Path-finding can be really easy and rewarding to do yourself rather than asking a game engine to do it.
Path-finding works over graphs, so you have a "node" which in your case would be all the squares in the map, and "edges" which are all links between the node and all the neighbouring nodes!
Then you find the version of A* search algorithm package your language has and just pass it the nodes and edges, and it'll return the path of nodes.
Replying to this super late, but hopefully you’ll see it.
I’m also a “normal” Java dev. I’ve tried to dabble in the past with gamedev with many tools and nothing stuck until recently with Godot. I love Godot and been using GD Script. It’s missing some features as a language but gets the job done and integrates nicely with the editor.
I have been prototyping on paper a game about submarine hunting but in 2D. If you have ever played Tom Clancy's Red Storm, it would be like that.
Can something like this engine do path finding if you had a map of the world in 2D?
Any other engines I could use to easily prototype it?