Life-long Maze Designer Creates Life-Size Puzzles at Maize Quest

New Park, PA – Tell Dave Phillips to “get lost,” and you might be surprised by his willingness to do it. As a designer of mazes with over 30 books to his credit, he’s been getting lost in his work for more than 25 years. In 2000, entrepreneur and Maze Master Hugh McPherson brought Phillips on board as the official maze designer at Maize Quest in New Park, Pennsylvania to create life-size puzzles in ten-acre cornfields.

“Dave Phillips brings us professional expertise and a wealth of experience,” said Hugh McPherson. “His designs will add excitement, challenge and value to our guests’ entertainment experience at Maize Quest.”

Titled “Escape from Egypt, ” Phillips first creation at McPherson’s flagship location, included 10,000 feet of pathways in a pattern without a single dead end. While the storyline told of pharaohs and pyramids, hieroglyphics, and the Sphinx, Phillips design included the details carved from among 300,000 living cornstalks.

A resident of Whitehall, Maryland, Phillips’ maze creations have been featured in newspapers, magazines, electronic games, advertising campaigns, websites and a major motion picture, The Haunting. But until last year, he had never designed a maze that people could experience in person. With Maize Quest, Dave has also designed a living bamboo maze, a rope maze, and a fence maze, with gates that can be changed to effect a different design every week for a year.

“Working with life-size installations at Maize Quest has challenged me in a new way,” said Phillips. “And I love talking with the people inside the mazes as they experience the puzzle.”

Ten of Phillips’ designs challenge visitors in 15 Maize Quest locations in 2001. At the New Park flagship site, a “Deep Sea Adventure” features the shapes of a small ship, a giant octopus and other sea creatures of the deep. Others include “Wild West Adventure,” “T-Rex Attack,” “Cherokee Indian Adventure” and “Stock Car Challenge.”

When he is not designing for Maize Quest, Phillips is working on his newest venture, a game website called eBrainyGames.com. He has created a Maize Quest electronic game that can be downloaded free.

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