Pathfinding Strategy for Multiple Non-Playing Characters in 2.5 D Game Worlds

Authors:
Jason Macgregor;Steve Leung
Affiliations:
Athabasca University, Athabasca, Canada T9S 3A3;Athabasca University, Athabasca, Canada T9S 3A3
Venue:
Edutainment '09 Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on E-Learning and Games: Learning by Playing. Game-based Education System Design and Development
Year:
2009

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Abstract

This paper investigates and determines the optimal pathfinding strategy for non-playing characters (NPCs) in 2.5D game worlds. Three algorithms, Dijkstra's, Best-first Search (BFS) and the A* algorithm using Manhattan distance, Euclidean distance and Diagonal distance heuristics, are tested under different interaction schemes and test environments consisting of different levels of obstacles. The result shows that the A* algorithm is the optimal algorithm under the Manhattan distance Heuristic. Our tests did not reveal significant difference among the cooperative, non-cooperative or competitive interaction schemes.