This is really cool. I find procedural generation invaluable for the games I'm working on. So far I'm just using it for background graphics but I'm planning to start working on a maze-based game fairly soon for which this article will provide a great jumping off point.
I've always played with the thought (too lazy to ever get down to it) about multi-dimensional mazes. They could be very small, but still make for mind-boggling puzzles.
Even a 4D maze; let's call it a 3D maze with time-travelling. Could be just 3 "squares" deep in the 4th dimension for a start: "yesterday", "today" and "tomorrow".
There's a game coming out called Miegakure that involves 4D puzzles, with only 3 discrete position along the 4th dimension. http://marctenbosch.com/news/2015/02/miegakure-and-understan... Instead of navigating directly into the 4th dimension, you have to rotate the world around you, move a bit, then rotate it back to move sideways.
> Even a 4D maze; let's call it a 3D maze with time-travelling. Could be just 3 "squares" deep in the 4th dimension for a start: "yesterday", "today" and "tomorrow".
Have you seen this?
"Miegakure [Hide & Reveal] is a game where you navigate a four-dimensional world to perform miraculous feats and solve puzzles."
I can't find it now, but there was a Minecraft "adventure" map that was played by a couple of the Yogscast (I think Lewis and Simon) that involved moving back and forth through time and you had to be in the right spots when moving switching times to get across various barriers. So this is definitely a concept that has been explored.
Thinking further, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages definitely involved puzzles like this.
I think I remember seeing a game like this; moving along one axis also moved you through different periods of time, so that a wall that blocks your path "today" wasn't built "yesterday" and might be a ruin you can jump over "tomorrow".
It's not a maze game, but that sort of reminds me of Braid (platformer featured in Indie Game: The Movie) where you had to move back and forth through time to navigate certain obstacles. Very cool, and very beautifully rendered.
True, and "Cube" also. Only to some extent though: these mazes reordered by themselves, and those trapped in them couldn't "travel in time", or navigate between different setups.
