I ca n’t really “ survey ” The Maze of Games in a traditional sense , if only because it would take calendar month to work my way through the puzzles inside , discovering the various clew and interlocking answers that unlock still more puzzles ( and I fully intend to , eventually ) . I can say that the theoretical account tarradiddle about the Quaice children , Colleen and Samuel , has an old - fashioned storybook sense , yet they patter and spar with the Gatekeeper , a gaunt malefactor constantly delighted by his own sadism , in a very modern , witty manner . You might expect the eccentric in such a tale to be mere placeholders to tangle you from one puzzle to the next , but they have distinct personalities , and the ways they react to their bizarre predicament tot up a layer of tension to the transactions . Everything is set off by pitch - perfect art byPete venter .
As for the puzzles themselves , I ’ve not even begun to wrap my head around them . The book is construct out of a serial publication of four maze . You ’re render a mathematical function of each snarl , and as you hunt a way of your choosing through the maze , you ’ll come to elbow room marked with a playing card . Turn to the page in the book with the like playing bill of fare and you ’ll find a strange encounter wherein you must solve a puzzler to advance further through the snarl . It ’s a weird fantasyland the Quaices are cuckold , fill up with pirates and mad kings , magician and monsters . The departure to each maze is a metapuzzle involving the answer to all of that maze ’s interior puzzles . Thumbing through the Page I ’ve noticed crossword puzzles , logic puzzles , codes to be decrypted , mathematical mystifier , various combinations of puzzle types , and puzzles I do n’t consider have types because I ’ve never seen anything like them before .
The Maze of Games was supported by a highly successful Kickstarter campaign , and can presently be orderedvia Penny Arcade . There is currently an add - on Kickstarter ( already successfully funded ) foran audio book version narrate by Wil Wheaton , who does the voices of all the characters himself . Maze of Games writer Mike Selinker shared with us this antecedently unreleased snippet of Wheaton read the book ’s prologue , which serves both as a prevue of the book and a great example of the brilliant job Wheaton ’s doing with this audiobook .
Selinker also talked with us about The Maze of Games and why we be intimate puzzles so all-fired much .
io9 : I ’ve always loved puzzles , but I ’ve always been kind of horrendous at them . What book would you recommend to someone who wants to get better at solving and designing mystifier ?
Mike Selinker : There really was n’t anything like that until Thomas Snyder and I wrotePuzzlecraft : The Ultimate Guide on How to build Every Kind of Puzzle . Puzzles had always , not accidentally , been hide in mystery , and we coiffe out to , um , unshroud them a little . understand how all types of puzzler work is helpful in trying to figure out how to solve them , just like how understanding how a car works is helpful to deposit one . But no one had really write a manual before we set out to do so .
What got you concerned in teaser and game ?
Selinker : I was born ? I do n’t know , I ’ve always been deconstructing things and trying to put them back into some shape . Sometimes it ’s the same shape they started in , sometimes not . My mastermind specially crosscurrent apart words and meanings in ways I ca n’t really see to it . I will gaze at sign and realise that there ’s an underlying meaning the Divine never meant to provide , usually with some hilarity involve . If there ’s a divine force guiding the universe , he or she has left these jokes for us to fancy out , and I ’m not gon na let a joke go unnoticed if I ca n’t aid it .
Could you tell me a little about the logistical outgrowth of creating The Maze of Games ? With so many linked puzzles , it seems like a nightmare .
Selinker : Oh , it was a nightmare , but the kind of nightmare with evil clowns and flame lounge , like in Pink ’s “ Funhouse ” video . You roll in the hay , the good kind of nightmare . There were so many moving parts that my developer Gaby and I had to construct Excel file with pageboy number and art tilt in solve and unsolved order , and always rejigger everything every time we had a in force puzzle musical theme , or Pete came up with a fantastic fresh character illustration . Which was a lot of metre .
io9 : The Maze of Games is n’t just a collection of puzzles , there ’s an underlying story pulling the lecturer through each raw tangle and puzzle . What can you tell us about Colleen and Samuel and the Gatekeeper ? What led to using the previous nineteenth C for the mise en scene ?
Mike Selinker : I needed a fourth dimension before computers , before the distracting trappings of our complex world . I wanted a metre when playscript were just the good thing , the only matter . That way , when an evil smiling skeletal figure comes issuing out of it , you ’re paying very close attending , not looking for the holograph projector . The Gatekeeper is sure perceived by many as a theatrical performance of me : the orchestrator of some mad immersive puzzle resolution experience , who does n’t appear to manage so much that you survive as that he has a in effect time . And there ’s some of that . But I mean I ’m really more Colleen , the 14 - class - old who gets quarter into the world and wants to flex it to her will , despite the naggings of the humanity around , as represented by her erstwhile brother Sam . At least I was like Colleen as a kid , though I never attend as good in a pinafore as she does .
Is there a picky puzzle in the book that you ’re most proud of ?
Selinker : The overall metapuzzle in the book was one of the most complex constructions I ’ve ever been a part of devising , and I think Gaby and I pick apart it out of the park with that . It would not appal me if that take on a very long time for anyone to solve . We shall see . As for the item-by-item teaser , I have wads of favorite of mine : there ’s a pirate missive that ’s a particularly fun construction , and an abstract logic puzzle superimpose onto the back of a Snake that I like a tidy sum . And I ca n’t even distinguish you what eccentric of puzzle the Five of Hearts is , but it for certain bend my learning ability coming up with it .
The Maze of Games is already expanding beyond the page with the soundtrack and audiobook . Any sentiment on an alternate realness game , or any other ambitions ?
Selinker : Oh , I have many ambitions . I think the audiobook is a particularly ambitious thing that I ’m kind of obsessed with now . Wil Wheaton ’s story is wild and immersive , and the medicine by Austin Wintory , Marian Call , Kirby Krackle , and Paul & Storm is exactly what I get word when I think of this book in my head . But finally , I ’d love to see this become an entire multimedia system experience , fulfil all senses . For deterrent example , if Guillermo del Toro is read this , and wants to make a film out of it , he is encouraged to call my house immediately .
mystifier seem to have an almost universal appeal . What do you retrieve draw us to them , even when solving them offers no tangible reward ?
Selinker : Oh , I think it ’s the lack of touchable wages that ’s the detail . We all want to give ourselves license to be exceptional . So often in sprightliness , there are reasons to go along and just be average . But puzzles say , “ You there , the one with the pencil . Show me how clever you may be . ” There ’s no pressure , just a mother wit of import . I like being a part of bestow that to people ’s lives .
This is quite unrelated to Maze of Games , but I know you worked on the old SAGA RPG system , one of my all - time favorite game organisation . It ’s always gravel me that licensing issues prevent those from being reissue so new gamers can get them . Is there a chance that system could be resurrected without the Dragonlance or Marvel licenses , perhaps in a fresh variation ?
Selinker : Well , that ’s not my matter to give away , because it ’s attribute of my Quaker at Wizards of the Coast . I will say that working on that Marvel plot was one of the most pleasurable experience of my sprightliness , and has led me to work on a half - dozen other Marvel game since ( the most recent : I wrote Deadpool and a lot of other theatrical role for the Marvel Heroes online game ) . It also taught me a lot about storytelling , especially the superhero motive : that , absent a great villain and his villainy , the characters will sit down around doing nothing . That ’s probably what made the doorkeeper into what he is . He ’s a primeval force-out in the macrocosm , just like you ’d find in Marvel . And he wears a very courteous hat .
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