Ghost Maze
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Ghost mazes
A friendly Halloween ghost with its arms up, and the solution on its own page.
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Ghost Maze, Solution
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
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Four mazes, each a different size. Every one is a two-page PDF, the maze, then the solution on its own page.
Ghost maze, large print16 × 16 grid · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Ghost maze, everyday20 × 20 grid · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Ghost maze, longer24 × 24 grid · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Ghost maze, challenge28 × 28 grid · HardDownload PDF ↓Every sheet here is free to print as often as you like. If one saved you time, the tip jar is on Ko-fi.
This is the one maze outline here with a face. The ghost’s two eyes and its round mouth print as solid black squares, because a square cut out of a maze is otherwise drawn with four walls and looks like one more square of the puzzle. Filled in, they read as a face at every size, and the corridors simply run around them.
The ghost keeps about half of its grid, between 50 and 51.4 percent on the four sheets here, from 128 squares on the Large print to 396 on the Challenge. Its arms are raised on either side, and they are the way in and the way out: the route starts at the end of the left arm and finishes at the end of the right.
With a small round mouth and nothing else on its face, the ghost looks more surprised than scary, which suits a class Halloween party with young children in it. For a room that does not mark Halloween, the pumpkin maze on this site has nothing ghostly about it and works through the whole of the fall.
Every ghost has exactly one route and no loops, and its solution prints on the second page of the PDF with the face filled in just the same. The maker on this page carves a ghost from sixteen squares up to thirty.
Where the route runs on a ghost maze
Low, mostly. On three of the four sheets the route never rises as high as the bottom of the eyes, and it barely touches the dome of the head on any of them: no route squares at all there on the Large print, the Longer or the Challenge, and four on the Everyday. The Everyday is the exception in the other direction too, climbing to the top row of the eyes and running beside the face for 7 of its 101 squares, the longest ghost route of the four.
The wavy hem takes more of the route on the bigger ghosts. The Large print route stays clear of it, the Everyday dips into it for 2 squares, the Longer for 12 and the Challenge for 7. So when a child keeps climbing toward the eyes, the useful hint is that the way through is down, below the face and toward the hem, on every sheet except the Everyday, where a short visit up beside the eyes is part of the route.
The branch that holds most of the challenge ghost
The Challenge ghost puts two thirds of itself behind one turn. Its route is 67 squares long, and on the 63rd square, four from the way out, a turn opens into a branch of 262 squares, 66 percent of the 396 in the ghost, with a path 129 squares deep inside it. A solver who takes that turn can spend nearly twice as long in it as the whole route would have taken, which makes this the ghost for an older child who enjoys a long hunt.
The Longer ghost does the same on a smaller scale, with a branch of 142 squares eight squares before the end and a path 92 deep inside it. The Large print and the Everyday spread their dead ends more evenly: no wrong turn runs further than 24 squares on the Large print or 39 on the Everyday. For a Halloween party with a range of ages, those two are the safe choice for most of the table, with a few copies of the Challenge for whoever finishes first.
Common questions
Is the ghost maze too scary for young children?
It is drawn to be friendly rather than frightening: a rounded head, a wavy hem, both arms up and a small round mouth, with no teeth and no dark background. The only solid ink on the sheet is the two eyes and the mouth, between 12 and 30 squares of the grid depending on the size.
Why are the eyes and mouth printed solid black?
So that they show. A square left out of a maze is normally drawn with four walls like any other, and on a grid of a few hundred squares two eyes drawn that way disappear among the corridors. Filled in, the face is the first thing you notice, and the route goes around it, since the filled squares are not part of the maze.
Is the ghost face on the solution page too?
Yes. The answer page is the same maze with its route drawn in gray, and the eyes and mouth are filled in exactly as on the puzzle, so the two pages line up when held together. Like every solution page here it prints without a border, even when the puzzle page has one.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.