Maze - Other Types of Mazes

Other Types of Mazes

Ball-in-a-maze puzzles

Dexterity puzzles which involve navigating a ball through a maze or labyrinth.

Block maze

A maze where the player must complete or clear the maze pathway by positioning blocks. Blocks may slide into place or be put down. An example is shown below.

Logic mazes

See Logic maze. These are like standard mazes except they use rules other than "don't cross the lines" to restrict motion.

Loops and Traps Maze

A maze that features one-way doors. The doors can lead to the correct path or create traps that divert you from the correct path and lead you to the starting point. You may not return through a door which you have entered, so dead ends may be created. The path is a series of loops interrupted by doors. The Halloween Maze in Ridgewood NJ is an example of this type of maze. Through the use of reciprocal doors, the correct path can intersect the incorrect path on a single plane. A graphical variant of this maze type is an arrow maze, shown below.

Mazes in higher dimensions

It is possible for a maze to have three or more dimensions. A maze with bridges is three dimensional, and some natural cave systems are three dimensional mazes. The computer game Descent utilized fully three dimensional mazes. Any maze can be mapped into a higher dimension without changing its topology.

Number maze

A maze where numbers are used to determine jumps that form a pathway, allowing for a maze to criss cross itself many times. An example is shown below.

Picture maze

A standard maze that forms a picture when solved.

Turf mazes and Mizmazes

A pattern like a long rope folded up, without any junctions or crossings.

• Sampling of maze types, also available in a printable view and with a solution key.

• Standard maze: Find a path from and back to the star.

• Loops and traps maze: Follow the arrows from and back to the star

• Block maze: Fill in four blocks to make a road connecting the stars. No diagonals.

• Number maze: Begin and end at the star. Using the number in your space, jump that number of blocks in a straight line to a new space. No diagonals.