Welcome to Part 6 of our Arrow Maze Design Case study. We will look at the Double Arrow today, The double arrow makes the solver jump over the block next to it in the direction the arrow is pointed (or over a gap in the maze). It adds an interesting element and enjoyment for the solver to the maze and complicates the solving of the maze.

Here is an overview of what we will be covering in the 14 part series:

Arrow Maze Construction and Design:

• Part 1 - Start Locations and Options

• Part 2 - Using Creative Shapes

• Part 3 - Intersections

• Part 4 - Using Loops

Arrow Maze Components:

• Part 5 - Regular Arrows

• Part 6 - Double Arrows

• Part 7 - Using the START GOAL

• Part 8 - Return to Start Block

• Part 9 - Using Warp Zones

• Part 10 - Slide Arrows

• Part 11 - All Ways Arrow

• Part 12 - Long Arrow Use

Extreme Arrow Maze examples:

• Part 13 - Kitchen Sink Examples

• Part 14 - The Largest Arrow Maze in the World (I think)

Arrow Maze Design Case Study - Part 6 - Double Arrows

To review what a double arrow is, it is an arrow that jumps you over the block or gap in the direction the double arrow is pointed. For my first example I will use a 9 x 13 landscape Arrow Maze, with this iteration using mostly Double arrows. Take some time to solve the maze and see how you like it.

For me this is a fun solve, how about you ? I find it is easy to get lost and make a misstep when executing a correct solve. Notice that because of the use of the double arrow to return to START, while our regular arrow maze example in Part 5 had 4 possible starting pathways, this allows 5 starting pathways…so you get a 20% chance of solving this correctly by guessing.

One thing about this maze, is that because of the double arrows alignment it is very difficult (almost impossible) to use ONLY double arrows to make a complete maze. To make this maze more complicated (and fun IMO) you could easily add some choice arrows throughout the maze.

Let’s look at this maze color-coded so we can see the design elements of the pathways:

Red is the correct pathway. Green, Blue and Yellow are incorrect pathways, with Purple a short “filler” incorrect pathway. All black arrows are filler (which could have easily been used with a pathway if I had used some choice arrows). Even with the pathways color coded, the pathways can be difficult to follow (at least compared to color-coded regular arrow pathways).

We will come back to this arrow construction in future case studies because it is so versatile. To really take advantage of this arrow I like to use it to jump across spaces. Below is an Arrow Maze from my upcoming book (page 53 !) where I use the double arrow 4 times as an island block and 7 times to jump gaps that otherwise be uncrossable (including the dreaded go back to START).

The Double Arrow is a great block to use to get into and out of tight spaces and to cross over gaps in an arrow maze.

In Part 7 I will review the very Special START / GOAL block.