourself watching the original movie and having a lot of questions, many of them are answered in this movie, but you’ll need to watch it yourself so this can be a spoiler free review.

I was entertained. I give it a 6.0/10.

Check out the trailer below.

Oh, Hi there. This movie has been out awhile, and that means you can usually find it streaming for free, like on YouTube, available through this link.

Additional posts and sections you may like:

Reviews of over 80 Maze and labyrinth movies

How to make over 40 different mazes

Want to know which maze movies are the best ?

Anonymous (2011) Movie Review

Anonymous (2011) IMDB Prime

I watch a lot of movies. Like a lot. And sometimes I seek out movies to watch that deal with labyrinths and mazes, but sometimes I am watching and I get a surprise. Anonymous was a surprise !

The overall story takes place in the UK during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. While portions of the movie occur in flashbacks the timeline centers on the end of her life and what will happen with her successor. This includes a rebellion against her, the Essex rebellion, and behind the scenes political machinations that accompany it.

But it is also a story about William Shakespeare and whether or not he is the writer of the plays attributed to him. This movies poses that the writer is actually the Earl of Oxford who cannot put his name of the plays for political reasons. Who really wrote the plays ?

But the movie is included here because it contains a maze ! Slightly over an hour into the film, the Earl of Oxford gets into a duel inside a hedge maze ! Check out the (very foggy) scene below that shows the maze from above !

The period piece is well acted and has wonderful costumes and a fun story. I give it a 6.9/10.

Check out the trailer below.

Additional posts and sections you may like:

Reviews of over 80 Maze and labyrinth movies

How to make over 40 different mazes

Want to know which maze movies are the best ?

Area Maze Book Reviews

Today I bring you a slightly different book review. I have covered what an Area Maze is before in my post about the 44 different types of mazes and labyrinths, but today I will go over it again. Let’s get into the 2 books !

The Original Area Mazes (2017) AMZN ; The Original Area Mazes, Volume 2 (2018) AMZN

from Workman Publishing, 228 Pages ; 201 Pages

by Naoki Inaba, Ryoichi Murakami

Area Mazes - Called a maze, but actually a type of logic puzzle from Japan created by Naoki Inaba. Used to teach Japan children mathematics and logic. Solving requires calculating the area of a rectangle, often multiple times (Area = length × width). Also called Menseki Meiro. If you would like to try to solve some, online area mazes can be found here.

What you need to know about Area Mazes: Each of the mazes is NOT drawn to scale. You cannot measure for an answer. You must use the formula Area = length × width and spatial reasoning to find the answer that you are being asked for. Each book starts with easier problems and gets more difficult as the book continues (ranked Levels 1-5). If you read this book digitally it includes links to see the solution as you move through the book !

Here is an example I made to show how to solve an Area Maze. You are trying to calculate the area of the grey box. Answer and reasoning below.

In the above example you would first solve the wall under the # 12. You solve the equation 4 * Y = 12. So Y = 3, meaning the bottom left side of the square has a length of 3. Now you can solve using the 3 and the 21 to calculate the length of the left side of the square above the 4. Solve 3 * Z = 21. The answer is 7. Continue this to solve the Area Maze. Top right wall =4. Area and answer is thus 4x4=16. How did you do ?

Well, that was a level 1 for sure. Shapes and calculations get very interesting as you get to the later chapters !

If you like Sudoku and similar puzzles, you will love these puzzles ! Excellent 9/10 !

Other blog posts you might like:

Maze books about the spirituality of mazes, or the history of physical mazes.

The 12 Best Maze and Labyrinth Movies Of All Time

Watchmojo's Best Maze Movie Scenes

How to make over 40 types of maze