Optimizing Pathing Algorithms for Tower Defense Games: My Development Journey

Since starting my project i have been working on the pathing system and i have gone thorough multiple iterations of this, with the generation of the path becoming more advanced. Below i will talk about the different iterations i have as well as show of the stage it currently is in.

Iteration 1

The initial design was to figure out where the start and end point was and then find the shortest path between them, this worked at first but after testing it i realised i had mad a massive mistake, With this type of pathing system the path would always look like some of L shape as it would always go to the left or right and then go down, whilst this was very efficient it didn't take in to count the fun factor as with this very basic pathing it would not allow for more advanced paths.

Iteration 2

The second iteration looked at what i had done wrong in the first and looked at ways to change it, The first way i did this was limited the amount the path could go in any 1 direction this allowed for the pathing to be different but still had the same problem of it would always go for the shortest route with a few small changes, Whilst this worked i decided to take a break from this and work on other parts of the project but left a note to come back and advance this more.

Iteration 3

Iteration 3 was made after working on adding enemy spawning shown in the picture below, in this design i have added both a more advanced pathing as well as adding obstacles to the map so that the player can not place turrets on them when they are able to do so.

Future plans

The main plan for the pathing is to have it go back and forth alot more so that it can have a longer path, aswell as that i would like the idea of having bridges where the paths can cross, this would be a great addition as adding towers such as poison towers would allow it to hit multiple paths at the same time.

Thanks for reading along, in the next post i will go into more detail about enemy spawning.