Comparison of Flow Field and A-Star Algorithm for Pathfinding in Tower Defense Game

Abstract

Tower Defense is a game genre that uses a pathfinding algorithm. Pathfinding is a way to find a path from one point to another; pathfinding itself has many variants with different scenarios. One of these algorithms is the A-Star algorithm, a well- known and commonly used method for game pathfinding. Another algorithm is the Flow Field algorithm, which is an algorithm that is not widely known and has become the topic in this following research. This research will be carried out by comparing the time required by both algorithms to reach the target point from starting point, and time comparison will be carried out in 3 different scenarios. The result of the research is that the Flow Field algorithm reaches the target faster than A-Star Pathfinding in every scenario carried out in the simulation. This research concludes that the Flow Field algorithm can compete with the A-Star algorithm to find paths in the Tower Defense game.