Maze of the Week #99 - Berlin Planetarium

Maze of the Week #99 takes us to the capital of Germany, with a maze of the Berlin Planetarium, and specifically the Zeiss-Großplanetarium (Zeiss Grand Planetarium). This maze has a lot of similarities to my maze of Spaceship Earth at Epcot Center. I visited Berlin and really enjoyed the city a lot but am upset that I did not visit this planetarium.

YouTube: In German, but at 10 second mark you get a good look at the building !

Photo: flickr, hosszuka. I like the skyline shadows on the planetarium in this photo.

flickr, hosszuka

The Maze: Black and white. Draw and cut construction. I considered hiding a message in the solution…but did not ?

Berlin Planetarium Maze

I hope you enjoy the maze. Maze download is available on the homepage. Please check out my YouTube channel where you can watch this maze being made and solved!!

Coming next week:

Maze #100 - A large scale maze I hope you’ll love !

Case Study#8 - Improving Previous Mazes

In my first 7 case studies I took half finished mazes or completed mazes that weren’t very good and improved them. If you want to read those case studies the links are at the end of the post. Today I want to take you through a series of mazes I was happy with, but still thought it could be improved and challenged myself to do the slow work of improving it.

I asked a friend for some feedback and they thought every color maze was better than every black and white maze, with only a few exceptions. My thought was, let’s take the time to color a few mazes of the week from this week and see if color improves them or not. I ended up doing 9 different mazes, with 2 getting a lot of extra attention. Today we look at 7 of the mazes.

Museo Soumaya Maze

Let’s look at that original maze, also known as the ‘before’:

The building has a unique shape, and while it is a black and white maze I did give the leaves that cover the front color so people could see what it was. The revised maze:

Some simple coloring, but shadows give the building more shape. I think this is a slight improvement !

Heydar Aliyev Center Maze

A beautiful white building seemed natural to stay black and white.

But in the revision I added a blue sky that helps to pop the white building more, and added shadows to give the unique building more shape on the page. Personally, I think these minor changes make the maze much better !

Lotus Temple Maze
This is another building that is an off white color so I left it in greyscale. I did originally add shadows to the maze to show the unique shape, and that really worked.

For the revision I added a sky, an expanded pathway and grasses. I’m not sure if this is an improvement. I think I prefer the original.

George Rogers Clark Memorial Maze
This was a random maze I made because I liked the building. I also liked how it looked in black and white.

The revision only includes 4 colors and gives you a better feeling of what the building actually looks like. Either maze is ok for me. I considered shadows…but no.

Bagan Temple Maze
I did this maze off of a photo I took and used a different technique of drawing different spaced and thickness lines to make it. I generally do not use this technique anymore. I also no longer “maze” the sky.

Adding color inside the frame makes this look different, almost like a postcard. I think I prefer the original, but in color it is ok.

Pro Football Hall of Fame Maze

I always knew this should be in color. The stones on the building are multicolored. I have done individual brick/stone colors before and it is tedious.

But I think the addition of color, especially with the plants in front and the small windows on the football roof make this much better in color (even if I went with one brown for the stones).

Elm Road Theater Sign

This weeks maze was a last minute switch ! Here is the original.

And here is the much more colorful version! I like both, but the colors really pop and give you a better sense of what the drive in sign looks like !

So that concludes this case study…some mazes look better in color, while others do not. Overall adding color is a good thing thought because when it works, it really works. So that was 7 mazes of the 9 I colored. The other 2 mazes get their own case studies (#9 and #10) because I did more work on them, and have more to discuss besides a before and after. Also, they look great (IMO) so stop by soon and read about them !

If you want to read the previous 7 case studies:

Case Study#1 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Tiki Totem Maze

Case Study#2 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Danzante Conchero Chichimeca Maze

Case Study#3 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Red Rocks Amphitheatre Maze

Case Study#4 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - The Hollywood Sign

Case Study #5 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Severance Hall

Case Study#6 - How to Improve a Maze - Uxmal

Case Study#7 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Ship

Marble Mazes - A Great Gift for Kids

I have always been a fan of marble mazes. My cousins had one when I was a child and I would always play it when I spent time at their house. It was wooden with a dark brown base and a light brown top. There were handles on the side to tilt the playing board in 4 directions but I always preferred to hold it and tilt it myself. There was a determined path shown you needed to use and I may be exaggerating but I think I am 0 for 1,274 in solving it. Perfect if my goal was NOT solving it. The problem with the maze was there was only 1 path and I couldn’t do it.

And now I want to try again. I should be better at this by now, right ? When I did some browsing online to shop for one I noticed that there seems to be a large number of plastic gravity versions - those are not for me. I want a wooden game just like I played as a kid. If I had a soapbox to stand on (I do not) I would mention how much better wooden games are to plastic games no matter what type of game it is. This makes a perfect STEM gift. Ages are typically quoted as 6 and up.

Here are the 3 best options I found:

STERLING Games Large Wooden Labyrinth 13.5" x 13"

Available on AMZN and at Walmart. Appears to be the best selling (or possibly most advertised) wooden marble maze in the market.

STERLING Games Large Wooden Labyrinth

Hey! Play! Wooden Labyrinth Maze Game 11" x 9.25"

Available at Walmart. A smaller and less expensive version of the wooden tilt marble maze.

Hey! Play! Wooden Labyrinth.

Leikes Wooden Labyrinth Game Marble Maze 12.8” x 9.1”

An interesting variation of the marble maze for young children (oddly enough the suggestion is ages 9 and up…but the picture shows a young child?). The maze is covered with plastic so the ball cannot fall out of the maze. Also, while you can go down a dead end, there is no “fail” where you need to start over !

Leikes Wooden Labyrinth Game Marble Maze

Before you click and buy anything, I would also suggest checking ebay as there are always wooden marble games for sale there.

A-Maze-ing Fun: Ravensburger's Labyrinth Board Games

I wanted to take some time to look at the board game Labyrinth by Ravensburger. I was browsing around my local Target and saw the game and decided to look into a bit of the history of the game. We know I love anything to do with mazes and labyrinths and maybe this would make a good gift (SPOILER: it does !).

The History

Ravensburger’s Labyrinth board game was designed by Max Kobbert and published in 1986. Kobbert was a German psychologist who was interested in creating games that would help children develop their problem-solving skills. Starting with the game Colomino in 1973, Kobbert started his long history of developing over 25 board based games, many based on labyrinths. In 1986, Labyrinth was an immediate success when it was first released. It was praised for its simple gameplay, its challenging maze, and its educational value. The game has been translated into over 30 languages and has sold over 15 million copies worldwide.

Gameplay

Labyrinth is a competitive game for two to four players, ages 8 and up. The game board is a maze of tiles, and players race to collect all of their treasures and return to their starting space. The maze can change every turn as players slide tiles in and out. During your turn your goal is to reach the character in the maze that matches the first card in your hand by following the pathways on the board. You may also use a tile to slide the maze on the board to help you get there (or block other players from moving in the board).

Here are some of the reasons why the game Labyrinth has been so successful:

• It is a simple game to learn, but it can be challenging to master.

• The maze is constantly changing, so players have to be strategic in their movements.

• The game is competitive, but it is also cooperative. Players have to work together to collect all of the treasures, but they also have to compete to reach the finish line first.

• The game is educational. It can help players to develop their problem-solving skills and their spatial reasoning skills.

Labyrinth versions:

The success of the game led to new versions of it throughout the years. Initially those versions were not branded, like Junior Labyrinth (1995), Master Labyrinth (1991), Secret Labyrinth (1998), Labyrinth: The Card Game (2000) and 3D Labyrinth (2002). In 2003 co-branded versions of the popular game began with a collaboration with the book/movie Lord of the Rings. The success led to more co-branded games:

• The Lord of the Rings Labyrinth (2003)

• Star Wars Labyrinth (2012)

• The Amazing Spider-Man Labyrinth (2012)

• Disney's Frozen Labyrinth (2014)

• Marvel Heroes Labyrinth (2015)

• Sonic the Hedgehog Labyrinth (2017)

• SpongeBob SquarePants Labyrinth (2018)

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Labyrinth (2019)

• Harry Potter (2019)

• Pokémon Labyrinth (2021)

• Super Mario Labyrinth (2021)

• Disney Villains (2022)

As of this writing, there are currently 8 games available on the Ravensburger site, shown below, while the older games can be found for sale on sites like ebay:

If you are looking for a fun family game, this would make a great gift !

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