I\'ve read in one of my AI books that popular algorithms (A-Star, Dijkstra) for path-finding in simulation or games is also used to solve the well-known \"15-puzzle\".
For my current experience, on how to solve an 8 puzzle.
it is required to create nodes. keep track of each step taken
and get the manhattan distance from each following steps, taking/going to the one with the shortest distance.
update the nodes, and continue until reaches the goal