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Maze Options: Control Difficulty and Meandering Paths

Learn how to control the complexity of your Number Mazes using the built-in Maze Options — perfect for making puzzles more engaging, challenging, or solver-friendly.

🧩 Overview

This tutorial shows how to adjust your maze’s complexity by enabling or disabling meandering paths, fake paths, fake exits, and random start/finish positions. These options dramatically change how the puzzle plays — even when the numbers stay the same.

🧰 Required Module

🔧 Preparation

Before starting:

  • Open Puzzle Maker Pro and select Number Mazes from the puzzle module dropdown.
  • Go to the Puzzle Settings tab.
  • Make sure your base puzzle works — either Ordered or Unordered mode with a valid range and size (e.g., 9×9, Min 1, Max 20).

🪜 Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Turn on Meandering Paths

This makes the path less direct, forcing the solver to zigzag and think.

  1. Scroll to the Maze Options area (lower left in the Puzzle Settings tab).
  2. Check the option “Meandering”.
  3. Click Next Preview.

🔀 The puzzle will now avoid short straight lines — even for simple number sequences. This increases visual variety and challenge.

2. Add Fake Paths (Distractors)

Fake paths look like valid options but lead nowhere — great for visual misdirection.

  1. Check the box for “Fake Paths”.
  2. Click Next Preview again.

🔍 You’ll now see realistic-looking alternate paths — but only one leads from start to finish. Solvers must think carefully.

3. Add Fake Exits

This adds multiple “goal” numbers to the grid — only one is correct.

  1. Enable “Fake Exits” in the Maze Options panel.
  2. Preview the puzzle again.

🚪 The puzzle now has decoy destinations, not just fake paths. This makes the final goal harder to spot at a glance.

4. Enable Random Start / Random Finish

These options change the puzzle entry and exit points on every generation.

  1. Check “Random Start” and/or “Random Finish”.
  2. Click Next Preview to see different entry/exit placements.

🎲 Randomizing makes each puzzle unique — even with the same number set.

✅ Outcome

By using Maze Options, you now know how to:

  • Increase puzzle difficulty visually and logically
  • Control path complexity and misdirection
  • Generate a wide variety of mazes with a single preset

These settings are especially useful when preparing puzzle books, activity sheets, or logic challenges for older solvers.

📚 Further Reading

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