As the clickbait title suggests, my rotating maze board is broken and unfortunately, it's completely my own fault (no blaming the dog here).
I had the genius idea of using PVA glue to stick smooth cardboard (cereal boxes) to the bottom of the circular maze rings, in the hope that they would be much easier to rotate. I soon learned that PVA glue shrinks as it dries and as a result, all of my rotating rings became bowed, bent and broken (the Princes of Dorne would not approve). Disaster? Not entirely...
Even though the gimmick element of my board had been mistreated at the hands of a fool, I soon realised that this 'botch' gave me an opportunity. When I'd first created Rotating Maze 1.0, I hadn't spent enough time getting my measurements right. I guestimated a lot of the line dimensions and ended up with spaces that overlapped and looked quite ugly. I also used a pen (rather than a pencil) to draw everything, which meant that I couldn't erase any mistakes... another gold star for genius!
I took the decision to start over and build a new board, this time with accurate (or as best I could) measurements, pencil lines and no bendy maze rings. Thankfully my materials were super cheap and I was able to learn from my previous mistakes.
I also took this opportunity to do something I wanted to do first time around and make the walls 3D. This had a practical element as it gave players more grip when rotating the maze rings, thus allowing for a smoother rotation. Plus in the absence of any artwork on my board, I really wanted something to 'pop' in the hope that it would look impressive to the eye.
The good thing here is that the walls are secure enough to be frequently handled by players, but also loose enough for me to break them off (if required) allowing the prototype to be altered. Removing them is relatively easy and does not damage the main game board - perfect!
As the Phoenix would be reborn from the ashes, arise Rotating Maze 2.0!
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