I have made multiple versions of the Alamo Mission Maze. An initial kids version and then my original maze of the week in both black and white and later color. Today we get a full improvement redux - I hope you like it! So Maze of the week #10 also becomes MOTW #158. You can read the original blog post here:

Maze of the Week #10 - The Alamo Mission Maze

And now the redux. I have been using the same program (Inkscape) to make my mazes for many years and I am still learning how to use it. It is free software and I use an old version so everything new I learn is self-taught and by experimenting. I recently found better ways to do things and I decided to go back and revise some mazes.

Here are the enhancements I made to improve the maze:

1. Changed the maze size from 34 x 22 to 34 x 19.5. Originally I made the size 2x a tabloid size sheet of paper for easy printing. Now I adjusted the size to reflect the actual maze with printing a secondary concern.

2. Added background details. The maze was floating on the page and I wanted to fix that…

The first thing I added was the state flag/pole on left side
I added the ground on each side and extended it off the page.
I added a small building to the right side and a wall on the left
Each of the above got textures to reflect the stone they are made of.

3. Added a textured lawn.

4. Changed the font size. The title increased while the location was reduced and moved to the 2nd line.

5. Changed Start & Goal colors. Previously the black lettering was difficult to see so I changed it to blue.

6. Newly Colored Stones. I added some color to a variety of stones on the front of the building to better reflect how it actually looks, including adding some water stains. Previously the building was one consistent color.

7. Added Shadows. I added some shadows to the windows.

8. Added a Sky.

And here are the old and new versions:

The Alamo Mission Maze in Color updatesv2-1.png

I really like the new version !

Some data: The new file is 6224MB from 1480MB.

I will be replacing the homepage with the new maze going forward. You can find the maze download there !

If you like this type of content check out all of my case studies:

A Collection of Maze Design Case Studies to Improve your Mazes

Happy maze-ing !

Our second building maze of the year takes us to San Antonio and the famous Alamo Mission. I had made a maze of the Alamo before and decided I wanted to upgrade and see if I could improve on the previous version, I think I did. Why am I fetauring this maze, this week ? Well, The Battle fo the Alamo was fought between February 23 – March 6, 1836.

Some information about The Alamo Mission

Famous for the 13 day siege that was part of the Texas Revolution. Despite losing the battle, Texas defeated the Mexican army a little of a month later to form the Republic of Texas. A nice place to plan a visit if you are in the area. Take a tour and learn more in the video below.

Before we get to the mazes let’s take a look at a photo of The Alamo Mission from JOSE GIL from Pexels

The original maze:

I did a simple outline of the building, colored it and included a standard maze. You’ll notice the building is symmetrical with perfectly straight lines and it uses only two colors.

And here is a photo from David R Tribble that I used to make my more detailed Alamo Mission Maze.

The new maze versions:

And here WAS the updated Alamo Mission Maze that I was going to feature this week: It is a large size maze 22x34 inches in full size and is in black and white. The maze construction is draw and cut, and because of the scale it does not look like a maze at first glance (IMO). I used the stones that make up the building as the walls of the maze. Now about the WAS. I like this maze a lot but I decided to take the time colorize it a bit to see if it would improve the maze…