My 10 Best blog posts of the year

So as we come to the end of the year I start to reflect on what I accomplished with the site and where I am going into the future. One thing I have never done before is look back on what (new) blog posts from the year performed the best. In this post I will pull them together, partly as a record for me, and so you can explore any you may have missed along the way !

THE 10 BEST MAZE-MAKING DESIGN TEMPLATES TO GET YOU STARTED

I saw an opportunity to expand an earlier post I had written with new material and updates. This post gives you 20 free downloads of different templates that are halfway complete with instructions on how to complete them and make a maze ! 10 of those are holiday themed and great for kids !

AN EXPLORATION INTO AI IMAGE MAZE GENERATION

Post #1 in my series that kicked off how text to image generators did creating mazes. If you click on this post you can read how each website did until you get to my summary….

WHAT I LEARNED USING AI TO MAKE MAZE ART

No surprise that this post does well. Earlier in the year I experimented with a variety of AI text to image generators to see how they compared on making mazes. This is post #15 in the series which summarizes what I found.

THE 10 MOST FAMOUS LABYRINTHS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Despite being a website dedicated to mazes and labyrinths I had never pulled together a list of famous labyrinths. The list is purposefully a bit quirky and contains places that most lists would not consider.

MAKING MAZES WITH AI: DEEPAI

Part of the AI series I mentioned above, this is the most popular site that people want to read about. A bit of a spoiler, DeepAI is not very good at making mazes, especially compared to other sites.

EXPLORING DIFFERENT WAYS TO SOLVE A MAZE

I initially made a similar post where I just wanted to ask people (using a poll) how they liked to solve mazes. This took me down a rabbit hole of research where I learned about things like Trémaux's Algorithm and the Pledge Algorithm Method.

MAKING MAZES WITH AI: AI IMAGE GENERATOR

I am going straight to the spoiler - I would use this site for inspiration to make a maze, but not much more.

MAZE OF THE WEEK #54 - HEYDAR ALIYEV CENTER MAZE

It is not always the most famous buildings that do the most traffic to the site (but it usually is). Located in Baku, Azerbaijan I have gotten notes thanking me for making it from the country.

10 PLACES WHERE YOU CAN BUY SPECTACULAR MAZE ART

Exactly what it says. Some of the biggest art sites have maze art, and some are lacking. Find out who is who here.

THE SURPRISING BENEFITS OF SOLVING MAZES

Everyone wants to know if mazes are good for your brain. Yes, yes, they are as explained here.

BONUS: My Blog Index was created earlier this year and has been very popular, so if you did not find anything you like above, I have over 500 blog posts to choose from there !

Maze of the Week #102 - Reindeer

Maze of the Week #102 is of a Reindeer. Once again I use a comic book style. If you are interested in Christmas Mazes for Kids, check this Christmas Maze collection out. Happy Holidays !

The Maze: Comic book style, easy, free hand drawn walls.

Reindeer Maze

I hope you enjoy the maze. Maze download is available on the homepage. Please check out my YouTube channel where you can watch this maze being made and solved!!

Coming next week:

Another holiday themed maze

Logic Mazes, an old games website with some very clever games !

I wanted to talk about and give a brief overview of the website Logic Mazes by Robert Abbott. I stumble across the website every once in awhile while doing searches and always find the puzzles I find there to be interesting. It looks like the site has not been updated in over a decade but I still find it to be fun (if a bit dated). The site says all items are copyrighted as of 2011, but sadly the owner and inventor of the site, Mr. Abbott passed away in 2018. You can read the story of his life if you are interested here. Many of the links on the site are bad, and the games also do not work, but I want to share with you the great ideas and the things that do work ! If you are a designer of puzzles this site is great inspiration from someone who created a large variety of games !

Here are the main sections of the website:

Five Easy Mazes - This section contains 5 conditional mazes - i.e. there are rules you need to follow to move through the maze correctly. If you want to learn more about conditional mazes I wrote a blog post talking abut 11 different versions.

Eyeball Mazes - this section does not work for me (no Javascript). The mazes can still be viewed and played but you won’t be able to see a solution if you get stuck. The mazes are a type of conditional maze.

Alice Mazes - this section does not work for me (no Javascript). Basically these are a version of Arrow Mazes, one of my favorite type of mazes to make and solve. Check out my Largest Arrow Maze in the World (probably).

Sliding Door Mazes - dynamic mazes where pathways and walls change as you move in the maze. These are really fun and the first time I have seen them. Unfortunately from the first time I played them until now they seem to no longer work on my computer. Hoping someone can bring these type of puzzles back to play !

Tilt Mazes - an on screen version of the wooden tilt mazes you played as a kid (or adult). No longer playable online, but you can “eye” solve them.

Number Mazes - lots of fun. different (and better) than my version. Still playable on the site. I think these are great to play.

Rolling Block Mazes - these have been featured on the Mensa website, so if you are looking for a challenge this is the maze for you. They would take half a page to explain, so it is best you read about them directly. And there are discussions of 14 different versions !

The Bureaucratic Maze - read a fun a story about performance art. Ever been stuck in bureaucratic nightmare ? Maybe it was a form of a maze !

Starry Night Maze - link is bad, but picture shows the maze in question (if you can read the directions !) from the cover of Games Magazine,

Theseus and the Minotaur - A game with all links broken except this one where you can download the game to play. I installed it and would describe it as a very 2008 style game.

Next there are sections talking about mazes in the real world - corn mazes, mazes in cities, events from the late 90’s and early 2000’s.

In the top right hand corner of the website is a link : Robert Abbott’s Games. The first thing you will see is recent news from August 10, 2008. On the overall page you can read about card games and board games invented by Robert Abbott and a few books that contain explanations of the card games.

In 1963 Abbott's New Card Games was published and you can find a few copies on Amazon for sale. It is 138 pages and teaches you how to play a variety of new card games Mr. Abbott invented.

Abbott's New Card Games book

As I was writing and researching this I saw many references to Games Magazine which I remembered from my visits to the doctor’s and dentist’s offices as a kid. I can confirm it still exits ! You can still subscribe to a print or digital edition !

Similar posts that might interest you:

The 5 best online maze games from Crazy Games

The 12 Most Important Retro Maze Video Games to Lose a Day With

A Tribute to Pac-Man

Maze of the Week #101 - Krampus

And so we continue. After a milestone with Maze #100, we keep moving along as transition into our Holiday mazes with Maze of the Week #101 of Krampus. This is not my first maze of Krampus, but it is my best, using a comic book style I started with MOTW #96 during Halloween. I would also like to wish you a happy Krampus Day on December 5. You can read about the history of Krampus on the Wikipedia page. Interested in free holiday mazes for kids ?

The Maze: Comic book style, easy, free hand drawn walls. Not someone I would want to meet in a dark alley - or even a well lit one !

Krampus Maze

I hope you enjoy the maze. Maze download is available on the homepage. Please check out my YouTube channel where you can watch this maze being made and solved!!

Coming next week:

Another holiday themed maze