The object is to navigate your way to the center of a mansion and back out again. The book contains little text, but has full-page pen-and-ink drawings depicting each room, most of which have two or more exits and contain visual clues as to which course to take. The “reader” turns to the page corresponding to the chosen door. Wrong choices can lead you in circles or into a room with no exit. Unlike most interactive games, it’s not immediately obvious what the “puzzles” or “riddles” are; it’s just a series of rooms filled with strange objects and insignias.
I remember this. There’s some text, kind of a rolling commentary in a very dry voice. Lots of pen and ink crosshatched type of drawings, and no lead-you-by-the-nose clues to any of the puzzles. I never did figure it out. I’m going to try to look it up online…
Maze! I have this book, and never solved it. I bet if I sat down and drew a chart I could figure out a way, but that would take all the fun out of it. Anybody know what the “great mystery” at the final room refers to?
Okay, I just went through the online version, and after 11 rooms I found myself in, I think, Room 24, the room of unlimited darkness, and there were no doorways out! What’s up with that? I guess I’ll have to see if I can find the book somewhere now. Thanks a lot for getting me into this! /sarcasm!
Wow, you guys are good. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who was completely flummoxed by it. It’s been a few years, and I thought I might try again, despite my nagging suspicion that the whole thing’s a hoax and there are no real clues.
The pictures in the online version are kind of low-res. I plan to buy this book either way, but do people who have played the print version think I’m missing a lot by playing online? Like in room 27, there’s an inscription I can’t read.
Fans of this book must, MUST check out this link. It has rec.puzzles theories on the solution, on the identity of the narrator, and even has hints that were released by the publisher.
Oh, and BraheSilver, I can tell you from personal experience that a chart will NOT help you. Without the key insight, you will be hopelessly lost forever…
The online version is correct. In fact, it is overcorrect - it is possible to solve the puzzle, which happens to give you slightly more information in that format than in the book.
To reiterate what Leaper said previously: charting or “method of exhaustion” approaches will not work, without a specific insight which you cannot arrive at if you only try the graph approach.
(Incidentally, I caution people wishing to solve this on their own not to attempt a websearch on the contents of the book. Unfortunately, Google’s summary of some pages contains a direct spoiler for the solution.)
I have this one myself and thought it was well done. I did figure out the “trick” to getting through the entire maze and made it to the final room and back out. (I also did a shortest-path algorithm solution that I have floating around somewhere.)
The “trick” is there is one room with a door that is disguised as a table. The door is “hidden” in that the doorknob looks as if it is the top of a staff a character in the foreground is holding and the number on the door looks like it is part of a candle holder also in the foreground. The door number is upside down as well, iirc. I’m pretty sure the door led to room 17 but know that you cannot complete the maze without using this door.
I never did fully figure out who the protaganist of the maze was supposed to be, even though there are supposedly clues along the way. I have a theory but nothing to really back it up. I’m going to check Leaper’s link to see if it agrees with me.
I have to admit that the online verison is a lot better than the book version - Nope, I don’t own the book and I think it must be a really good book to own - but the on the net verison you can see which rooms you have been to, 'cos the links will have the visited state (for my browser and settings, it’s a purple colour if the link has been visited).
But regarding the hidden door mentioned in the post above, does the Net version shows the link, or does it cleverly uses an image map, or something?
OK, so has anyone actually solved this thing? I don’t mean figuring out the route by trial and error but doing it the way it (apparently) was meant to be done: interpreting the clues along the way to guide you through the correct sequence of rooms?
