Maze Books Made by Dad When He Was a Kid:

MAZE CRAZE - Volume II

Wherein my childhood fondness for the forgotten property of Blue Thunder is revealed in all its age-revealing glory. You should have seen my LEGO Blue Thunder I made! :)

Maze Craze #204

Book Number 4 - Republished Jan. 17, 2020

Maze Craze - Star Trek

1985! I bet I did the Time Machine one in '84, plus a few of these, too.

I'm guessing that I completed and published the previous book, Time Machine Chase, some time in 1984 as it was a major project that took me a lot of time. Some thing else that happened in 1984: The Return of the Jedi was released into theaters, and I'm sure its associated maze here was made shortly after the movie. That's the way it worked. As a kid, I had nothing but endless spare time to enjoy something and then immediately turn around and take that inspiration and spend hours on imitative works. I do want to thank my mom, however, for a steady supply of number two pencils and typing paper..

MAZES:

  • Spider-Man
  • A loose adaptation of the Atari 2600 Spider-Man game, in that it includes a lof of zigging and zagging, yet one that mercifully cuts all the falling and trying to web onto the building from the original.
  • Star Trek
  • This maze practically covers the first three Star Trek movies starring the original crew. You got V-Ger, Khan, plus a Bird of Prey with which to contend. It's a whole trilogy in one maze!
  • News
  • Not much of a maze, really, this kind of contest is basically a pick 'em and see if you were right, similar to the Star Wars maze from the first book. Only using Denver's local news outlets as of 1985 as the puzzle!
Maze Craze - Blue Thunder
  • BurgerTime
  • Another of the side-scrolling "platforming" style mazes I have built, these mazes rely on power-ups with limited uses, and a proper course plotted through a chosen path of obstacles using said power-up.
  • Blue Thunder
  • I don't know how many kids in 1985 were into Blue Thunder, but there were few who were into it as much as I was. Blue Thunder was a movie starring Roy Schneider about a stealth helicopter illegally spying on citizens. Precociously progressive!
  • Moon Buggy
  • Moon Buggy is inspired by the first "runner" video game to really capture my fancy, Moon Patrol (I just got its name wrong at the time). An auto-scroller, if you will, where you can speed up or slow down but you can't stop. Plaguing this journey is rough terrain, unexpected craters, and enemy UFO's. Despite the platforming nature of the original game, these obstacles better translated into a top-down maze. Maze Craze - Return of the Jedi
  • Return of the Jedi
  • This multi-maze was designed as a proper follow-up to my previous Empire Strikes back maze. I considered it far more successful than the previous Star Wars maze which was just a pick 'em like The News maze from this book.
  • 3D Tower Treasure
  • I suppose this kind of maze might be called a "structure maze" that you navigate via a logical set of passages from room to room along the structure, as if it was "real." This particaular version includes plenty of ladders, but no chutes NO CHUUUUUUUTES!
Maze Craze - 3D Tower Treasure

More Movies Than Games in This One

Even as video games became more and more sophisticated, as a kid at the time, it was hard to rival the flights of imagination that all the science fiction movies of the time were so excellent in providing. And to be honest, video games, movies, and a helping of the news remained my main media diet for a number of years. 1985 was a pretty cool time to be a kid in the U.S.

Maze Craze #204 PDF

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