
Advent of Code Day 17 -- Clumsy Crucible
Edsger Dijkstra is laughing at me from his grave.

Edsger Dijkstra is laughing at me from his grave.

The title says it all. It’s a “shortest path” puzzle, you’re meant to use Dijkstra’s algorithm, and the puzzle has no curve balls to toss at you.

Path finding is central to all rogue-likes. If an enemy can’t find you, they can’t fight you… and that wouldn’t be any fun. Tonight, I go over Dijkstra’s famous pathfinding algorithm, the differences between that and A*, and how I implemented them in the engine. Once again, you can play the engine as it currently exists by clicking this link and then clicking the “Run” button near the top of the window. New for today: pressing the F5 button on the keyboard creates a new, random map. I don’t pretend this is a game – the game has to wait for 7DRL to officially begin. ...