Logic mazes, sometimes called mazes with rules or multi-state mazes, are

logic puzzle A logic puzzle is a puzzle deriving from the mathematical field of deduction. History The logic puzzle was first produced by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who is better known under his pen name Lewis Carroll, the author of ''Alice's Adventures in W ...

s with all the aspects of a

tour puzzle A tour puzzle is a puzzle in which the player travels around a board (usually but not necessarily two-dimensional) using a token which represents a character. Maze puzzles are often of this type. Sometimes the player has more than one token with ...

that fall outside of the scope of a typical maze. These mazes have special rules, sometimes including multiple states of the maze or navigator. A ruleset can be basic (such as "you cannot make left turns") or complex. Popular logic mazes include tilt mazes and other novel designs which usually increase the complexity of the maze, sometimes to the point that the maze has to be designed by a program to eliminate multiple paths.

History

Robert Abbott invented the logic maze. The first logic maze ever published, ''Traffic Maze in Floyd's Knob'', appeared in the October 1962 issue of ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

'' in the ''Mathematical Games'' column. Abbott 1997, pp. vii-ix

Examples

Theseus and the Minotaur Theseus and the Minotaur is a type of logic maze designed by Robert Abbott. In this maze, the player acts as Theseus, the king of Athens who is attempting to escape the Labyrinth. The main difference between this and the standard type of labyrin ...

'' is another of Abbott's better-known mazes. It first appeared in his book ''Mad Mazes''. Like ''Where are the Cows?'' in ''SuperMazes'', Abbott says that this "is the hardest maze in the book; in fact, it is possible that no one will solve it." Abbott 1990, pp. 34–35 Since then, several different versions of it have appeared, made by others, following the same theme, both on paper and in electronic forms. Additional examples include: *Area-mazes or A-mazes, which the area of the tile stepped on must alternately increase and decrease with every step. *Rolling dice mazes, in which a die is rolled onto cells based on various rules. *Number mazes, in which a grid of numbers is navigated by traveling the number shown on the current square. *Multi-State mazes, in which the rules for navigation change depending on how the maze has been navigated.

References

* * {{refend Logic puzzles Mazes