I used this game for 2024 Tiny Games Contest. I did not win. Only got to Honorable Mentions category
https://hackaday.com/2024/08/29/2024-tiny-games-contest-blind-maze-is-fun-for-all/
Your task is to go from start to finish in this maze. Can you do it?
Well, of course you can. You can easily see the whole maze and understand that you must go forward, turn left, turn left again.
Now let’s imagine that you are blind inside this maze. Or that you are the creature that lives in 2-dimensional world so you only see the block around you.
Here is what you will se. Only walls around you. Now can you find the finish of the maze?
You go forward and touch the wall again, you can go forward and backwards
You arrive at the intersection.
You turn left and find yourself in another corridor
You get the idea. The challenge is to memorize the maze or write it down as you go.
Any software engineer would make a game like this in one hour.
I wanted to create this kind of game as physical object.
The major difficulty is that button Left and Right are NOT making you go left or right! They make you turn while standing on the same square of the maze.
Here is the first version that I made in 2018 out of wood. It has 3 buttons for Forward/left/right and 4 lights that indicate the presence or the absence of the wall.
I was pretty ugly. I made second version out of plastic sheet that I machined on a CNC.
Here the little display is used to draw a lines on the side to indicate the walls in the maze
I still was not satisfied with the design. I wanted this game to look as unique as possible. For the third iteration I designed custom light pit that uses painted LED inside a white well covered by metal mesh. This makes a nice 3D-kinda look of the light indicator. Hard to explain, see the video:)
This version has a vibration motor. The box vibrates when you hit the wall in front of you. It is possible to play in hardcore mode. Close your eyes and rely only on vibration to find the exit from the maze.