Arrowmaze

Enter at the bottom and head for the top. At each arrow, you have a choice: follow the arrow to the one it points at, or jump over that arrow and land on on the next one in the same direction. You may not jump more than one arrow at a time, and you may not jump if there is nowhere to land.

Here are PostScript and PDF versions of the maze.

I scribbled this design more or less out of nowhere.

The rule came about when I found a packet of little brass clock-hand arrows at a teachers' supply store. (You can find all sorts of stuff at a teachers' supply store.) I figured I could thumbtack the arrows to my wall in some sort of pattern; so what kind of maze can you make out of arrows? This rule seemed to have potential.

I didn't know at first that the nodes would form a grid. But when I tried a few arrows on paper, testing designs, I realized that the angles would be indiscernable if I didn't limit them to a few possibilities.

(In retrospect, I should have used a hexagonal or triangular grid.)

Anyway, I drew a few nodes in a loop, and then added some more nodes that were tricky to get to, and then stuck some stuff on the bottom that was tricky to get out of. And then filled in the holes. Unless I made a mistake, there's only one solution (bar loops).

And then I went looking for the brass clock-hand arrows... and couldn't find them. I'll have to go back to that store, now.

Update...

I went back to the store. They had exactly one packet left, containing 36 arrows. You will note that the design contains 58 arrows. I had a miserable cold and I went home empty-handed.

Three weeks later, I found the original packet.

I went back to the store. Fortunately, they now had a full stock, so I didn't have to start the killing.

(click for larger image)

The colored thumbtacks divide the maze into regions. If you think this makes the puzzle easier, the colors are doing their job....

Last updated July 8, 2000.

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