Great news!!
Ok, I found two major bugs in the pathfinding routine and cleaned them up. The bugs were:
1. I was forgetting to clear one of the node "visited" flags, which caused the pathfinding to break down over time.
2. I had to introduce a more reasonable default for "maximum path search depth", as the nearly infinite search depth took a huge amount of time. The maximum search depth is now 9 nodes. This should speed things up considerably. It can be changed like this:
pf_set_max_path(15);
(Samb, I would suggest putting your search depth at around 16 for the pacman game.)
3. I simplified the routine that finds the "closes first node". I might have to revisit this portion of the code again later.
OK!! The new file is in place and ready for download! Again, sorry for all the bugs, but you know what they say: "Never let a coder test their own code." Let me say, too, if I ever sell a "professional version", everyone who's helping me out will get a free copy.
http://www.gamebeep.com/freebies/ez_path_src.zipCheers!
- Bret
