Announcement: Be excellent to each other.


Caravel Forum : Caravel Boards : Press Clippings : Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (Article I wrote with DROD art in it.)
New Topic New Poll Post Reply
Poster Message
ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (+5)  
I wrote this article on Medium about mazes. DROD people will get it. Also, it is filled up with screenshots from DROD where I used the editor to create example mazes. Technically, it is not an article about DROD, but... actually, it is full of DROD, and designed to send a few new players into the community.

Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall

If you like the article, maybe heart/follow me on Medium.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)
10-16-2016 at 02:38 AM
View Profile Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
uncopy2002
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 431
Registered: 07-28-2014
IP: Logged
icon Re: Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (0)  
#11: the maze is 3D.
10-16-2016 at 09:09 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts Quote Reply
disoriented
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 2379
Registered: 08-07-2007
IP: Logged

File: u.png (70.1 KB)
Downloaded 563 times.
License: Public Domain
icon Re: Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (+1)  
uncopy2002 wrote:
#11: the maze is 3D.

From the article:
Click here to view the secret text


____________________________
34th Skywatcher

Best to PM me, since I might miss your message on CaravelNet chat.

[Last edited by disoriented at 10-16-2016 09:34 AM]
10-16-2016 at 09:34 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 1638
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged
icon Re: Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (0)  
Somewhat along the lines of #3 and #5:

A maze constructed on the surface of a Torus [\shameless plug]

____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:
Click here to view the secret text

10-16-2016 at 01:45 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
uncopy2002
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 431
Registered: 07-28-2014
IP: Logged
icon Re: Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (+1)  
From the article:
Click here to view the secret text

Oops, I guess I didn't read it thoroughly. Too much stuff mentioned inside.

I suppose the algorithm is like this?

Click here to view the secret text


A maze constructed on the surface of a Torus

Hey, we haven't even mentioned general topological spaces yet, where regions are defined to connect to each other in peculiar ways, including one-way connections! I once did a thorough thinking about mazes in general topological spaces, and basically, if you actually try to map out such areas, you might get aperiodic tiling like Wang tiles, which means you need to look infinitely forward to actually determine where exactly you are!
10-16-2016 at 02:14 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts Quote Reply
ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (0)  
uncopy2002 wrote:
I suppose the algorithm is like this?

Suppose we always look at the direction we just moved. Then for the set of all possible directions of movement, we order them carefully, and in every turn, try them from the first in the list to the last, and take the first move that can be made.

Right-hand rule is a set ordered as [right, forward, left backward]. For higher dimension just add their respective directions onto the list.

I think your algorithm works if all the directions in the set are relative and not absolute. You wouldn't just add an absolute "up" and "down" to the set. It would be more like "turn up" and "turn down". The representation of you in the maze would rotate on an extra axis so that if you move absolute-down, you are then facing absolute-down at the next node, and moving relative-forward from that second node means continuing in the absolute-down direction.

I didn't try this out though. It could be wrong. There's probably an elegant way to do it with absolute directions in the set too. But it can't just be trying them in the same order on each node. That would make you stalemate between two nodes forever after reaching a dead-end node.

I bet somebody is going to link a paper that describes the solution in ruthless academic detail and ruin all the fun.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

[Last edited by ErikH2000 at 10-18-2016 06:04 AM]
10-18-2016 at 06:04 AM
View Profile Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
uncopy2002
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 431
Registered: 07-28-2014
IP: Logged
icon Re: Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (0)  
Oh, I was indeed referring to relative direction. So it's like a disarmed Beethro instead of wielding with a sword.
10-18-2016 at 10:44 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts Quote Reply
mtomato
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 05-16-2016
IP: Logged
icon Re: Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (+1)  
A maze without walls.

Imagine a room where the floor is made of pressure plates, and at the opposite end of the room is a closed door. The only way to open this door is to traverse this invisible maze made of pressure plates. Triggering a wrong pressure plate means that you have to start from the beginning, and there may or may not be a signal to let you know of your failure.

It's a pretty common puzzle in video games. The correct path may be revealed by clues or maybe the player has to find a map of the maze. Anyway, following the right wall is not going to work... except for on the map itself.

[Last edited by mtomato at 10-22-2016 12:13 AM]
10-22-2016 at 12:12 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts Quote Reply
ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (+1)  
mtomato wrote:
A maze without walls.

Imagine a room where the floor is made of pressure plates, and at the opposite end of the room is a closed door. The only way to open this door is to traverse this invisible maze made of pressure plates. Triggering a wrong pressure plate means that you have to start from the beginning, and there may or may not be a signal to let you know of your failure.
Sure!

I think this and the "moving walls" variation could be more broadly classified as a multi-state maze. Within that larger bucket, there are many interesting possibilities.

From a classic DROD player's perspective, your design is a No-No because it hides information. Sometimes, I wish for a DROD spinoff game that was perfectly fine with hidden information. I enjoy a good tar-over-the-walls maze at times. And deductive logic games like Minesweeper or any of the Everett Kaser games are quite fun.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)
10-22-2016 at 12:18 AM
View Profile Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
uncopy2002
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 431
Registered: 07-28-2014
IP: Logged
icon Re: Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (0)  
So, what if when you can also walk diagonally? You know, just like in DROD.

I'm currently too busy to formulate a thorough proof, but I think it'll break the algorithm easily because you can then make one-way trip segments that will catch a maze-traversing algorithm with a certain order of preferences in a dead loop, and then make the whole maze such that you require a>b and a<b, which simply cannot happen.
10-22-2016 at 08:31 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts Quote Reply
Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 3406
Registered: 09-10-2005
IP: Logged
icon Re: Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (+1)  
Conversely, does there exist a maze that can be solved by following the wrong wall?

____________________________
Click here to view the secret text

10-22-2016 at 10:12 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
New Topic New Poll Post Reply
Caravel Forum : Caravel Boards : Press Clippings : Top 10 Mazes You Can’t Solve By Following the Right Wall (Article I wrote with DROD art in it.)
Surf To:


Forum Rules:
Can I post a new topic? No
Can I reply? No
Can I read? Yes
HTML Enabled? No
UBBC Enabled? Yes
Words Filter Enable? No

Contact Us | CaravelGames.com

Powered by: tForum tForumHacks Edition b0.98.8
Originally created by Toan Huynh (Copyright © 2000)
Enhanced by the tForumHacks team and the Caravel team.