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Lua Game Development Cookbook

You're reading from   Lua Game Development Cookbook Over 70 recipes that will help you master the elements and best practices required to build a modern game engine using Lua

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Product type Paperback
Published in Jul 2015
Publisher
ISBN-13 9781849515504
Length 360 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Languages
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Author (1):
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Mário Kašuba Mário Kašuba
Author Profile Icon Mário Kašuba
Mário Kašuba
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Toc

Table of Contents (11) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Basics of the Game Engine 2. Events FREE CHAPTER 3. Graphics – Common Methods 4. Graphics – Legacy Method with OpenGL 1.x–2.1 5. Graphics – Modern Method with OpenGL 3.0+ 6. The User Interface 7. Physics and Game Mechanics 8. Artificial Intelligence 9. Sounds and Networking Index

Pathfinding for tile-based environments with obstacles


This recipe will show you how to solve the pathfinding problem in your game by using the A* algorithm. You can use this whenever you need to move from one point to another in an unknown environment. It uses heuristics to improve the search speed and efficiency. The good thing is that you can use it with any shape of tile. The most common use of the A* search algorithm can be found in strategic games, many action games, and tower defense games. Its use can be extended beyond pathfinding problems to adapt AI decisions to the environment or to make a dynamic liquid-like environment.

Getting ready

The A* searching algorithm makes extensive use of the priority queue data structure and it needs to access map cells quite frequently. For this purpose, you'll be using a slightly modified version of the priority queue and map2D structure.

You can use the following code to define the priority queue object:

-- useful shortcuts
local ti = table.insert...
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