Text 4 Oct Word-Fill 1

Find a four-letter word which completes all of the eight-letter words.

Text 22 Sep One-two-three, one-two-three.

As predicted, I’ve started to lag behind with my updates. But don’t despair, for here is a new maze. Begin in the room with the pink vortex, and make your way to the star. On your first step, move by only one room; on your next step, move two rooms in a straight line; then three. Continue with the cycle, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, always proceeding in a straight line.

You must move the full distance at each turn — so if by moving three steps in one direction you would bump into a wall at the third step, then you can’t go that way at all. Have fun!

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(My Inkscape skills may be improving, but remain yet lacklustre as this example shows.)

Text 17 Sep Magic Roundabout

Obey the arrows, alternating colours: red-blue-red-blue…

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Week One is now complete. What did you think? I don’t know if I can keep up the pace - at least, not without repeating myself. But a few of these ideas, such as the one above, will be worth revisiting anyway.

Text 16 Sep Tram Tracks Maze

Drive your tram from the depot (the green entrance at top left) to the station at the bottom right, outermost track; and then leave again via the green exit. Watch out, because your tram is not very bendy: if it should turn by an angle of more than 45 degrees, then it will snap.

Credit for this maze is diverse; I was originally inspired to show that Robert Abbot’s multi-state walk-through arrow mazes could be realised as plain path-following mazes. To do so, I borrowed as my fundamental building block the four-way junction called a Tetrathorp. By combining Tetrathorps in a grid, and then eliminating all impassable junction routes, it is possible to reproduce any orthogonal arrow maze in flat form. Further credit is also due to Andrea Gilbert and her Ringroad Maze, which does something similar, but in an infinitely more stylish way.

Text 15 Sep Sundown puzzle

I wanted to make a maze along the same lines as Monday’s puzzle, but nothing quite felt right. No matter what I tried, the choices of path were always too limited. So what I came up with instead is this hybrid, step-by-step word puzzle.

In this puzzle, you start at the SUN, and have to go down to the bottom level. You may descend only one level at a time, forming a new six-letter word at each step. So you might start off by going from SUN to HAT, making SUNHAT; and then from HAT to RED, making HATRED, and perhaps continuing RED - DEN, DEN - TAL, and so on until - hopefully - you get to the bottom. If you find you have no way to proceed, you may have to retrace your steps or try a completely different route.

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Text 14 Sep Number-Step Maze

Start from the green circle on the left. You may only move in a straight line, and only by the same distance as the number you are standing on — so your first move must be three spaces in a straight line. Finish by landing on the star.

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Text 13 Sep Eight Words Puzzle

A nice easy puzzle for Monday morning.  Make eight six-letter words out of these bits and pieces, using them all once each.

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Text 9 Sep No-straight-ahead maze

(This is a post that originally appeared on my blog.)

I made a maze. Enter and exit at the arrows. So that it’s not too easy, there’s a snag: when you come to a diamond junction, you must make a 90 degree turn, left or right. Going straight across (or turning back) is not allowed!

No-straight-ahead maze

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How many diamonds did you pass through?


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