Marble Maze

I thought I would do a little post about the classic marble maze game. Now popular everywhere - available on your phone, even miniature versions pop out of Christmas crackers sometimes -- this game is still great for kids – and can be a real challenge.

I'm very traditional when it comes to a marble maze – it seems lately that this has become a generic name for all sorts of marble games.

A marble maze is usually a flat board, with holes for the marble to fall through, and a grid-like maze created out of wood. There are now modern versions made out of plastic, and even offer multi-levels of tense-maze-action. Look at this modern design – wow. How the marble maze has evolved. (The picture at the top of this page shows a REAL marble maze)

As already said – you can also get the game on your phone – the iphone, with its gyro-motion sensor really gives that old-game feel to it, tilting your phone to avoid the holes. This is a marble maze on the iphone...

So to define a marble maze – it’s a game where you use skill, hand-eye-coordination   tilting, to guide a marble (virtual or otherwise) through a maze (multiple layer or otherwise) to a goal.

However for some reason – some companies have incorrectly named their products – calling them marble mazes – when really they should have been called marble runs. These will be looked into on their own page – as I have a real fondness for marble runs. I’m a bit ashamed to admit it – but if I owned one, I’d still play with it now.  A marble run lets you build a "track" that a marble will navigate on its own using gravity. The image below shows a marble RUN not a marble MAZE. (Although marble runs are really good fun too!)

Hopefully this clears up the difference between a marble maze, and a marble run.

(P.s -- this is a modern marble maze - inside of a ball with lots of features...)