2D tilt mazes
A red ball sits in a flat tray containing one or more blue squares (goals). The challenge is to guide the ball around the tray and collect all the blue squares. Use the cursor keys to tilt the tray to start the ball rolling. The ball rolls in a straight line until it hits a wall, you can then tilt again.
Here is a photo of a tilt-maze implemented as a walk-round maze (Cherry-Crest Farm, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA - Summer 2001). Photo provided by Robert Abbott
This photo shows a physical implementation of a 2D tilt maze made by Oskar van Deventer. The maze is made of transparent material and filled with very black coffee. The 'runner' is an air-bubble in the coffee that moves through the maze when you rotate it. The object is to get the air-bubble in the centre, while keeping the Coffee Maze vertical.
Finally, here is a top down view of the first model of the tilt maze console developed by Bill. It utilises mercury switches to detect tilt and supports a wide variety of configurable puzzles. Read more about it on its own page
Links & related pages
MENSA magazine: Tilt mazes (Robert Abbott)
Tilt mazes as spin puzzles (Graham Rogers)
The tilt maze console (Bill Mitchell)
Tilt mazes were featured in the September 2003 issue of the US magazine Discover
concept & maze designs - © Andrea Gilbert - 1998-2009
Puzzlescript implementation - © Andrea Gilbert - 2021