How to generate perfect mazes?

• Published in: Information sciences Vol. 572; pp. 444 - 459
• Main Authors: Bellot, V., Cautrès, M., Favreau, J-M., Gonzalez-Thauvin, M., Lafourcade, P., Le Cornec, K., Mosnier, B., Rivière-Wekstein, S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01-09-2021; Elsevier
• Subjects: Computer Science; Data Structures and Algorithms
• ISSN: 0020-0255; 1872-6291
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ins.2021.03.022

A perfect maze is a maze where any two cells can be joined by a unique path. In the literature, there exist eleven maze generation algorithms as compiled by Buck in 2015 in his book “Mazes for Programmers”. Each algorithm creates mazes differently. Our aim is to analyze how perfect mazes are generated. For this, we use the simple measures introduced by Buck, as well as the physical based measures introduced by McClendon in 2001. We introduce a new measure that helps us establish a ranking for perfect mazes. We also propose two new maze generation algorithms, called Prim&Kill and Twist&Merge. According to our measure, these two algorithms generate mazes differently than the existing algorithms do.