Dododreams

Now here is something that I actually would enjoy owning. There’s a backstory why.

When I was a kid, I was given this labyrinth puzzle for a birthday or Christmas present. It was three-dimensional, in the shape of a cube, made of transparent plastic. Inside there was a path along which you guided a marble until it popped out the exit hole. I got to be very good at twisting and turning this thing until I could actually run the marble through it very quickly behind my back. I liked that thing, and in retrospect wonder if that liking was the reflection or cause of my on-going fascination with multiple dimensionality. Hmmmm.

Anyway, I grew up, moved away, and this little toy sat in the closet at my parents’ house for many years, until I snagged it and took it away a couple years ago. Right now it resides in a box in the storage room of the basement where I live, along with a great assortment of other “some day these shall sit on a shelf someplace” items.

Thus when I saw this updated colored razzle-dazzle version of my old maze it intrigued me. It looks like a toy one might give a toddler but no! “You’ve got to rotate the sphere through all three physical dimensions, and get our old friend gravity to pull the ball through loops, whorls, around corners, up walls, around pits, and across precipices to get from end to end. Don’t worry, for training, there are places in the maze where you can pick up where you failed - call them “save-points” if you must.”

I mean really, check this nifty thing out! It looks so cool to dorkish me.

Where I saw it offered.