Adjustable, Interactive Maze Generator & Solver

Generates a maze & solves it using one of three different algorithms. Written in P5JS.

Functions

• The interactive Maze-Generator generates random mazes of various size. You can adjust the difficulty of the maze via a slider.
• You can choose one (or more) algorithms to solve the generated maze.
• You can also set the speed, at which the Solving-Algorithm works

MazeGenerator

This Maze-Generator uses Depth-First-Search and recursive backtracking to generate a Maze. You can find the entire Algorithm here on Wikipedia.

Interactive Maze-Generation

To create a new maze, move or just click the slider at the bottom, and a new, random Maze will be created.

• The slider lets you customize the cell-size (the size of one individual cell), resulting in simpler or more complex mazes.
• Based on the cell-size, the walls of the labyrinth get drawn thicker or thinner

Maze Solver

You can solve the maze by clicking one of the maze-solver buttons.

There are multiple algorithms available:

Multiple Algorithms

You can choose between 3 different pathfinding-algorithms to solve the maze:

• 👋🏻Right hand on the Wall👋🏻
• 🌬️Breadth First Search🌬️
• ⭐A* / A-Star⭐

Differences between the Pathfinding-Algorithms

All these Algorithms have their own Advantages and disadvantages.

👋🏻Right hand on the Wall👋🏻:

• Is not guaranteed to find the fastest path from start to finish
• Is easy to implement

🌬️Breadth First Search🌬️:

• Is guaranteed to find the fastest path from start to finish
• Can be inefficient

⭐A* / A-Star⭐:

• Is guaranteed to find the fastest path from start to finish
• Can be very efficient
• A* /A-Star is basically an extension of Dijkstra's algorithm. It uses heuristics to guide it's search.

The Optomal Path

🌬️Breadth First Search🌬️ and ⭐A* / A-Star⭐ are guaranteed to find the optimal path through the maze.

Once the optimal path is found, it will be highlighted (in yellow).

Adjustable Solving-Speed

There's a slider that lets you adjust the solving-speed.

You can interactively slow down or speed up the solving-algorithm.

Overlaying Paths

You can solve the same maze using all 3 available pathfing-algorithms.

Each algorithm leaves a differently colored trail.

By the end, you can visually compare the efficiency of the algorithms for a given maze.

The faster an algorithm finds the end of the maze, the better it perfomed.

In other words: The less exploring an algorithm had to do to find the end, the better.