Maze solve the worlds most challenging puzzle solution
Maze: Solve the World's Most Challenging Puzzle
🔍
This website is a web version of Christopher Manson's 1985 book,
Maze: Solve the World's Most Challenging Puzzle
. The rooms are implemented as clickable HTML image maps, but you are free to move to any room by clicking the numbers at the bottom of each page.
I'm Al Sweigart. I write books that teach beginners to program and put them on my website for free. I began playing Blue Prince in May of 2025 and was absolutely astounded. Blue Prince is a masterpiece; the fulfilled vision of 1993's Myst. Looking into the history of Blue Prince led me to one of its key inspirations, the 1985 book
Maze
by Christopher Manson, who also contributed artwork to Blue Prince.
I'm now engaged in exploring Maze, and created this website to share this out-of-print book with others.
DIRECTIONS
(begin here)
Original contest rules
Special thanks to Jack for helping me create this site.
Text from Back Cover:
I invite you to enter my Maze. I say it is mine, because despite who else I might be, I am the architect as well as your guide. Your first goal is to find the shortest route through the Maze—a simple task, I assure you, i
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/MazeSolveTheWorldsMostChallengingPuzzle
"This is not really a book. It's a building in the shape of a book."
Maze
(or
Maze: Solve the World's Most Challenging Puzzle
to use its full title) is a 1985... puzzle book(?) written by Christopher Manson.
A group of people have decided to enter the Maze, which is basically a giant mansion with lots of rooms (only 45 are shown, but it's heavily implied there are many more). The challenge is to get from Room 1 to Room 45 and back to Room 1 again, using the various clues in the rooms and vague bits of info provided by the book's First-Person Smartass who also serves as the Maze's owner and guide.
The book has 48 pages, 45 for the rooms and 3 for the introduction/directions. In each elaborately detailed drawing, readers will have the option of 1 to 9 doors to choose from in each room which will lead them to another one. Sharp and smart readers will see past all the red herrings and be able to get from the beginning to the end to the beginning in 16 moves, which is the shortest known path. Not-so-bright readers will soon find themselves going in circles or even ending up in a room
By Angus Stewart
All abstract creations, with or without batteries, long to abduct the easily-led. Take for instance this potent example: a book which locked I and others just as pliable in thrall. A work of art which once was analogue but now persists eternal, online. It is still interfering with humanity. Halfway through my life-to-date I encountered it, and lately it has been preying upon my thoughts, calling its name…
MAZE
.
Or in full,
MAZE: Solve the World’s Most Challenging Puzzle
. It has never been completely solved. Inside its 90-page labyrinth, each verso bears a hundred or so words, describing a room or passageway illustrated on the recto. Each such place — with one troubling exception — contains doors. Adorning each door is a number from 1 to 45, and by choosing your door you take your next step through the maze.
In the Directions, we are told ‘this is not really a book’ at all. We are challenged to…
Find a 16-step path from room 1 to room 45 and back again.
Find the riddle in room 45.
Find the answer to the riddle of room 45 along the 16-step path.
The 16-step path is
MAZE
’s simplest problem, resolved by careful mapping. But each step is supposed to be
Sun, May 22 2016 02:44 AM
05/22/2016 - 04:44
07/04/2016 - 23:44
EST
Can You Solve the World's Most Challenging Puzzle?
I invite you to enter my Maze. I say it is mine, because despite who else I might be, I am the architect as well as your guide. Your first goal is to find the shortest route through the Maze - a simple task, I assure you, if you know what to look for. I have planted clues throughout for your interpretation - or misinterpretation. Indeed, you will be fascinated by the Maze's ambiguity, stimulated by its mystery, stymied by its riddle. But fear not! I will be with you all the way. Fear not, that is, if you truly believe that my clues or I can be trusted.
-=-=-=-=-=--=-
That was the invitation to the old book I have been getting into a while back. It's a book that is, well I don't know what it is and neither do a lot. The puzzle building is really about us and what we decide it is. It is a good book. I even redrew a bunch of the book all below.
a provided eXample!
Directions are here if you want them though I don't think they're absolutely necessary. This is your world, your journey through the rooms if you want. I don't want to call it in its