Overview: What is "Minos Maze Maker"?

Minos Maze Maker is a versatile maze generator that creates myriad mazes and their solutions for you to print or use in your own publications. Add them to your newsletters, make and sell your own books, or even craft games from them. The puzzles you create are all yours to distribute and sell, royalty-free, no commercial license needed. Make them sweet and easy, or make them diabolically difficult. You will be creating and publishing professional-looking mazes right away.

The name "Minos Maze Maker" hints at the the story of the ancient Greek king Minos who hid his Minotaur monster away in a labyrinth.

Many Shapes and Sizes - Choose from many built-in maze shapes, several cell shapes, and the mazes can range in size from as small as 5x5 up to 50x50, or up to 80x80 in the Pro product.

Maze-Phrase Mode - Add a word or phrase, and it will be laid along the solution path. The rest of the maze will be filled with letters from your phrase, and only the solution path will contain the entire correct phrase.

Custom Detailing - Personalize your mazes by choosing your own wall colors, thickness, and wiggliness, move the start and end spots anywhere, choose different solution path display styles, et.

Royalty-Free Exports - You can export high-quality images of your mazes and solution keys for layout/publishing in your own books, newsletters, social media/web/blog, classroom handouts, games, or CNC/laser-cutter machines. Supports PDF, PNG, JPEG, SVG, and POV-Ray file formats. These mazes are royalty/copyright free for you to use for any purpose, no commercial licensing is needed.

Pretty Brainy - These are not just pretty mazes though. There is a powerful maze-generator under the hood with a unique maze-building algorithm. Just slide the "Difficulty to Solve" setting to whatever you need, and Minos Maze Maker will quickly create easy, difficult, or diabolical mazes for you.

Try it First - There is a "Lite" version of this software that you can download for free and see how it works before you buy it.

Pro Upgrade - There is an in-app upgrade option to the "Pro" version, which immediately gives you:

• Bulk-Builder automation, letting you instantly and automatically generate up to 100 mazes at a time, great for quickly publishing maze books.
• Mazes can grow up to 80x80 dimensions.
• User-defined-shape designer, letting you create any maze shape you want. Your shapes can be quickly exported/imported by other Pro users.
• New alpha-numeric shapes (in a number of different fonts.)
• New export options for Fancy formatting and an informational text file describing the maze settings.

Promotional Video

Pricing & Download

Lite Software	Full Software	Pro Software	User Guide
Free Click the image below to download free from the App Store: or, click the image below to download free directly from my web site: Do you wish to try it first before you buy it? You can download and use this "Lite" version of the application for free.	$14.99 USD Click the image below to purchase from the App Store: All future updates are free.	+$29.99 USD Upgrade "In-app" Upgrade after purchasing Full software: All future updates are free.	Free Click the image below to download the free 50+ page User Guide: If you want to look over the complete user guide that comes with the software, it is separately and freely available here too, as a PDF document.

Pro/Full/Lite Differences

Here are the differences between the Pro, Full and Lite software applications:

Features

Minos Maze Maker is a rather impressive maze-generator. Compare these features against any maze building software you are using now...

• Quickly create one, or dozens, or hundreds of wildly unique mazes.
• Choose from many built-in maze shapes: Square, Rectangle, Circle, Plus-sign, Square-hole, Donut, Heart, Bow-tie, Diamond, X, Pinwheel, UL-Wedge, LL-Wedge, UR-Wedge, LR-Wedge, Checkers, Crescent, Right-Arrow, Left-Arrow, Up-Arrow, Down-Arrow, Up-Triangle, Down-Triangle, Cross, Onion, 4-Clover, Square-Peg, Round-Peg, Mushroom, Oval-Easy, Oval-Up, Trapezoid, Pentagon, Hexagon, Octagon, 4-star, 5-star, 6-star, Chevron-Up, Chevron-Down, Chevron-Left, Chevron-Right, Rainbow-Up, Rainbow-Down, Infinity. The Pro upgrade adds alpha-numeric shapes and your own user-designed shapes.

• Create mazes ranging in size from 5x5 up to 50x50 cells. The Pro upgrade increases that to 80x80.
• You are not stuck with regular square cells... you can choose mazes to be built with square, hexagon, delta/triangle, or "octo-grid" cells.
• All created mazes are yours to use and publish and make money with, no copyright restrictions or restrictive "commercial use" clauses!
• Work without a net... you never need an internet connection to create, save, and print your mazes.
• Your work is safely yours. Your mazes stay on your computer. Minos Maze Maker never requires you to create an account. and never stores any of your information in the cloud.
• Bulk-Build and export up to 100 different mazes at a time, using the Pro Bulk-Builder.
• Draw normal walled mazes, or draw lines along all the inner paths.
• Easily change the maze difficulty. Simply move a slider from "very easy" mazes to "very hard" mazes, without worrying about all the details of how it works.
• Maze-Phrase! You can add a word or phrase, and it will be laid along the solution path, with decoy letters along the wrong (dead-end) paths.
• Customize the cell wall colors and thicknesses, and even make them wiggly for that hand-drawn look.
• Turn on "Progress Animation" to watch the maze get built, step by step.
• Easy printing of the maze and/or solution right to your printer.
• Export high-quality images of your mazes and solution keys for layout/publishing in your own books, newsletters, social media/web/blog, games, classroom handouts, or CNC/laser-cutter machines. Supports PDF, PNG, JPEG, SVG, and POV-Ray file formats.
• Save a "snapshot" your custom layout settings so you can instantly build other mazes with the same "look".
• Mazes will always be built with only one guaranteed solution, no islands here!
• Supports Dark Mode and Full-Screen mode.
• Save your maze files and share them with other Minos Maze Maker users, or open them again later to edit them to create whole new mazes.
• Comprehensive built-in 50+ page User Guide, containing tutorials and tips and describing every option, getting you up-to-speed right away. Advanced features are explained, helping you create high-quality and uniquely personalized mazes.

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What's New

2.1.1 - October, 2024

• Added a new wall drawing style: "All Walls+Path".
• Renamed menu items and updated user guide descriptions for "Save Document Settings as Defaults" and "Reset Document Settings to Defaults" so they correctly describe what they do.
• Bugfix: Rectangle shapes can now be any even or odd width (i.e., the rectangle "Short Side Size" slider now works properly.) [Bugfix_2410081] (Thanks Zolymar)
• Bugfix: Fixed the alignment of the warning text displayed when the maze shape is less than 10x10.
• Bugfix: Exporting an SVG maze with a solid-colored cell floor now creates a correct/valid SVG file.

2.1.0 - September, 2024

• Small mazes (12x12 and smaller) will cycle through more varied solutions as you hit the BUILD button, instead of often repeating the same solution. (Thanks JamesR)
• Maze building now works a little harder to find more possible maze solutions, and more accurately chooses between shorter and longer paths (based on difficulty.)
• Added a "What's New" Help menu item to display list of new features in this release.
• All Font-chooser popup-menus (Title, Maze-Phrase, S/E letters,...) now display the list of fonts *in* the font itself for WYSIWYG choosing.
• Added MazePhrase prompt text to bottom of exported Puzzle file if you export "[x] With Title" option on and have a MazePhrase.
• Maze-Phrase template "underscores" are narrower so they don't merge together into one long line for a word, but now better show each letter position.
• Added MazePhrase "Add spaces between template underscore letters" checkbox to make template letters spaced out as an option.
• On the "MazePhrase" tab, changed the "Print Prompt on Puzzle Page" checkbox to a more versatile popup that lets you select fancier NONE, PHRASE, TEMPLATE for the printed puzzle pages.
• Better error messaging for exact-fit Maze-Phrases, giving better hints about what went wrong and how to fix the problem.
• With the REVERT menu action, you can now restore to prior file revisions! You can save a puzzle, generate later ones, then revert to any prior saved one!
• New "Infinity" (lemniscate) shape added.
• Added a separate path color for the solution page, so that you can now have a "Path-only" maze with a black path for the puzzle, and a (different) light gray path for the solution side, allowing you to then set the solution marker to be a more visible black line.
• RENAMED the geometric shapes so they are shorter and have no space or dash in their names.
• Added "Filename Layout" popup menu to the EXPORT window, allowing you to re-arrange the order of the exported filename components.
• SVG Export files are a little more friendly when importing into other software.
• Added other arrow style options (Thick, thin, pointy) for the solution arrows. (Thanks Jen)
• Export pane now displays more info about image size in inches.
• Export Info text file now includes a date/time stamp at the top, and a line of most of the maze settings as a single text string as MazeSettingsShortString.
• When Export detects that you are about to overwrite an existing file, the warning dialog is reworded and has a new button "Overwrite all", so you can plow through and overwrite prior exported files easily. (Thanks Thomas!)
• SVG FONT PICKER! You can now choose between different SVG Font families to use when exporting your puzzles as SVG... see the new "SVG Export" Tab on the Application Settings window.
• Pro: Added a HELP menu item called "Bulk Builder - Guide" which is another way to access and open the Pro "Bulk Maze-Phrases" user guide, hopefully easier to find than the little (?) button on the Bulk Builder window.
• Pro: Alpha-Numeric Shapes now have a new (limited) font-choice menu, instead of the prior simple serif/sans checkbox, giving more font variety.
• Pro: Renamed the User Shape Editor prompt and "launch" button, as well as the user-defined shape editor screen to sound more "editor"-ish and clear. (Thanks Jen!)
• Pro: User Shape Editor: drawing/erasing/editing now has UNDO!
• Pro: User Shape Editor: make the squares gray instead of harsh B&W (Thanks Jen)
• Pro: User Shape Editor: Made the designer window a bit bigger for easier editing of small details (Thanks Jen)
• Pro: User Shape Editor: added a new "Fill with Shape" menu that lets you pre-fill the shape area with an existing geometric shape to start your own design from (and there was much rejoicing!)
• Pro: User Shape Editor, added text above the Import/Export buttons to explain it only works with its own "SSUDS" file format. (Thanks Jen)
• Pro: User Shape Editor: Added ability to hold down SHIFT key while mouse-dragging to constrain straight compass lines, and OPTION key will constrain diagonal lines (Thanks Jen!)
• Updated the various NOTE: text boxes in the user interface to be less garish.
• Pro: Bulk-Builder now will gently warn you if you don't build enough puzzles to use up all the Bulk-Maze-Phrases (Thanks Thomas)
• Pro: Bulk-Builder: Major change to Bulk Maze Phrases, now you simply type or copy/paste the batch maze phrases into a text box. You no longer have to create (and then import) a separate file. See Bulk-Build under the newly-renamed "Maze Phrases" tab.
• Pro: Bulk-Builder, moved "Import Maze-Phrases" up to top-level tab next to Export.
• Pro: Bulk-Builder: Renamed the "Batch Build" menu item to the more common "Bulk Builder" wording in the software and the user guide and web site and App Store.
• Pro: Bulk-Builder: Updated maximum number of mazes built from 50 to 100!
• Pro: Bulk-Builder will now detect any errors when building each maze, and write an _Err.txt file in place of exported files, and that text file will contain an error message of what went wrong, followed by the settings of the puzzle that could not be built.
• Pro: Bulk-Builder: Added a fancy new RANGE slider control so you can pick a lower and upper bound for random maze SIZE and random maze DIFFICULTY. Finally!
• Pro: Bulk-Builder (Maze-Phrases) Guide: Carefully reworded many sections.
• Pro: Bulk-Builder: Added a STEPPER control after the "How Many" slider, because sliding precisely to 100 is a drag.
• Pro: Bulk-Builder: Added a SECOND progress bar under main BULK progress showing individual maze progress for slow mazes.
• BugFix: improved the maze-generator logic to offer more possible solutions for smaller dimension mazes, specifically to avoid having multiple identical maze solutions happen in a single bulk-buid run. This would only happen in the rare case that you were building many mazes that all were the same small size, same shape, same difficulty, same start/end points, same cell type. (thanks James!)
• BugFix: Export "Dimensions" prompt is a little clearer and refers to 72 DPI (or 96 DPI for SVG) to more closely match expectations, especially with PDF files. (Thanks JamesR)
• BugFix: Exporting to SVG now properly handles the Start/End Letter size adjustment and the MazePhrase letter size and vert-offset adjustments.
• BugFix: Export Filename text field now detects and disallows pasting text that is multiple lines or too long.
• BugFix: Export now lets you turn on FANCY puzzle export ("[x] including title" checkbox at top), which will format the puzzle with your title in the image!
• BugFix: Export & Print are no longer allowed when you open an empty window and have not yet built a maze.
• BugFix: Added a checkbox in the Export dialog letting you turn on/off a warning if about to overwrite existing files when exporting. (Thanks Thomas!)
• BugFix: Added the "Including Title" checkbox to the Batch Export pane, so you can batch-export mazes with their titles.
• BugFix: Fixed up About Box scrolling weirdness on MacOS 12 and newer.
• BugFix: Puzzle Title Text entry field is easier to read in Dark Mode.
• BugFix: Maze-phrase now has a "Copy as Template String" button, which will copy a representation of your phrase, but with any alpha-numeric letters converted to short-underscores. For example, if you add the Maze-Phrase string "Halt! Who goes there?", then the template string would look like this: "ˍ ˍ ˍ ˍ! ˍ ˍ ˍ ˍ ˍ ˍ ˍ ˍ ˍ ˍ ˍ ˍ ?" This is a quick way to get a template string to add to your puzzle page, where the user can fill in the letters as he solves the puzzle. This template string will also be exported in the Info text file for you.
• BugFix: Newly opened documents (either a new empty maze or a saved maze file) no longer think they are altered and need to be saved.
• BugFix: Typing or changing text in the Maze-Phrase text field no longer resets the start-end markers to their default positions. That was annoying!
• BugFix: Resetting all colors to B&W no longer clears any already-built maze, but just refreshes the colors, as it should.
• BugFix: If you open a document that references fonts that are NOT on your computer, you now get a warning dialog that fonts were not found, and your fonts will be changed to default fonts instead. (Thanks Michael!)
• BugFix: Fixed a slight "color drift", where saving and re-opening a document would re-load any saved white colors as slightly darker not-quite-whites.
• BugFix: Fixed a problem where resizing the main window could make the title-bar go up off the top of the screen, and "going full-screen" didn't arrange the window properly, now fixed. (Thanks Jen!)
• BugFix: Added a new "no-direction" image for the Start/End wall direction buttons when you drag the marker into the interior of the maze. (Thanks JamesR)
• BugFix: SVG Export now correctly adjusts MazePhrase letters to user's "vertical adjustment" setting.
• BugFix: The printed page margins are wider now (Thanks SteveD!)
• BugFix: Shrank the Intro Screen so it fits on tiny MacBooks, but is also slightly resizeable (Thanks JamesR!)
• BugFix: Pro: Bulk-Builder and Export dialogs no longer auto-widen when a very long export path is displayed, the path now truncates in the middle.
• BugFix: Pro: Bulk-Builder: Hitting the STOP button now halts the currently-progressing maze-build too.
• BugFix: Pro: Bulk-Builder MazePhrase new detects wrap-around and issues a warning message.

2.0.1 - December, 2023

• Pro: Changed BATCH randomize settings and restructured the user interface and updated user guide. You can now choose your own subset of the list of shapes to randomly build (Thanks April!)
• Pro: Changed BATCH "random shape" behavior. Each time a random shape is chosen during a batch session, it will no longer be chosen again. That way you will unique shapes instead of multiples of the same shape. Of course if you choose to make 20 different mazes and only allow 3 different shape types, then it will re-use shapes from your three chosen 3 until it creates 20 total mazes.
• Pro: Added a "Save Settings as Default" button on Batch sheet for easy saving of settings. This is the same as the Application menu item "Save current settings as default".
• Many wording clarifications and consistency cleanup in Intro Screens (thanks Katya!)
• Cleaned up SVG Export file a little.
• Re-organized User Guide sections so the "How To" section comes before the "Details" section.
• Added "how-to" sections to the User Guide for setting up single batch settings or multiple batch setting "templates" for professional workflows.
• BugFix: In the Batch window if NO random shapes are selected from the list, the START button is now dimmed.
• BugFix: Creating a user shape with an island will now display a single error dialog later when you try to build the maze, instead of a repeating barrage of "Shape has an island!" error messages when changing the maze size. (Thanks Riccardo!)

2.0.0 - October, 2023

• Bumped minimum supported Mac OS version to 10.14 (Mojave), native support for Apple Silicon Macs.
• Pro Upgrade - There is an in-app upgrade option to the "Pro" version, which immediately gives you:
• Batch-automation, letting you instantly and automatically generate up to 50 mazes at a time, great for publishing maze books.
• Mazes can grow up to 80x80 dimensions.
• User-defined-shape designer, letting you create any maze shape you want. Your shapes can be quickly exported/imported by other Pro users.
• New alpha-numeric shapes (in serif or sans-serif font).
• New export option for text info file.
• Maze building is a little faster, and searches deeper/harder for good maze solutions.
• There is a single EXPORT menu item, which brings up a window for you to choose export directory and if you want the solution and info file too.
• Added mini icons for each shape in the puzzle shape drop-down menu, for quick visual identification (Thanks Marina & others)
• You can now choose a letter for the "Start" and "End" markers. Note that the character can be Unicode in any language/alphabet, even emoji (Thanks Marina!)
• Added more tooltips to the batch window.
• Added "Arrows" as a new Start/End style (Thanks Marina.)
• Added Rainbow-Up and Rainbow-down shapes (for Elli)
• Added the iso-Triangle (Delta) cell shape style (thanks for the nudge, Nick & Lisa!)
• You can choose to show the MazePhrase solutions "Sparse" as before, and now "Dimmed" which fills all the other letters into the solution maze but as light gray, or as Dimmed+Line, which also draws the solution line UNDER the solution letters.
• Added ability to turn OFF the outer wall openings on Start/End areas (Thanks Marina.)
• You can now choose a letter for the “Start" and "End" markers. Note that the character can be Unicode in any language/alphabet, even emoji (Thanks Marina.)
• Added (?) button at lower right of main window for instant access to the user guide.
• Added EXPORT button down next to PRINT button (Thanks Marina and others)
• Improved the error text descriptive hints when a Maze-Phrase solution cannot be found.
• MazePhrase font size setting is now used for both maze and solution display, and the "Solution Path Size" no longer independently affects the solution font size.
• Major changes to Maze-Phrase "exact-fit" solver, now works much harder to find a solution when "Exact Fit" is on.
• Added a "Set all colors to B&W" option to App menu, for easy global change for printed publications (Thanks Marina!)
• Export has a "Reveal Directory in Finder" button, which will open the directory you have chosen, so you can easily access it from the Finder later.
• Maze title text font size will auto-shrink as the text gets longer, to reduce problems with verbose paragraph text as a title. Works on the Preview and on the printed pages.
• If you choose Walls:Paths to be either "outer wall and path" or "path", then the maze builder tries to insure only a single path from the start and end cells.
• The Application "Preferences" menu item is now renamed (per Apple's change in MacOS 13) to "Settings".
• New option in Settings dialog for displaying animated maze-building progress.
• You can now choose your own font for the Start/End Marker letters.
• SVG Export now uses a sans-serif font for Start/Finish letters, and a different serif font for any MazePhrase letters. (Thanks Nick)
• Cell Shape popup menu now has the common/technical shape names listed, and the names are consistent with the Stats display now. (e.g., Sigma, Delta...).
• Added a WARNING dialog when opening older maze documents, since they will not re-build the same path with this new engine.
• Re-sculpted every single maze shape, to accommodate Iso-Triangle cells, so there will be slight variations on the overall maze shapes from the prior versions (old saved v1.1 mazes will open and rebuild their solution paths differently in this version.)
• Added "Contact Author" help menu item that sends me an e-mail.
• Removed the tab numbers at the top of the Intro Screen to help de-clutter screen.
• The Main and Layout tabs you selected when you quit the app will be remembered and popped back to when you run it again.
• BugFix: POV-Ray MazePhrase letters are now properly aligned.
• BugFix: SVG Export can now properly handle punctuation (&, ", ', etc.) in the MazePhrase letters. (thanks Nick!)
• BugFix: Fixed the Bounding Box of SVG export so that very wiggly outer walls no longer get cut off (Thanks Sue!)
• BugFix: MazePhrase (non-exact-fit) more closely tracks the DIFFICULTY setting, so higher difficulties now make longer MazePhrase solutions.

1.1.0 - October, 2022

• BIG New Feature: Maze PATH style (See Layout/Walls.) Now you can choose to draw path lines along all the maze corridors, instead of walls beside the paths. This is possibly most useful when exported as SVG/PDF for cutting of a maze with a router/cricut/CNC machine.
• Start and End wall-breakout directions are now configurable!
• Big layout changes to the Layout tab, broken into Maze/Cell/Wall sub-sections.
• Added 5 new shapes: Vertical Oval, Chevron-Up, Chevron-Down, Chevron-Left, Chevron-Right.
• Allowed slightly smaller size (10x10) for shapes (Jen)
• Cleaner user interface, and better preview display in dark mode. (Thanks Katya!)
• MazePhrase now has a #-of-letters counter text above text box, updated as you type.
• Updated the maze-maker so it makes nicer looking mazes on EASY difficulty.
• When doing MazePhrase mode, the Solution Marker style is now automatically switched to MazePhrase letters, and no other styles are allowed.
• Reworked the Intro Screen, adding a PRIOR button and refining the user interface for easier navigation (Thanks Katya!)
• Swapped position of Export and Appearance in the Prefs window. (Thanks Katya!)
• Added a small "not yet built" prompt under Maze Preview whenever maze is cleared.
• Huge update to the last page of the Intro screen, which now shows a scrollable table of ALL my software products, and clicking any row will open that product's web page. (Thanks Katya!)
• POV & SVG export now fully support wiggly walls.
• Allow ANY punctuation & symbol characters in MazePhrase text.
• Added "Phrase (Puzzle) Letter Vertical Adjust:" slider to MazePhrase to slide letters up and down a bit in cells.
• Changed PREVIEW area to toggle via radio-buttons.
• BugFix: Resizing the window now updates the preview's maze title text size.
• BugFix: When using Arrow Solution markers, and the END cell for the maze solution is not touching an edge wall, the last arrow in the solution becomes a non-directional cell dot instead.
• BugFix: Maze wall "width" popup menus now describe wall thickness in a "relative way" (not fixed point size), so actual thickness is indeed relative to (and scales with) exported image size.

1.0.0 - March, 2022

It's 1.0, so everything is new!

What is next?

Well, what would YOU like? If you let me know what things you would like to see next, and I will add them to my to-do list for the next update!