Need help on how to approach a pathfinding NPC system with a top down tile game

Hi everyone, I think I pretty much understand how to use pathfinding on the basic level.. but what i have going on i haven't exactly seen. Trying to have pathfinding that respects tile blocks and those constraints.. no diagonal motion. just N-S-E-W

I am making a house (think of a zelda top down RPG) where NPCs walk around. I just want them to move down the halls even if they move in short 2-3 block.. but also it would be great to also tell them during scripted events to move to specific places and be smart enough to get to the location I specify.

I thought maybe i could make "waypoints" a single sprite i could put all over the map and then have NPCs check distance or something.. but I just can't get my footing on this.

Thanks in advance,

Caleb

An example got A* implemented: dropbox.com/s/ibrle5bdb4rhmfy/path_touch.capx

Holy crap that's awesome! I'm going to study this closer to understand how you did it. once I wrap my head around it i'll be able to ask questions about it if I have any. This is so cool. i love that you show the path! i feel like the pathfinding behavior would be so much nicer if it just had some kind of "show stuff" option while in development. So much seems to be kinda invisible other than the direct behaviors of an object which isn't always informative.