Words.

Imagine wandering through the shelves on a rainy afternoon, searching for a new adventure. You find the Gatekeeper’s book hidden on a dusty shelf, away from the light. A Maze of Games? How tempting to those brave enough to turn the pages.

You must encourage… the love of words.

Imagine easing the book from its hiding place, careful not to disturb the dust around it. It’s obvious that no one has bothered it in some time, but you don’t stop to ask why.

The book, itself, is a beautiful piece of work: pitch leather binding wrapped protectively around a stack of papers. It adds a mysterious air to the tome, an almost unnatural pull. It seems to call to you: open it, read its stories, befriend whatever characters you find, and savor the greatest adventure you’ve ever discovered on a rainy afternoon.

Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall...

Without thinking, without a second thought, without considering any sort of mischievous behavior or even remotely guessing malicious intent, you open it...

...but wise words endure.

By the time you see him, it’s too late!

Imagine opening your eyes to rows of shelves and books, coats of dust and drizzling raindrops are gone. The room is pitch black. As some nearby torches whoosh into flame, you realize there’s nothing normal about this anymore.

Everything is dangerous… to you. That’s when you start to understand how much trouble you’re actually in.

Welcome to the Maze. You’ve met the Gatekeeper, the fashionable bowler hat-toting guardian of the halls; now, it’s time to start your own adventure. Try to survive. Do it right, and you’ll see home again.  Fail, and… well, I hope you weren’t planning on going anywhere.

Mike Selinker, master of words and artist of gameplay, introduces the next classic of the industry in his latest offering, The Maze of Games. It returns the reader to a time when games didn’t always include a board and moveable pieces; sometimes, all it took were some words and a clever solution to move ahead. While more recent releases require extra players, this can be experienced solitaire or with a friend – or a few, depending on how difficult the puzzle is.

In this story, the reader follows siblings Coleen and Samuel as they, too, fall headfirst into the darkness of the Maze. The Gatekeeper gives them fair warning – it will be difficult and somewhat threatening, but if they survive... if they face down the Maze, solving every puzzle, escaping by the skin of their teeth, and enduring every brush with danger and despair... the reward is incredibly worth the trial.

What reward, you ask? You mean, other than the glory of solving puzzles galore, meeting characters from fable and fiction, surviving possible fights to the death and trying not to get killed in the process?

I guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself.

A final word of caution – most books start on page 1 and continue on page 2, until you reach the end. You’ll find that this one begins normally… but something strange happened to the other pages. Be careful, or you might get lost somewhere in the middle.

Good luck, brave adventurer. I hope you make it out alive.

When a whirlwind of whimsical words beckoned from worlds away, Rebecca knew she had to follow. She fell into a rabbit hole of metaphors and cliches, mixed with more similes than water drops in a storm. Somewhere along the way, she picked up a love of games that would use her words to create beautiful reviews, and that's where she is today.