Movin’ Maze: more paired movement

In various earlier post I presented mazes which are made more difficult because different objects are moving at the same time, constrained by specific rules. Movin’ Maze 3D (and the free version Movin’ Maze 3D Lite) presents yet another variation on this theme (a screenshot is shown to the right here). It is a nicely made puzzle, though there are so many options and possibilities that the puzzling aspect is a bit lost in the joyful chaos.

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Hidden Treasures: Cloning the clone

Robert Abbott’s Theseus and the Minotaur is one of the puzzles on the app store with more depth (see my earlier post for more details). In 2002 the game was cloned by PopCap for their online game Mummy Maze (shown here to the right). This game explicitly credits Robert Abbott, although this did not happen automatically (see this post for more details on that history). Yet, PopCap actually did add some new aspects to the puzzle. Those new additions are now cloned by a new iPhone game, though without any credit (once again).

KinWits: more multi-state by paired movement

One of the ways to make ‘virtual’ multi-state mazes is by using multiple moving figures. You will be in different parts of the maze depending on the combined position of all moving figures. I discussed a particularly nice example of such mazes in my previous post on Theseus. However, there is another puzzle of this kind in the app store: KinWits (there is also a free version of this puzzle to try it out). And if you wonder why this puzzle is a maze in the first place (it sure doesn’t look like one on face value), then read my primer on maze puzzles before you read the rest of this post.

Theseus: a multi-state maze by paired movement

If you can get hold of a copy of Robert Abbott’s books Mad Mazes and Super Mazes you should immediately buy them. Unfortunately, they are out of print now. These books really redefine what mazes are all about. They contain various ingenious variations on the multi-state theme: your position in the maze is actually different depending on how you got there. Although there are many ways to make such mazes (see for example my previous posts), Robert Abbott’s designs are as good as it can get. Now one of his multi-state maze designs (or ‘mazes with rules’ as he likes to call them) has hit the app store: Theseus (iTunes link).