Summary: An Exotic Pattern Maze is a maze drawn over an unusual tiling — tumbling 3D blocks, pentagons, or a never-repeating pattern like Penrose. You trace one path from Start to Finish by stepping between tiles wherever their shared edge is open. This guide covers the seven tilings, the rules, how to solve them, and how the maze plays online.
Overview
Most mazes sit on a plain square grid. An Exotic Pattern Maze swaps that grid for one of the most striking tilings in geometry — patterns that either repeat in a surprising way (a wall of tumbling isometric blocks, the Cairo pentagon paving) or never repeat at all (the famous Penrose tiling, which fills the page forever without the pattern ever coming back around). You solve it exactly as you would any maze — find the single route from Start (S) to Finish (E) — but instead of walking square corridors you step from tile to tile wherever two of them share an open edge. Because the tiles take unfamiliar shapes and never settle into an obvious grid, the path is genuinely disorienting to eyeball, and that is exactly what makes these the most eye-catching pages in a maze book.
Exotic Pattern Mazes come in seven tilings, and every one of them solves the same way.
The Goal
Find the one continuous route that connects S to E by stepping between tiles that share an open edge. Every Exotic Pattern Maze ships with its solution already drawn.
The Rules
- One path, always. Like every Puzzle Maker Pro maze, an Exotic Pattern Maze is a perfect maze — there is exactly one route between Start and Finish, with no loops. Every other branch is a dead end.
- Move where edges are open. Two neighbouring tiles share a wall that is either open (you can step between them) or closed (a drawn wall). The maze opens just enough of those shared edges to leave a single path, and walls the rest.
- The pattern is always visible. The tiling is drawn as faint ghost edges under the walls, so you can always see the tiles — even the never-repeating ones — including where a passage is open. The bold lines are walls; the light lines just show the shape of the tiles.
- Dead ends are real. A run of tiles that stops going anywhere is a dead end — back up to the last junction and try another neighbour.
How to Start Solving
- Find S and E, and trace from both ends. Working inward from the Finish as well as the Start meets in the middle faster.
- At each tile, try its open neighbours one at a time. Follow a chain until it reaches the other marker or dead-ends, then back up. Because there are no loops, backing up never loses progress.
- Pencil lightly. Shade the runs you have ruled out; the unbroken chain of tiles from S to E is your answer.
The Seven Tilings
The seven split into two families. Four are repeating tilings (they pave the plane in a regular pattern) and three are aperiodic — they fill the page endlessly without the pattern ever repeating. All seven solve by the same rule.
The repeating tilings
- Rhombille — diamonds (rhombi) that meet three-and-six at a point, so the page reads as a wall of 3D tumbling blocks. The most instantly recognisable of the set.
- Cairo — the Cairo pentagon paving, the five-sided street tiling you see on pavements. Soft, curved-looking cells that wander in every direction.
- Tetrakis — squares each quartered into four triangles, a crisp, faceted grid with a diagonal pulse.
- Kite — kite-shaped four-sided tiles (the deltoidal trihexagonal tiling), arranged into six-fold rosettes.
The never-repeating (aperiodic) tilings
- Penrose — the legendary Penrose P3 tiling of “fat” and “thin” rhombi that fills the plane forever and never repeats. Every Penrose maze is genuinely one of a kind, and it is the showpiece of the whole module.
- Pinwheel — right triangles set at endlessly many angles, so the tiles appear to spin at every scale — another never-repeating pattern.
- Ammann — the Ammann–Beenker tiling of squares and rhombi with eight-fold symmetry, a never-repeating pattern with a jewelled, star-like feel.
Seven patterns, one rule: one path, tile to tile, S to E.
Play It Online
Exotic Pattern Mazes aren’t only for print. With the Productivity edition, a set can be published to your website as an interactive game: visitors solve it right in the browser by dragging to trace the path from tile to tile — mouse or finger — with a built-in check and a timer. Every one of the seven tilings plays online, because each is a straight-edged, tile-based maze the player draws directly from the tile edges. You can even gate later puzzles behind a short email sign-up, turning a free game into a lead magnet. How the player works (drawing, retracing, checking) is covered once in How to Play Puzzles Online.
Outcome
You can now solve an Exotic Pattern Maze on any of the seven tilings: trace from both ends, step between tiles that share an open edge, and back up out of dead ends. Want a whole book of them — tumbling blocks, pentagons, and never-repeating Penrose, each one unique — and an online version to hand out? That’s what Puzzle Maker Pro’s Exotic Pattern Mazes module does.
FAQ
What is the goal of an Exotic Pattern Maze?
Find the one continuous route that connects Start (S) to Finish (E) by stepping between tiles that share an open edge. Every Exotic Pattern Maze ships with its solution already drawn.
How many tilings are there, and how do they differ?
Seven. Four are repeating tilings (Rhombille, Cairo, Tetrakis, Kite) and three are aperiodic — Penrose, Pinwheel, and Ammann — which fill the page endlessly without the pattern ever repeating. All seven solve by the same rule.
What does “never-repeating” mean for a Penrose maze?
The Penrose tiling fills the plane forever without the pattern ever coming back around, so every Penrose maze is genuinely one of a kind. It is the showpiece of the module.
How do I tell the walls apart from the pattern?
The tiling is drawn as faint ghost edges under the walls, so you can always see the tiles. The bold lines are walls; the light lines just show the shape of the tiles.
Is there always exactly one solution?
Yes. Like every Puzzle Maker Pro maze, an Exotic Pattern Maze is a perfect maze — exactly one route between Start and Finish, with no loops, and every other branch is a dead end.
Can they be played online?
Yes. With the Productivity edition a set can be published as an interactive browser game where visitors drag to trace the path, with a built-in check and a timer. Every one of the seven tilings plays online because each is a straight-edged, tile-based maze the player draws from the tile edges.