Question 1

How to Get Started with Puzzle Maker Pro - Geometric Mazes

Accepted Answer

This tutorial will show you how to get started with Puzzle Maker Pro - Geometric Mazes.

When you select the Geometric Mazes module in Puzzle Maker Pro (1), you'll see a window similar to this screenshot:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/WHaX9pO8oC/01%20Mazes%202D%20-%20Initial%20View.png (01 Mazes 2D - Initial View (2).png)

In this window you can:

Set the type of maze you want, and set the size for your maze (2),
Configure how your maze will be generated (4),
Set additional Maze properties such as style and Colors (3)
Use future add-ons for Geometric Mazes (3)
And finally - Create or Preview your maze (5).

Different shape types

Puzzle Maker Pro - Geometric Mazes offers 4 different shape types, which are enabled depending on your license. (Read more about Geometric Mazes licenses here).

Squares

Mazes with squares are the most easy to understand: You can set the number of rows and the number of columns for the total maze grid, and the software will generate a nice meandering path using some of these squares. An example is the screenshot at the top of this page.

Triangles

Triangles mazes are made up from triangles, alternatingly pointing up and down. A triangle based maze can never be fully square in size (unless you do some advanced math).

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/qW45nPAk0J/03%20Mazes%202D%20-%20Triangles.png (03 Mazes 2D - Triangles.png)

You can see in this image that a triangles maze with 20x20 triangles is not exactly rectangular.

Circle

A circle maze consist of several concentric circles. The number of maze 'cells' in each larger circle will be larger than the smaller circles, to make sure all the cells are more or less the same size.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/aJ5l2Ta3DI/02%20Mazes%202D%20-%20Circle.png (02 Mazes 2D - Circle.png)

The number of rows and columns for circle mazes have a special logic:

Rows: The number of rings you encounter when you count from top to bottom or left to right. This setting is actually double the number of circles that are drawn.
Columns: This is the number of parts of the center circle, which can have a value ranging from 3 to 10. (This is a UNIQUE feature that you won't find in any other maze software). 4 or 6 are great values to work with, but you can experiment with the other numbers.

Hexagons

Hexagons are shapes with 6 sides. An example can be seen in this screenshot:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/iClafwvPIm/04%20Mazes%202D%20-%20Hexagons.png (04 Mazes 2D - Hexagons.png)

The number of columns that are drawn for hexagons will always be odd, to add corner shapes for bether esthetics.

Links to tutorials to configure all the different settings for Geometric Mazes can be found at the bottom of this page.

Save and Preview

For new Puzzle Maker Pro users:

At the bottom of the window, you can see three buttons and an option (checkbox)

"Create" will create new mazes. This will use the quantity setting (Basic Options, at the top of the Puzzle Settings tab), to create 1, 2, 5 up to 1000's of maze puzzles. Each puzzle consists of a puzzle image and a solution image. WARNING: for large puzzle sizes (70-100) this may take a while for each puzzle.
"Next Preview" will generate a new maze that is shown in the preview panel (the big maze image at the right side of the Puzzle Maker Pro window). This is not saved to disk, but is an easy and interactive way to play with the settings and see what happens.
"Save Preview" will save the current preview.
"Preview Solution" can be used to toggle the preview panel from solution to puzzle. For mazes it's usually convenient to preview the solution (otherwise you won't see the solution path).

How to create Puzzles

The primary function of Puzzle Maker Pro is to create puzzles for you.

You can set the the resulting image size and file format on the Output Settings / Puzzle Files tab, and set all specific puzzle settings on the Puzzle Settings tab.

Which files will be created by Puzzle Maker Pro?

For most puzzle types this will result in

A file containing the puzzle image in JPG or PNG format (in the project/puzzles folder)
A file containing the solution image in JPG or PNG format (in the project/solutions folder)

In some cases additional files will be created:

For Mazes, the SVG add-on will let you create the maze drawing in SVG format. This is an efficient vector format that can be used to display the puzzle on a web page, for further editing or styling in Adobe Illustrator, or to control cutter machines such as Silhouette
An XML file containing specific information about the puzzle, to use when you create puzzle books
A TXT file with the words used in a Word Search puzzle, and an additional file with the remaining words from your word list

You can use these files in any way you like. There is no obligation to create your puzzle books with Puzzle Maker Pro.

How to create Puzzle Books

After creating your puzzles, Puzzle Maker Pro will automatically create a puzzle book for you. Consider this a friendly gesture of Puzzle Maker Pro - it does not aspire to compete with professional book layout software such as Adobe Indesign, Affinity Publisher or Microsoft Publisher.

This is called "Additional Output". It will use the settings on the Output Settings / Additional Output tab, and the Output Settings / Page Format tab to create a PDF or Powerpoint file according to your specifications.

If you have set the options to create additional output, it will do so immediately after creating the puzzles (when you click the Create button).

How does the Time Saver fit in?

The Time Saver extension allow you to create puzzles a lot faster, by creating puzzles with different settings in one go. It speeds up Step 1 (see above). It will create puzzles for each setting you specified, and will create a puzzle book after all the puzzles have been generated.

How to Get Started with Puzzle Maker Pro - Geometric Mazes

How to create puzzles and puzzle books with Puzzle Maker Pro

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