A* Pathfinding Race Screensaver
The A* Pathfinding Race screensaver runs three real pathfinding algorithms — A*, Dijkstra and breadth-first search — side by side on the same grid maze. It is free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
How the A* Pathfinding Race screensaver works
The saver builds a real random weighted grid maze, then runs A*, Dijkstra and breadth-first search on it simultaneously, each from the same start to the same goal.
Every frame each algorithm expands its real frontier by one step, shown as a spreading wave of visited cells, so you watch their true search patterns diverge live.
A* uses a real heuristic to bias its search toward the goal, so it typically explores far fewer cells than Dijkstra or plain BFS before finishing.
Once an algorithm reaches the goal, its real shortest path is traced and held while the others catch up, then a fresh random maze begins.
A worked example
A* often carves a narrow, goal-directed beam of visited cells straight toward the target, while Dijkstra and BFS spread out in a much wider, slower-growing circle around the start.
Settings & tips
- Accent recolours the frontier and path.
- All three algorithms are real, correct, unmodified implementations.
- A fresh random maze generates automatically once every race finishes.
Frequently asked questions
- Are these real pathfinding algorithms?
- Yes — real A*, Dijkstra and breadth-first search implementations, run live on the same maze.
- Why does A* usually win?
- Its real heuristic biases the search toward the goal, so it explores far fewer cells than the others.
- Is a key needed?
- No — it is a pure local computation.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.