Added February 2021
This maze is called a Goulash Maze because its rules are a hodgepodge of an Escalator Maze and a Yo-Yo Maze. It's also called a Goulash Maze because I couldn't think of a better name. I decided to throw the kitchen sink at this one, to make it really satisfying for the few people who manage to complete it. Whilst you'll do well to find any solution at all, I'm going to decree that you haven't solved it at all unless you find the the shortest solution – I want this maze to be a formidable challenge.
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Maze rules:
- Get from the I at the top-left to the T at the bottom-right, forming a chain of valid words along the way.
- Valid words must lie along straight lines, either orthogonally or diagonally, just like in a wordsearch.
- The first word must be exactly four letters long; thereafter, words should either be one letter greater or one letter fewer than the previous word (e.g. the second word can be either three or five letters long).
- You start off the maze spelling words forwards, in the usual fashion; but, as soon as you move along a word whose first letter is the same as its last letter (e.g. dad), then you must henceforth spell your words backwards, from the last letter to the first!
- The next time you reach a word with the same first and last letter, then you switch back to moving forwards, and so on and so forth.
- An extra subtlety is that you cannot change direction by moving along a one letter word (i.e. a or I). That loophole is not permitted.
- The large purple circle to the right of the puzzle helps you keep track of which direction (→, ←) is appropriate for the current move.
- Words will be accepted if they abide by the criteria common to all my word mazes.
- Here's a reminder of the permitted two letter words: am, an, as, at, be, by, do, go, ha, he, hi, ho, if, in, is, it, me, mu, my, no, nu, of, oh, ok, on, or, ox, pi, so, to, up, us, we, xi, ye.
Having trouble? Here's a .
Still having trouble? You can view the if you are really struggling. This will ruin the puzzle for you, so I would strongly advise against giving up too early!