I have written before that I would like to someday open a maze museum. I just need to find the right location - ideally one that already has mazes or labyrinths in their history, and is large enough to draw a nice crowd, but also not such a large city that it impossible to afford. Also, I need a few million dollars. Maybe more than a few. Ah, Dreams.
I love to review maze movies and one of the consistent themes are haunted houses. They are usually presented as mazes…but have you been to a haunted house with choice in direction ? (not many). Haunted houses are actually labyrinths. Another theme that has come up in maze movies are escape rooms. Those are puzzles, and some involve solving mazes. Anyway this got me thinking…..
The Full Building Maze
Imagine a maze that is located in a full sized building. Let’s talk about the size and the maze experience.
The building is large, possibly an entire small city block and 8 stories tall or similar.
You enter the building, and after paying take an elevator to the top floor.
When the doors open you step out of the elevator into a fully mazed floor.
Each floor has a different theme or difficulty - I am brainstorming here but here are some ideas
8th floor - maze walls are not completely to the ceiling, making it easier to get a perspective on the maze and see where you might want to go
7th floor - maze is more difficult - walls go the the ceiling. you can see down to the lower floor in the center and maybe yell down to help people stuck in….
6th floor - this floor is full of rooms with interconnecting doors, so you need to move room to room. Each room is themed. Have you ever heard of the famous Winchester Mystery house in San Jose ? Here is a floor plan of it to give you an idea !
Floor plan of the Winchester Mystery Mansion [image source: Pinterest]
o 5th floor - obstacle course - this floor is a labyrinth so no choices exist except for a first choice - do you want to take the easy or medium difficulty obstacle pathway
o 4th floor - glass and mirror walls on this floor to disorient you
o 3rd floor - in the dark - not 100% but very hard to see
o 2nd floor - clues and puzzles must be solved to move to the next room, similar to an escape room
o Ground - exit into a courtyard for refreshments and snacks
There are stairwells that go between floors - some even skip a floor ! Stairwells to nowhere !
The ground floor refreshments change to a bar at night after the kids are gone !
I would love some MC Escher themed spaces within the maze
I tried using a few AI image generators to make some images of what this might look like. They did not do a great job, but I did get these:
created with Craiyon
created with Craiyon
I am realistic. There is a shortage of housing and a building this big would cost a ton to outfit and maintain. This would lose a significant amount of money. How about one of the many empty office buildings that are empty now that we are working from home ?
I think this would be fun. I will make it if I become a trillionaire.