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As you may have noted in the MOTD, several new mazes are under development. As I write this, there are six currently online, but there are altogether about a dozen planned just for the Park.

You'll find there are several differnt flavors of maze in TC. The simplest are fixed: that is, they stay the same permanently. An example is the hedge maze just north of the Royal Gardens. Once you've learned it you can run it the same way each time.

But we also do dynamic mazes, which are possibly more interesting. Our current implementation changes these mazes each time the server reboots. Vampire Grove is an example of this type.

Future code will place an interestingly rich vocabulary of maze types at the disposal of world authors. There'll be mazes which change while the server runs; mazes which are unique for each character entering them; mazes in which the rooms or exits are generated dynamically each time someone moves from one room to the next; two and three dimensional versions of all these; and doubtless many others.

Have fun!

--Mark

Here's a note on how we're using mazes within the game fiction.

We don't use them simply as puzzles. Rather, we use them to help create feelings of danger, suspense, or confusion appropriate to the plot, or at least the fiction, at that location. And sometimes we'll use them as metaphors for something else.

Hopefully this isn't too coy to be helpful. I'm trying to drop hints here without giving the fun stuff away. Just mean to say, we use mazes thematically, not merely as puzzles without content.

Poobah

SmartMonsters' Bulletin Boards Post early, post often.

SmartMonsters' Bulletin Boards
Post early, post often.