Sunday, October 07, 2018

[ixyipdpa] Binary digits as turns through a maze

In first person perspective, it may seem like you are navigating a maze with lots of T intersections (the T could be oriented in 3 ways) but you are actually entering a binary number bit by bit, with each T representing a binary decision.  Four rights do not traverse a square, which might be confusing.  If you ever backtrack, you might lose track of which direction represents entering more bits versus backspace.

Random lengths of corridors, random choice of T orientation, throw in some random corridor turns.  Decorations, scenery, enemies and treasure.

An overhead view is completely useless with lots of intersecting corridors which don't actually intersect, but it could be drawn just for fun.  Maybe the maze could occupy real space if we permit many levels in 3D; however, ultimately a binary tree grows exponentially while space grows only by the cube.  The corridors between T junctions would have to grow exponentially longer the deeper you go into the maze.

Four-way intersections could do balanced ternary: straight naturally means a zero digit.  But having only 1 intersection type instead of 3 is boring.

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