Sprint Weekend Stage 7: The Maze

Stage description

You have to navigate your way around an orienteering course in a maze, as quickly as possible.

Recommended device

Desktop computer or laptop.

Details

Laby was created by Jarkko Ryyppö, who also created the original Routegadget. You don’t need to register, but we definitely recommend that you play some warm-up games before playing the actual stage.

This game was originally created in the 1990s, and has just been re-released this week! It’s the closest you can get to orienteering on a computer without using Catching Features or Virtual-O.

That said, it takes some getting used to – even the beginner version is challenging.

The instructions are on the right-hand side of the screen, and continue to be displayed when you are playing the game.

The red arrow on the floor is always visible and points “north” (towards the top of the map).

If you want to make the map larger, you need to use the zoom feature in your browser. In Google Chrome, you can zoom in by holding down ctrl and pressing +, and zoom out by holding down ctrl and pressing –.

Whatever you do, stay in contact with the map – it is very, very difficult to relocate!

Update: Laby now has an easier mode which uses different colours for walls. To see an example of this, check out the warm-up for Course C. You can make any course easier by adding &color=1 to the end of the web address – but you must not do this for Course A or Course B in the actual stage!

For example, to add coloured walls, you would change
https://routegadget.net/laby/?maze=591343485&course=1
to
https://routegadget.net/laby/?maze=591343485&course=1&color=1

Warm-up

You can play some warm-up games before moving on to the real thing:

Warm-up for Course A – hard
Warm-up for Course B – medium
Warm-up for Course C – easy
a random course (a different one each time you click the link)

The stage

The stage will be available from 21:00 BST on Saturday 25th April.

Fair play:

You can restart the course if you get lost. However, to make it a fair competition, you MUST note down the times from ALL your attempts, and then add these together to get your total time.
If you’re doing Course A or Course B, you must only have Laby open in a single browser window, so that you’re only able to see EITHER the map OR the maze – not both at the same time!

There will be a choice of three courses:

Course A – Hardest difficulty: a short course in Laby, with no colours.
Course B – Medium difficult: a beginner course in Laby, with no colours.
Course C – Easiest difficulty: a beginner course in Laby, with colours.

You’ll be ranked by:

firstly, which course you complete – everyone who completes Course A will be ranked above those who complete Course B, and they’ll all be ranked above those who complete Course C
then, the total time you take to complete the course

When you’re ready to play:

Go to Course A, Course B or Course C.
Press S to start.
Navigate around to maze to each control, and then to the finish.
If you get lost and need to restart, press Q to end your current attempt. Note down your time for that attempt, and then press R to restart.
If you complete the course in a single attempt (without restarting), take a screenshot or photo as proof of your time – we may ask to see it.
Submit your time for the hardest course that you complete via our results website.

You MUST complete this stage AND submit your time by 16:00 BST on Sunday 26th April.

Submitting your time makes our lives easier and means that we can produce the overall results more quickly 🙂

If you have any issues, please contact us.

Results

We’ll rank everyone’s times in order. First place gets 1000 points, second place 999 points, third place 998 points, and so on. If you miss the deadline for submitting your result, you’ll lose 50 points (unless your lateness is caused by the organisers).