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How to Create Galaxies Puzzles in Puzzle Maker Pro

Summary:
Galaxies puzzles are created in Puzzle Maker Pro by setting a grid size and difficulty, choosing whether the dots are plain circles or pictures, then generating and exporting each puzzle with its matching solution. This tutorial shows how to make your first puzzle and export publish-ready pages.

Overview

Galaxies produces symmetric region-dividing puzzles where the solver splits the grid into one galaxy per dot. This tutorial walks through creating one in Puzzle Maker Pro, from opening the module to exporting a print-ready puzzle and solution. New to the puzzle itself? Read How Galaxies Puzzles Work first.

Required Modules

  • Puzzle Maker Pro – Galaxies
  • Puzzle Maker Pro – Galaxies Productivity Edition, required only for Time Saver, batch creation, and JSON / HTML output

A free demo is available, and the Creative edition covers everything in this tutorial except Time Saver, JSON, and HTML output.

Preparation

For your first puzzle, a 10×10 grid at Normal difficulty with plain dots is a comfortable starting point. Puzzle Maker Pro generates each puzzle with its matching solution at the same time.

Set the Grid Size

On the Settings tab, set the board with Rows and Columns, each from 7 to 15 (default 10). Rows and columns are independent, so you can make square or rectangular boards. Larger grids hold more galaxies and take longer to solve.

Choose the Difficulty

Set Difficulty to Normal or Unreasonable. Normal is solvable by straightforward symmetry deductions; Unreasonable may require longer chains of reasoning. These are the only two levels Galaxies offers — there is no Easy or Hard.

Choose Dots or Pictures

The Dot Style group decides how each galaxy’s centre is drawn:

  • Use images instead of dots — off by default, which draws each centre as a solid circle. Turn it on to draw a small picture at each galaxy centre instead.
  • Dot size (%) — the diameter of a solid dot, as a percentage of one cell (20–80, default 33). This sizes the solid circles; pictures ignore it and always render at a fixed size (80% of a cell). The value still sizes the optional numbered overlay in either mode.
  • Numbered — overlays a small number on every dot, running top-left to bottom-right. Useful for answer keys and for very young solvers. Note that turning this on automatically raises Dot size to 50 if it was lower, so two-digit numbers stay readable.

When Use images instead of dots is on, the image controls below it become active:

  • Images in picker — how many picture slots the picker offers (1–32), the pool to draw from.
  • Images per puzzle — how many of those pictures each single puzzle uses. Set it to 1 to give every dot in a puzzle the same picture (so one page is all dogs, the next all cats); set it higher to mix several pictures within a puzzle.
  • Random selection per puzzle — off picks pictures in order across puzzles; on picks them at random for each puzzle.
  • Image picker — choose a built-in set (such as Kids Animals) or load your own image files. You can mix built-in pictures with your own.

This option allows you to create “Animal Territory” puzzles or “Hunting Grounds”.

Set the Quantity

The Quantity box sits at the top of the module window, above the Settings / Style / Titles tabs. Use it to choose how many puzzles to generate — for example 1 to test, 25 for a small set, or 100+ for a publishing project. Every puzzle in a run is unique. (Previews and the free demo generate a single puzzle.)

Generate a Preview

Use the Preview button to generate a single puzzle and check the size, difficulty, and dot or picture style before committing to a large quantity. Adjust the settings and preview again until it looks right, then use Create to produce the full run.

Style the Puzzle (optional)

On the Style tab you can set the canvas colour, cell fill, cell borders, and the region borders that draw the galaxy outlines on the solution image. Dot Color sets the colour of solid dots; it has no effect when you are using pictures, because circles are not drawn in picture mode. Full styling is shared across modules — see the styling tutorial in Further Reading.

Set the Title

On the Titles tab, choose a Smart Title. A Smart Title fills in the puzzle’s own details automatically, so every page in a batch is labelled correctly without retyping. The examples below are for a 10×10 Normal puzzle:

  • Galaxies.GridSize — e.g. “Galaxies 10×10”
  • Galaxies.Difficulty — e.g. “Galaxies Normal”
  • Galaxies.GridSizeDifficulty — e.g. “Galaxies 10×10 – Normal”
  • Custom — your own title text, used exactly as typed

The same options are available for the puzzle Description (the default reads “Partition the board into symmetric galaxies”). Smart Titles works the same way in every module — see the Smart Titles tutorial for how it works.

Export Your Puzzles

Export the puzzle and its solution as PNG, JPG, SVG, or PDF for worksheets and books. With the Productivity Edition you can also export JSON for catalog and online workflows, and HTML output for interactive web play: host the exported HTML on your own site, or upload the ZIP package to the BookPublisherTools WordPress plugin to publish playable puzzles.

Outcome

You can now create Normal and Unreasonable Galaxies puzzles with matching solutions, choose the grid size, switch between plain dots and themed pictures, and export them for print or digital use. To turn one set of settings into a whole book of unique puzzles, use Time Saver, and assemble finished or mixed books in Puzzle Book Studio (Productivity Edition).

For full styling, deeper Smart Title customisation, batching, and book assembly, use the shared tutorials below rather than repeating those steps here.

Further Reading

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