Game AI (Minimax/A star Pathfinding)

It's been two weeks since we had a Game AI class, and two sessions it in one day no less. How exciting! Well in today's class we are two critical mechanics for Game AI.

First mechanic would be the minimax, which is a algorithm design for AI to find the best wining chance in games such as chess. according to the instructor, the most well know example in the world would be the deep blue super computer. During the first session the instructor spend the whole class take us through step by step how the Minimax algorithm works. Now I understand how Minimax work, but the tricky question for me now is how do I translate the concept in to code.

The second mechanic would be A star Pathfinding, which is like a GPS system for Game AI. It helps the game AI to find the most efficient path from starting point to the goal point, which calculates the shortest route between starting point, way point and goal point. The instructor did the whole run thought of the A star Pathfinding in class on a six by eight grid map with a triangle obstacle in the middle. After the run through he talked about the down side of purely using this method for AI's navigation, which should be combine with Steering Behavior method to form a more efficient navigation system.