The Future of Revomaze...

[CzMeteo]

This is the same maze as the regular blue, right?

[Chyron]

Haven't seen it myself, but from what it sounds like, some members have been able to go into their local stores and solve it in short order, so probably the same maze.

[ReVoRabbit]

This is the same maze as the regular blue, right?

if you are talking about the marbles version of the blue revo, yes its the same, the differences i can tell are that the serial number has been replaced with a brain and the sleeve looks to be lighter than the one i received in 2009

[kcautodoc]

Newbie here, and not to sound like a downer but unless revenues are acceptable right now with current production I am seeing troubles ahead. I don't remember how I stumbled across this puzzle but as soon as I did I wanted one bad. I was very nervous about the price these mazes. I have been in England and remember that by the end a pound felt like a dollar in terms of buying power. Well, that makes the mazes about double the price here in the States. Not quite because we don't have the VAT but do have shipping but these things are not cheap.

I bought the Blue Extreme V2 and enjoyed the maze but it only took me about two and a half to complete. I had hoped for something much ore challenging. Now I have several issues. One, I am gun shy about purchasing the bronze or silver because I fear they may not live up to the challenge or that maybe by skipping mazes I may be lost indefinitely. Second, the higher prices of these mazes bring an added level of concern. And, third, there's nothing available for purchase.

If the Obsessions were available I would buy the entire line without hesitation. As a newbie, I feel like there is no way to get in the door because right now there is now way to even get in line for a puzzle. New customers are being isolated from the discussion altogether. I don't even know how to get into the Blue Forum after finishing the puzzle since I don't get a serial number, unless I missed something on my maze.

On top of this, there is an assumption (partially correct) that someone who purchases the maze will know the intricacies of it. This is not completely true and even if production was widened these issues would cause problems with customers.

New owners need to be told in the box a number of things that have already been discussed in these forums.

1. The puzzle is complete when you see the dot. (have a picture attached)
2. If you think the puzzle is broken or that a piece broke while playing then you probably fell into a trap.
3. Once solved turn the puzzle over and lightly tap to remove the pin.
4. BE CAREFUL TO PREVENT THE PIN FROM BEING LOST IN YOUR DEEP LIGHT COLORED CARPET WHEN YOU OPEN YOUR BRAND NEW PUZZLE.

Imagine how frustrated I was when I bought one of "the most difficult puzzles ever created", for a hefty price, waited nearly a month to receive it and after solving it in 2-1/2 hours promptly lost this pin in the carpet only to later read on the forum that this might happen and to be careful. Then finding out I'd have to pay another $100 and a month of waiting to fix this thing. (Thankfully I found the pin after a about an hour of searching over two days.)

My suggestion moving forward, Obsessions for the masses for expansion of the company. This will invite a lot of people to play them all and keep the masses busy for a year or more completing them.

Keep the "Legacy Team" of players who helped get this thing off the ground happy by making new challenging puzzles with the time challenge approach. Mail out 20 at a time or something. These can be the high dollar deals and can be later made into the Obsession line for the masses and provides something better for those who helped get this project off the ground.

Wow, thanks for the therapy session. Please don't think I dislike the puzzle. It's a keeper and I want more. I just think by the time I am able to buy the maze I want, I will have lost interest altogether. Sorry for any typos or poor grammar, this is too long to proofread.

Richard

[AndrewParr]

Well said, Richard. And welcome to the Forum!

I'm surprised your puzzle didn't come packaged with a small instruction card. The information you wish you were told up front is printed on this card, and I've gotten one of these cards with every Revomaze I've ever bought from Revo HQ. I can imagine how confounding it would have been to learn the mechanics of the puzzle without some basic pointers.

Many of us here have spent more money than we'd care to total on Revomazes, but we did so because they are always worth it. The puzzles get harder as you go, so if you continue to buy Revomazes, you'll find your investment will get you many hours (sometimes weeks, months, or even years) of puzzling pleasure.

Keep your eye on the Revomaze website. From time to time, new stock is added. Also, the Buyers and Sellers thread is a good place to get some rare used Revomazes, when they come up for sale. But that can get pricey.

If you made quick work of the Blue, you have options... try to get a green if you want to move sequentially through the series to experience the new tricks in the intended order. I personally didn't find the green to be much more challenging than the blue, but others here would disagree.

Alternately, you could skip ahead to the Bronze (third puzzle in the series) and see how you fare with a dynamic maze. I could not figure out this puzzle without an excessive amount of hints from the community. I think it's a huge jump in difficulty from the blue and green, but others here would disagree with that too.

I'm glad you posted your thoughts about the puzzle. I think we need more new players - especially ones who will let the owners know there is a demand for their obsession line. You'll be happy to know Sophie and Chris read these posts regularly, and take our opinions seriously. They are a very small company with limited machinery, so things don't always happen quickly. But their products are top notch and I'm glad I started collecting them when I did. Despite limited stock, I've managed to collect 10 Revomazes and they are the highlight of my puzzle shelf.

Andy

[Paradox]

My suggestion moving forward, Obsessions for the masses for expansion of the company. This will invite a lot of people to play them all and keep the masses busy for a year or more completing them.

Keep the "Legacy Team" of players who helped get this thing off the ground happy by making new challenging puzzles with the time challenge approach. Mail out 20 at a time or something. These can be the high dollar deals and can be later made into the Obsession line for the masses and provides something better for those who helped get this project off the ground.

This suggestion has been made many times, and that's just during the time that I've been here, but for some reason has never been followed up on.

For what it's worth, I (and many others here) agree with you entirely. I would rather see a larger number and variety of great quality plastic puzzles being sold than less of the more expensive metal variety. I believe that cheaper and easier to produce puzzles should be the 'bread and butter' of the company, not depending on a handful of metal puzzles at a time. Don't get me wrong, the Extremes are the main thing that drew me to Revomaze, but I wouldn't consider myself the typical consumer that a company should be aiming at.

Actually, now it's here I'd be quite interested to hear an opinion from HQ. There may well be factors at play that we aren't aware of, but either way I'd be curious to know.

[Rachel K]

Hi Guys,

This is actually great timing, we have purchased some Obsession mazes recently from the old engineers stock and are in discussion with the new engineers to machine the sleeves. Chris and I understand that the obsessions have always been favorites and so we are pushing to get them back on the website as they would make great Christmas gifts. Chris has a meeting with the engineers next week to discuss this.

What has held us back until recently is the fact that the machining of a metal maze and the machining of an obsession takes near enough the exact same time and so the price we are charged from the engineers differs little between an Obsession and a V1. That would mean the price we would need to charge would differ little also (and that would not be helpful to anyone.)

However, as we already have a good number of machined mazes anyway we need only commission the sleeves and so can forecast the price of the Obsessions as around £50 as opposed to the £100+ price of a V1.

This will not be a quick project, unfortunately ours never are but we would hope to have some obsessions available by this Dec/Jan. I will keep you informed of any news regarding these on this thread.

Bye for now,

Sophie

[Paradox]

Thanks Sophie, very speedy reply as always.

Would having the the Obsessions cast rather than machined (even if just the sleeves) be something worth looking into?

[kcautodoc]

What is the time frame for one puzzle to be completed? I wonder how casting the plastic would be. I'm afraid the quality would be vastly inferior but don't really know. It is interesting that the time frame to complete a maze is nearly the same. What kind of CNC machine is being used? I would think once programed these mazes could be made pretty quickly.

I am assuming you are using a long piece of 1" bar stock do do several puzzles at a time and not a 4 inch piece for each.


Richard

[Dorothea]

There is anice video on youtube called revomaze0009 showing the production of a blue maze.
As the obsessions are made on the same machine the main difference is the service life of the tools.