There is a (First person, 3D) game, Antichamber, that has some elements of this. The room/corridor around you can change by looking, such as:
Walk up to dead end.
Turn around.
Corridor is no longer there, a dead end instead.
Turn around again.
There is now a brand new corridor in fron of you.
(These changes never visibly happen, but happen when they are out of view)
I was expecting a simple explanation of some maze generation algorithms, but was very pleasantly surprised with the path-length based visualization stuff. What I mean is that there is more to this page than the title suggests!
One of the things that I continue to notice is that in the machine generated mazes there are always lots of dead-end paths off of mainline path. While when a human makes a maze by hand there tends to be fewer quick dead end paths and a branch will usually take you 4+ squares before you realize that it's non-terminal.
I would think that either there is an algorithm or metric that would score mazes to make them more "realistic". Any references?
Maybe it is like xkcd footnote: "Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).".
Many crazy things do not work for "normal adults".
This is awesome, thanks for sharing! The rainbow coloring is an interesting technique for visualizing the structure of mazes.
For those interested, I wrote a similar maze generation tool in Python which includes implementations of Kruskal's algorithm, Prim's algorithm, and recursive backtracking, and can output similar images. https://github.com/jpwright/maze.py
Well my work has this site blocked and categorized as Adult. Anyone know what may have caused that? This is the first time I've actually ever come across a blocked site at work.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 45.9 ms ] threadI was wondering, are there any examples of mazes (real or programs) where the structure, rules or walls change based on a certain algorithmic pattern?
So that you've not only got to find the right way out, but you must crack the code before a way out is even possible.
Kind of like the movie Cube: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/
Walk up to dead end. Turn around. Corridor is no longer there, a dead end instead. Turn around again. There is now a brand new corridor in fron of you. (These changes never visibly happen, but happen when they are out of view)
Another (more maze like) example can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4JxhiNz8ec
(first video I found, there a probably better examples)
Can someone explain?
http://www.janthor.com/maze/rainbowpath.32.32.1128433606.84....
Zoom in for a better effect
I would think that either there is an algorithm or metric that would score mazes to make them more "realistic". Any references?
I like the mazes generated by the Hunt-and-Kill and the recursive backtracker algorithms the most. They both generate mazes with long dead-end paths.
I keep thinking it would be interesting to take an image (like a face) and let it show through the maze instead of colorizing it.
Many crazy things do not work for "normal adults".
For those interested, I wrote a similar maze generation tool in Python which includes implementations of Kruskal's algorithm, Prim's algorithm, and recursive backtracking, and can output similar images. https://github.com/jpwright/maze.py
They are created by electric discharge going through path of least resistance in insulating materials.
http://jeffcarp.github.io/maze/
Code: https://github.com/jeffcarp/maze/blob/gh-pages/maze.cljs