Paths

Paths is a simple demo program designed to demonstrate the A* search algorithm as it can be
used for pathfinding in games. Clicking on the screen will cause the blue “character” avatar to move one step closer to the red “target” avatar. You can randomize either the terrain or the avatars by right clicking on the screen and selecting the appropriate option from the menu.

In addition to the plain vanilla searching algorithm, which causes the character avatar to always
use the shortest possible path through the crates to reach the target avatar, you also have the option of enabling a “fog of war”. This causes the character avatar to always seek out the shortest possible path based on the information it “knows”. Terrain which has not yet been explored will not be taken into account, and so the character avatar will behave much more realisticly, running into deadends, backtracking, etc. It will also occasionally get “confused”, traversing the same short path trying to “decide” where to go next.

Requirements

• Windows 98, 2000, XP
• Pentium II 300 or higher
• 64MB System Memory
• 8MB OpenGL compliant video card
• 5MB of free drive space

Download

• Windows

Screenshots