Maze Books Made by Dad When He Was a Kid:

MAZE CRAZE - A Division of Monster Mash

From 1983 to 1986 a friend and I made a series of maze books based on games or movies that caught our fancy at the time.

Crestwood House Godzilla Book

MAZE CRAZE Volume II - 1983-1986

Volume 2 of Maze Craze is really the only volume that I can share with you. Volume 1 was really a collection of mazes I had been drawing throughout childhood, mostly on graph paper. But it wasn't just me, making them, and it didn't start with mazes, it started with monsters. My best childhood friend Johnathan and I had been getting together and watching Japanese "Kaiju" monster movies on sleepovers for quite a while.

Maze Craze Atari 2600

MONSTER MASH is Born

Johnathan and I began writing and illustrating our own Kaiju stories, starting probably at the age of 8 or 9, under the startlingly-original made-up publishing company name of Monster Mash. If I remember correctly, Johnathan and I has a "merger" of Maze Craze and Monster Mash, bringing the minimal maze efforts I had done on my own under the powerful Monster Mash publishing banner in a renewed effort. Eventually, I moved entirely from making Monster Mash books to Maze Craze books.

How To Win at Video Games

Making Mazes at Childhood's End

You'll hopefully get a look at some of the worthy, surviving remnants of Volume 1 of Maze Craze at some point. My friend and I would "test run" our mazes on each other--build them throughout the week and then referree for each other's attempts to solve them on the weekend.

Maze Craze #1

Video Game Inspiration:

At around this time my interest in video games was flourishing, nurtured in the very first arcades sprouting up in our area, and really extended when I got an Atari 2600 and joined the Atai Fan Club. I can't imagine, looking back, that Maze Craze must have been named after the Atari 2600 game.

Maze Craze

Dad Was Maybe a Weird Kid:

Once Volume 2 was launched, I got fairly ambitious about these and continued to make them on typing paper instead of graph paper. I reached an age where I quit making them, but I always held onto them. And now, looking back and seeing them as some form of clever nostalgia for classic video games, I have decided to share them.

For Screen or For Paper:

You will find a printable PDF for each of these maze books, along with the online version. I hope you enjoy!

MAZE CRAZE - Volume 2, Number 1 - Centipede, Star Wars: Exhaust Port, Time Pilot, Donkey Kong Jr., Tomb of the Pharoah, The Empire Strikes Back, Ms. Pac-Man, Defender, Tron #2

MAZE CRAZE - Volume 2, Number 2 - Gold Digger, Dungeons & Dragons, Phoenix, Pac-Man's Dinner, Donkey Kong Jr. #3, Tron #3, Death Area of Glorbox, Popeye, Pole Position

MAZE CRAZE - Volume 2, Number 3 - Time Machine Chase

MAZE CRAZE - Volume 2, Number 4 - Spider-Man, Star Trek, The News, BurgerTime, Blue Thunder, Moon Buggy, The Return of the Jedi, 3D Tower Treasure

MAZE CRAZE - Volume 2, Number 5 - Time Pilot II, Pinball, Transformers, Jaws, Pitfall 2: Lost Caverns, Treasure Hunt, Save The Humans, Zaxxon

MAZE CRAZE - Volume 2, Number 6 - Arcade Multimaze - Gauntlet, Tron, Major Havoc

MAZE CRAZE - Volume 2, Number 7 - Marvin's Maze, Guzzler, Burgertime Screen 2, Baby Pac-Man's Adventure, Crossbow, Firefox, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Berzerk