Maze
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Canon is the latest to be hit by a possible ransomware attack
After Garmin reportedly paid millions to get its systems online, Canon might also be victim to a ransomware attack, according to Bleeping Computer. More than 20 Canon domains, including its main US site, are affected or down, and attackers may have stolen up to 10TB of data.
Disney+ announces two adventure competition shows for teens
While Quibi is remaking the once-popular Nickelodeon show Legends of the Hidden Temple, Disney+ is planning two of its own mazes-based, puzzle-solving shows that could be Legends of the Hidden Temple-esque with a reality TV spin. Today, the streaming service announced plans for the new content: The Quest and The Maze.
Maze-like chip helps spot aggressive cancer cells
It's difficult to spot cancer cells -- just one in a billion blood cells are cancerous. How do you isolate them to know the trouble someone is facing and eventually treat it? By drawing the kind of mazes you enjoyed as a kid, apparently. Researchers have developed a microfluidic chip that uses a circular labyrinth to separate cancer cells from the rest of your bloodstream and spot the stem-like cells that will aggressively spread that cancer. Ultimately, it's a creative use of physics. The curves tend to push larger cancer cells forward (smaller regular cells cling to the walls), while the corners mix things up and put white blood cells in an ideal position.
New Nintendo eShop releases: Chariot, Mega Man Battle Network 2
Considering we're knee-deep in new year lull, there's enough to dig into in this week's eShop update. If you're after something new, you've got the couch-bound co-op of puzzle-platformer Chariot - check out our review on PS4. If you're after something older, you can't go far wrong with Mega Man Battle Network 2. The Game Boy Advance RPG joins the first MMBN on Wii U Virtual Console, and there are four more Battle Networks to go. It may be a new year, but we're keeping it old-school in our eShop posts. As always, the full list of new releases is below the break, while all the sales stuff is just a chariot's ride away.
Australia gets The Evil Within maze-style haunted house
In an effort to scare the ever-living-shit out of its fans, Bethesda announced a partnership with Warner Bros. Movie World to craft a real-life maze based on its horror game, The Evil Within. Located on the Gold Coast in Australia, the maze will feature characters from the game portrayed by actors as well as lots of fake blood. The Evil Within maze will be part of Warner Bros. Movie World's "Fright Nights" event held throughout the month of October. Those that can't make the trip will have the chance to experience a "teaser version" of the maze at the EB Expo in Sydney from October 3 to 5 at Bethesda's booth. The Evil Within launches October 14 for Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. [Image: Bethesda]
Free for All: Getting lost in the labyrinth of Wurm Online
Wurm Online is a game of darkness. Really, the entire world is balanced on what will happen after the sun sets. If a player isn't careful, she can find herself lost and alone without a torch to light her path. I don't mean to make the daylight out to be a haven from danger; a player can die during the day as easily as at night. But at least during the day, a far-off shelter can be aimed for. Unless there's fog, of course. OK, look. Wurm Online is a game of super-scary death things, but the night is particularly scary. That's what I meant. When an old Vanguard: Saga of Heroes buddy of mine let me know that he and his friends had built a giant maze in Wurm, one that can actually keep players occupied for hours and can possibly lead to injury or death, I jumped into a tiny rowboat and paddled my way south toward the Deliverance server. I had to see this thing for myself.
The Game Archaeologist: Maze War
It's hard to know how far back to go when chronicling the history of early MMOs and their ancestors. After all, the Game Archaeologist has looked at several titles (Air Warrior, Habitat, Neverwinter Nights) that do not fit the modern definition of an MMO yet were bound in blood to the genre nonetheless. So if today's game seems to be somewhat tenuously related to our favorite hobby, I beg your forgiveness in advance, but I do feel it's pertinent to our exploration of this wonderful genre. The game in question is Maze War, and it holds a general's uniform's worth of medals depicting firsts in the infant genre of video games. Most importantly for us, Maze War was the first graphical video game to be networked and allow players to interact and fight each other. You can see why that may tie in to our current situation. While the game itself certainly never attained the complexity of modern shooters or RPGs, its innovation and pioneering certainly make it worthy of examination. So let's dust it off and get to it!
Are you a bad enough dude to survive Xsyon's Mutant Maze?
Do you feel lucky when you log into Xsyon? Do you feel as if you can go anywhere and do anything in complete safety? Then perhaps you'd like to test your skills this weekend when the game unleashes the Mutant Maze event starting at 3 p.m. EST (12 p.m. PST). Open to everyone who wishes to take part, the event will teleport all volunteers to the designated grounds at the start and teleport them back at the conclusion... but there's no certainty you'll emerge victorious. So what is the Mutant Maze? It's a labyrinth filled with all sorts of nasty mutants, hence the name. Players will be able to keep the spoils of their kills, and there's a special prize for completing a round of the maze by both surviving and finding the exit successfully. There are three total rounds, enough to test the game's most seasoned veterans -- but for the glory of a prize, won't you spend a weekend ambling through a maze filled with enormous bears? [Source: Notorious Games press release]
Micromouse robot completes maze in under four seconds (video)
It may not look all that mouse-like, but this so-called micromouse robot can navigate a maze unlike any other -- robot or otherwise. Built by Ng Beng Kiat, the Min7.1 bot has a top speed of 12 kilometers per hour, and it recently set a new record in the Japan Micromouse Robot Competition with a time of 3.921 seconds. For those not up on their robot maze-racing stats, that's a full second under the previous record holder. Of course, it didn't just blaze through on its first attempt. The bots are first allowed an autonomous exploration phase, but even it is fairly impressive to watch. Check out it and the record-setting run after the break.
Four Bit Maze dares you to solve its puzzles, work your way up to the Lament Configuration
Got a relative who keeps cheating his way out of your yew maze? This holiday season, perhaps you should consider a different kind of challenge: Oskar van Deventer's Four Bit Maze. The apparently simple goal is to move the quartet of sliders from zero to one, but an Arduino UNO microcontroller makes things a bit trickier. It's programmed with ten different puzzles, each requiring a different sequence of movements to solve. An Arduino Motor Shield operates the motorfaders, and the whole thing's USB-programmable, meaning you can tweak it to your heart's content. See an in-depth video demonstration after the break if this sounds like your idea of fiendishly difficult fun.
Desk Pets' TankBot rolls out with Android and iOS support, is the tiny racer in your hand
Lonely and living in the city, but don't have the patience or maturity for Man's Best Friend? Well, you could always take a TankBot under your wing. Desk Pets' palm-sized four-wheeler first whirred into our hands earlier this year at the International Toy Fair, promising a variety of play modes and iOS control. Now, the team behind the roving gizmo has finally released it to retailers' shelves, tacking on a $25 price tag and adding Android compatibility. The mini-bot operates in a trio of configurations: an autonomous mode that makes use of its infrared sensors to navigate obstacles, a free-roaming option that'll have it wandering aimlessly and, most importantly, a free mobile app that puts dual joystick control on your Apple device's screen or universal remote (connected via headphone jack) for steering on an Android phone. Don't expect to squeeze hours of fun out of this little tchotchke, though, as its retractable USB port only gets you about 15 minutes of gee whizzery. Skip past the break to watch a video demo of the lil' guy en vivo.
Lingodroid robots develop their own language, quietly begin plotting against mankind
It's one thing for a robot to learn English, Japanese, or any other language that we humans have already mastered. It's quite another for a pair of bots to develop their own, entirely new lexicon, as these two apparently have. Created by Ruth Schulz and her team of researchers at the University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology, each of these so-called Lingodroids constructed their special language after navigating their way through a labyrinthine space. As they wove around the maze, the Lingobots created spatial maps of their surroundings, with the help of on-board cameras, laser range finders and sonar equipment that helped them avoid walls. They also created words for each mapped location, using a database of syllables. With the mapping complete, the robots would reconvene and communicate their findings to each other, using mounted microphones and speakers. One bot, for example, would spit out a word it had created for the center of the maze ("jaya"), sending both of them off on a "race" to find that spot. If they ended up meeting at the center of the room, they would agree to call it "jaya." From there, they could tell each other about the area they'd just come from, thereby spawning new words for direction and distance, as well. Schulz is now looking to teach her bots how to express more complex ideas, though her work is likely to hit a roadblock once these two develop a phrase for "armed revolt."
Desk Pets TankBot hands-on (video)
Although we've only gotten a glimpse of a TankBot as a render, we were more than interested to see this robot toy doing its thing in the real world. We spotted these tiny desk pals at the International Toy Fair and got to take a look at some working prototypes. As we reported earlier, the TankBots have three functioning modes -- autonomous, maze solving and iOS controlled. The bots feature LED eyes and two infrared transmitters -- that's how it solves the mazes. Charging is done by plugging in the USB dongle found on the rear of the tank and you'll get 15 minutes of battery life after a 30 minute charge. And if you're wondering how your iOS device will play with the TankBots, a free app will be available to download and each toy will come bundled with an infrared dongle. You can grab TankBots from stores for 20 bucks come June. Head past the break to see some cute, yet impressive maze-solving in action. %Gallery-116612%
Cheating cheaters using smartphones and GPS to make mazes less fun
When you enter a maze you are looking to do one of two things: get lost and have fun finding your way out, or save yourself from an axe-wielding maniac whose manuscript isn't quite coming together as he'd hoped. Unless you're going for option number two we'd have to say anyone who cheats to escape the maze is rather missing the point. That includes a growing number of visitors to Britain's giant yew maze at Longleat house in Wiltshire, a beautiful structure with seven foot tall walls that, on average, takes a person about an hour and a half to get through. However, lately it's been taking as little as 10 minutes as short attention spanned visitors get bored, whip out their smartphones, and load up whatever satellite imagery app is at their disposal. Effective? Yes. Defeating the purpose? Obviously.
LotRO Spring Festival 2010: Shrewmageddon
Even the most dour dwarf or happy hobbit must take a break now and then from questing for a time of merriment, games and celebration. After all, we're pretty sure that the Enemy is a big killjoy, so what better way to spit in his eye than celebrate the life and beauty of the season with LotRO's Spring Festival? Starting today, LotRO players can hop around to this expanded festival, which includes group dancing, a mysterious hedge maze, shrew stomping, food, drink and more! There's a lot of great rewards for the dedicated party-goer, including the opportunity to grab a fish and slap a friend. Hit the jump for help in navigating this festival, as well as brand-new pictures of the event!
Tetra the micromouse needs no cheese, completes maze in under five seconds (video)
Lab rats beware -- there's a new turbo-charged robotic cousin of yours on the block. This little autonomous fellow, Tetra, has just wowed micromouse hobbyists with a 4.766-second finish time in a maze (which had to be mapped by the micromouse first) in a recent demonstration, beating the previous All Japan Micromouse contest record by a big margin of 1.6 seconds. Sadly, Tetra wasn't the winner of this year's contest as it failed to complete the final Expert Class event -- probably something to do with the lighting conditions which affected its tracking. We can still admire Tetra's awesomeness in the video after the break though, followed by some thoughts from a few micromouse experts.
WiiWare's Equilibrio is Free-quilibrio on PC
Would you like a free demo of the WiiWare game, Equilibrio? How about a free demo that happens to be exactly as long as the full game? That's essentially what developer DK Games is offering in one hell of a goodwill gesture. The company is offering a freely downloadable PC version of its side-scrolling maze game, in which players rotate the environment to move a ball to an exit, Cameltry-style. The PC version doesn't support the Wiimote or the Balance Board, and it doesn't include multiplayer, but it does have its own level editor. And we think we mentioned that, you know, it doesn't cost anything.[Via DIYGamer]
Square reboot Thexder NEO revealed by ESRB listing
Square Enix has its finger in a whole lot of pies right now -- but if a recent ESRB listing is any indication, the developer might be preparing to sully its digits in yet another pastry. Said listing is for a PS3 and PSP title called Thexder NEO -- a new entry in a classic Square-developed franchise, which first appeared on the prehistoric NEC PC-8801 platform before making its way to PC and NES. Considering Square held the reins of this IP back in 1985, we're assuming the company will develop this new title -- but until we get more details, there's no way to be sure.According to the ESRB listing, Thexder NEO is "a side-scrolling action game in which players control a transforming robot through a series of maze-like levels." Stop right there, ESRB listing. You had us at "robot."
Silent Hill haunted house spooking Orange County this Halloween
Sinister Pointe, an Orange County, Calif.-based haunted house attraction, has got something special in mind for gamers this Halloween -- their annual gore-filled maze will be Silent Hill themed this time around. There's a few details on the company's site -- including an endorsement from Konami, it seems -- but no early looks at the attraction are given. We're guessing Pyramid-headed gentlemen and bloody, faceless nurses will be incorporated.We're not certain how much a production like this costs, but if they're aiming for capturing the true Silent Hill experience, they must be spending a freaking mint on fog machines.[Via Kotaku]
LotRO's Spring Festival features aMAZEing new content
The Lord of the Rings Online Spring Festival is now in full swing, and you may be pleasantly surprised by the fact that this festival offers a few differences from previous festival events. Sure there's the new(ish) horse, and the other usual suspects in Hobbiton, Thorin's Hall, Duillond, and Bree's Horsefields, but this season we have a maze!Detailed in a recent developer diary, the Hedge Maze is "intended to bring players together for a new challenge that will take place in a more close-quartered public instance than we've seen previously in the game. There are chickens to be caught, Elves to be scolded, signs to be posted, records to be beat, and a very sinister surprise at the center of it all." This festival also brings a new notification system for these events, getting the word out to those who may not read the official LotRO forums. Check out the complete dev diary and the official forums for more on this year's Spring Festival.
