[aegora]

given a defined two dimensional area, ie 8x12 rooms, what would be the most efficient way to generate a labyrinth within that area with one clear path from point a to point b, and offshoots and herrings elsewhere?

This is more of an intellectual excercise that was stimulated by another project i am working on, but its one that could be totally useful for other things too...

[Drealoth]

This is very informative, showing how to build a mazes such that there is exactly one path from every point a to every point b. http://www.mazeworks.com/mazegen/index.htm

[Parnassus]

When I had a similar problem, I used a maze generator. You can find some online or some downloadable programs. The one I used was this one:
http://hereandabove.com/maze/

Of course though, you'd probably want to donate or at least give credit. If you didn't want to do these, finding some freeware would probably work out fine. I copied the maze into Windows Paint, zoomed in and used the grid to work out the rooms. It took a bit of adjustment but once thats done, the rest is relatively easy.

[aegora]

thanks for the input! mazeworks had exactly the information i needed to design my own system

as for copying an already generated maze into the room system, thats easy to do the algorithm i _want to design needs to be able to generate a random labyrinth spontaneously, so every time someone encounters it, the path will be different.