Just two month ago, I had never heard of Revomaze before, never tried any puzzles at all (maybe except for some really simple stuff, I can't remember), and now I'm here in this whole new world, and I love it. This is the (long) story of my first experience with Revomaze.
When I discovered the website, I was like "never ever will I spend so much money on a puzzle". The following days, I kept thinking about these mazes. I read on the forum about static and dynamic mazes, about the collections everybody had, and always I came back to "I can't afford that". I thought about how the mazes would work, about the possibilities of a dynamic maze. Before I even touched a Revomaze, I had a dozen ideas of what could work and what probably couldn't. I came to the conclusion that I NEED to try it for myself. Only one single maze, just to know the feeling. I'm actually on a tight budget, but I'd cut back on some other things.
Which maze should I get? I put the Blue in the basket, removed it again, selected the Bronze, then the Aqua, removed them and went for the Blue again. The Blue it will be I, I finally decided and tried to finish my order. It didn't work: the shop wasn't able to calculate the shipping costs to Germany. So I sent a mail to Chris, who I had read so many good things about, explaining my problem and that I really couldn't decide which maze to get and that I'd love to have all of them...
Wow, that's the way customer support should be! Chris was so fast, just a few minutes later I had a very supportive answer. Long story short, I didn't get one maze, not two or three, but FOUR. I'm not sure if I'm a little crazy, but Chris gave me a discount and it felt like the right thing to do.
The waiting was almost two long month in which I kept thinking about the mazes all the time. I guess, I was already addicted without even having touched a maze. I ordered an "Inside 3 cube" puzzle on amazon to bridge the time. I created revomaze traps in my mind without even knowing if they made any sense. And finally, the order had shipped. Only 2 days later, I had a first look at my shiny mazes. Aqua, Blue, Bronze and Indigo. They looked so beautiful and it felt so good touching them. There was a training maze included, too, but I put it away to not spoil any of the fun.
I would do only 30 minutes a day, so I would have something to work on for a long time. I started with the Aqua. From my thoughts about the mazes, I had a pretty good understanding of the basic mechanisms, but discovering the first "tricks" was a revelation nevertheless. I mapped every little detail of the Aqua in my head and solved it in under two hours. It was amazing! I aligned the dots, but as Chris wasn't very responsive at that time (for very good reasons, as we know by now), I was too afraid to open it. What if I couldn't put it together again?! I couldn't risk that, so I just reseted it again. I would solve it again the next days anyway.
After solving the Aqua a second time, I took the Blue from its box and enjoyed this feeling for a second time. I think, the mazes have an awesome way of "leading" you. I can't really describe what I mean. I guess it has to do with conditioning on a single aspect of the mechanisms and then testing the new skill in a similar way. While I like the way this is done, the Blue was solved even quicker then the Aqua and left me a little disappointed. I admit that without having solved the Aqua first, it would have taken longer probably. There are some features of the Aqua that I like more than those of the Blue, but I can't say more about that without giving anything away unfortunately. In my mind, I created a map of a Aqua-Blue-mixture. It did even include a dynamic element, even if I had no idea if it could be done that way. I'm looking forward to discussing some of those ideas in the future, after finishing all of my mazes.
Anyway, I reseted the Blue without opening it, solved it again one more time, and was full of anticipation for the Bronze. Now that was where the REAL fun started. The Aqua and Blue are awesome, but the Bronze is what made me think about getting all the mazes in the world, and that even before having to deal with the second part. By that time, I tried to register on the forum, but I had problems with the registration form. Luckily, Shane helped me registering and activating the account, so I'm finally here with you.
I'm five hours into the Bronze by now, escaped from the "pool" and making just a little progress in my daily 30 minutes. Everyday I think "there's no way to go on here" and everytime I'm proven wrong. On the public forum area, there is only one advice repeated all over again: make a map, make a better map. I want to add another advice: if you found out how one thing works, take the same thought and take it just a little step further. As meaningless as this might seem, this advice would have helped me a lot.
And: if you want to get only one single maze, get the Aqua and the Bronze. Well, of those I have tried at least. Actually, I'm not in the position of giving advice like that, since I'm still working on my third maze... The others will know it much better probably, but this was my first impression.
I'll keep working on my Bronze 30 minutes a day, drawing maps of my own maze ideas in my head, and looking forward to trying the Indigo. And after that... I don't know. I shouldn't spend more money, since my budget is completely drained, but... The silver? Mint and salmon? Orange? Lime? I NEED them, right? Right?
Great to be here!
Alex
I am longing for a new maze and I hope that Salmon will take at least 20h to open and hopefully more. It would be perfect to have a 100h+ maze to look forward to 
