Recently I had some time on a train ride, which allowed me to begin programming a tower defense game. The game has already been mentioned in the previous news and will be released in August. One of the core algorithms of this new game will be the so called A* pathfinding algorithm. I already had a working copy of a C# source, which is why writing the algorithm mainly consisted of porting the working code, optimizing it and test it.
The final outcome of this can be seen on the page of the article, which is linked in the references. The short demo just displays the ideal (green) line with one of the possible metrics (Manhattan in this case, but you could also pick Euclidean or others). By clicking on a field you either place a barrier on the block (the block is then red) or remove it (the formerly red block is then white again). The path is always calculated in real time, i.e. once you modified the game grid.
The next thing to mention is the current CodeProject contest. I've managed to be placed in two categories:
- Best Web Dev article of June 2012
- Best overall article of June 2012
Needless to say that I was really excited about this, since the overall price is the legendary CodeProject coffee mug (some people might laugh about my attitude here, since the mug is only $10 and could also be purchased - but for me this is something special).
The article, which was entering the contest, was the Mario5 article. I was really amazed how much positive feedback it got, and I do have to thank everyone (again), who either voted for me in the competition, for the article in general, did download a copy of the code or did comment or share it on any website. Thank you all again!
The competition is now nearly over and it seems that the article hit the taste of the masses. Thank you all for your votes!
- Best Web Dev: 54 votes, 51.92% of all people voted for my article
- Best overall: 60 votes, 53.57% of all people voted for my article