Maze Generator and Solver

Console based maze generator and solver made with Java that draws the grid with simple ASCII characters. Builds a random perfect maze with Prim-style carving and finds a route using depth first search. This project was created for CS2336.

Design choices

• Implicit grid graph: Two boolean wall arrays (horizontalWalls, verticalWalls) let me check openings in O(1) time without an adjacency matrix. Neighbors are derived from open walls at runtime instead of storing a full adjacency list.
• Prim-style generation: Start from a random cell, keep a frontier of neighbors, punch through a random visited neighbor, and repeat. This guarantees a perfect maze that has one path between any two cells.
• Iterative DFS solver: A stack, a visited set, and a parent map keep memory low while still making sure a path exists. Parents reconstruct the route once the end is found.
• ASCII visualization: Simple characters (+ - |) for walls and S/E/* for start, end, and solution path so the output is readable in any terminal.

Files

• Cell.java stores row/column coordinates and equality logic so cells can be used safely in sets and maps.
• Maze.java holds dimensions, walls, generation, and neighbor lookups.
• MazeSolver.java walks the maze with DFS and returns the solved path.
• Visualization.java prints the maze and its solved path.
• Main.java handles user input, generation, solving, and display.

Run it

javac Cell.java Maze.java MazeSolver.java Visualization.java Main.java
java Main