All along, I had held that the most important thing about a maze was its structure. It is really good to be able to see how the structure leads from point A to point B. It is also fun to see how different structures can produce the same paths.
However, the most interesting mazes are those whose structures do not control the paths and there are no “rules” of how to reach a certain point in the maze.
When one first tries to draw such mazes, it seems impossible that there could be any structure at all. But as we start to plan out where walls go, and more importantly where they don’t go (since non-walls are what define a maze), we begin to see that there are real choices we can make in laying out our mazes.
I started making mazes because I wanted to create an art form which could usefully combine both technique and concept. I think it has turned out well.
Mazes are puzzles.
Most people will have seen mazes before in the form of labyrinths, but most people will have not seen mazes like what I am about to share with you.
A labyrinth is a maze which has a path or way out. Mazes are puzzles where there is no correct solution and therefore no known way out.
A maze can be solved by finding a route that connects the start and finish together, but this is not necessary and there is no guarantee that you can do it.
So how do they work? Well, the solution to solving a maze, is to solve it piece by piece. Instead of seeing the whole maze at once and trying to figure out the route all at once, section off each part of the maze and try to find the way through one small section at a time.
You can also use this method when approaching a maze as I will discuss later on.
Mazes also come in different styles. There are many different types of mazes which I will talk about in future posts, but for now let’s look at 4 basic types of mazes: Depth First Search (DFS), Breadth First Search (BFS), Recursive Backtracking (RBT) and Branching Paths (
It was the first time that I was exposed to post modern art. The idea behind this type of art is to question the viewers’ perception of reality by creating abstract noise, a sort of visual illusion that makes people look at an image in different ways and therefore think about it later. One example is a maze.
This idea is not new. Mazes have been constructed by man since the earliest civilizations and they were used as tests for individuals to pass through them and reach their goal in the fastest way possible while at the same time keeping their sanity.
These mazes were based on geometric shapes such as squares or triangles, like the famous labyrinth in Crete made by King Minos. These mazes also had a time limit or else the contestant would be killed by the Minotaur, a monster that was imprisoned in its center.
This tradition continued with other civilizations but it evolved into more complex designs and so did the associated myths and legends surrounding them. In some cases these mazes were used for initiation purposes, which is probably why they are based on geometric shapes and have a specific path to follow. Other mazes are more complex and don’t require any kind of guidance to get out of them because they are so difficult that they confuse whoever gets lost inside one: a
I think that the first thing to do is to ask yourself this question: What do you want out of your art? Do you want to make a lot of money? Do you want to be a famous artist? Do you want to be recognized for being an innovative genius? Do you want to break some boundaries or challenge some people’s beliefs in some way?
Do any of these things matter to you? If they do, then it might be easier to make those goals clear to yourself and then try to execute them. If they don’t, then you can make whatever art you like without worrying about whether or not it will sell or how it will be received.
What kind of art do I make, you may ask. Well, quite frankly, I have no idea what kind of art I am making. I’m making art that is influenced by a variety of sources, including many different kinds of contemporary art. It seems to me that the most important thing about my work is that it is original and spontaneous. I am trying to create something that has never been made before.
I think that if you really want your work to stand out, then there’s nothing that can substitute for being willing to take risks and break new ground. At least in my opinion.
When I was at school, art seemed to be divided into two categories. There was fine art, consisting of paintings and sculptures, and then there was everything else, which wasn’t quite as good.
But in the last few decades there have been a lot of changes in art. We have seen conceptual art and performance art and installations and a lot of other stuff I don’t really understand. Some of it I even like.
The most disturbing thing is that some people who say they like modern art don’t seem to like any particular piece so much as they like the idea that it is art. They seem to be saying “I am sophisticated enough to appreciate this, but you probably aren’t.”
That’s not very nice. When I go to an art gallery I want to see beautiful things or clever things or moving things. If I want to see something clever just for the sake of cleverness, I can read a book. And if I want to feel superior to other people, there are lots of ways other than going to an art gallery.
And while we’re on the subject: if you go up to a modern artist and ask what their work means, they will invariably tell you something pretentious. You could always ask them how they made it
Art is a problem. It can seem like an impossible problem. I don’t know if we’ll ever solve it. I don’t know if it’s worth solving.
I could go on in this vein, but it would just be more of the same. We’re all familiar with the feeling that art is a problem that no one can solve, or at least a problem that lots of people have opinions on but no one has solved, and so every generation keeps having to approach the same basic questions from scratch, with no hope of any kind of progress being made.
The bad news is that it’s true. Art is a problem like that. The good news is that art is a problem like that.
Art is a problem like that because it’s an art-like thing to happen. That’s not a tautology; there are other kinds of problems where you’d expect problems to happen, and they don’t happen as often or on the same scale as in art-like contexts (e.g., politics).
It’s not obvious what this “art-like” thing is; I’ll be trying to describe it here, which will be difficult because I think it’s necessarily oblique and intuitively hard to understand. And then maybe we
I was trying to create a maze that had a good sense of depth. I didn’t want it to be too easy for the player to see the whole maze at once and get the idea where to go next. And I wanted some dead ends, because I like dead ends. And I wanted it to be a maze that you could solve without getting hopelessly lost.
Trial and Error
I tried using various techniques to get depth, but realized there were two major problems with these techniques:
The first problem is that if there are multiple possible paths from starting point, in many cases the player will try going down each of them until he finds the one that works, or gets hopelessly lost. This gets frustrating after awhile, as he keeps finding himself back at the start with no solution in sight. The second problem is that if there are multiple possible paths from starting point, in many cases they look very similar, which makes it hard for the player to know which way he should continue in order to get out of the maze.
For example: If you start with a big square representing your level, then add lots of small paths on top of each other going every which way, you will get something like this:
You can see how there are many possible