8 Puzzle Game with AI solver

Implementation

I implemented:

• Breadth First Search
• Depth First Search
• A* search algorithm

The solver uses A* search to find the shortest path to the goal in minimum time. To assign a heuristic value to a Node I used the Manhattan distance of that Node from the goal plus the path cost from the starting state to that Node.

Installation

The program requires python 3.5 and is currenctly compatible with Unix systems and Bash on windows 10 For simplicity the installation and download instructions will use the Debian (and derivatives like Ubuntu) package manager "aptitute" (apt-get) but feel free to replace it with your distribution's package manager. The following lines should install python3.5 on your computer, but results may vary depending on your distribution, do some research before executing.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fkrull/deadsnakes
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3.5

Next we will install the python3 package manager "pip3" and then the modules needed for the program to work

sudo apt-get install python3-pip
sudo pip3 install asciimatics pyfiglet resource 

Downloading

There 2 ways to download the repository (at least as far as I know).

Using the git module (Recommended)

If you are unsure if you have the git module you can install it with

sudo apt-get install git

In order to download the repository you need to

git clone https://github.com/spirosbax/8_puzzle.git

this will create a directory called "8_puzzle" containing the repository files, then do

cd 8_puzzle

To change directory. Then run the file "driver_3.py" with

python3 driver_3.py

Downloading the .zip file

Go to the top right of the repository and click the download.zip button, then extract the containing folder and "cd" into it, lastly run the file with

python3 driver_3.py

Development

I am open to suggestions for improving the A* algorithm, feel free to contribute. Want to contribute? Great! Fork the repository and start coding