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Games-Othello-0.01
River stage zero No dependents
++
/ Games::Othello

NAME

Games::Othello - Perl extension for modelling a game of Othello.

VERSION

Version 0.01

SYNOPSIS

    use Games::Othello;

    my $game = Games::Othello->new();

    while( !game->over ) {
        printf "It is presently %s's move",
            ($game->whos_move eq 'b') ? 'black', 'white';
        my @possible_moves = values $game->possible_moves();

        if ( ! @possible_moves ) {
            print "You have no moves available, you must pass.
            $game->pass_to_opponent;
        } else {
            foreach ( my $move ) @possible_moves ) {
                printf
                  "You will take %d of your opponents chips if you place your chip on %d,%d",
                  scalar @{ $move->{chips} }, $move->{x}, $move->{y};
            }
            my ($locx, $locy) = get_move();
            my $flipped = $game->place_chip( $locx, $locy );
        }
        
        my $layout = $game->chip_layout();
        foreach my $row ( @$layout ) {
            foreach my $pos ( @$row ) {
                printf '%3s',
                      ($pos eq 'b') ? 'B'  # Black occupied square.
                    : ($pos eq 'w') ? 'W'  # White occupied square.
                    :                 ' '  # Un-occupied square.
            }
            print "\n\n";
        }
    }
    my ($black_score, $white_score) = $game->score;

STATUS

This module is PRE-ALPHA. Do not expect it to do anything at this point. Do not expect the API to remain as documented. If this module interests you and you have feedback on its design please DO forward that to me. Contact information is contained at the bottom of this documentation.

DESCRIPTION

This module is used to model the common board game, Othello. Othello has been around for a very long time, and has been re-produced in several different formats. The goal of the game is to eventually fill the board with all of your chips.

The board itself is an 8x8 grid represented as a matrix of x,y coordinates. The location of which way each axis is numbered is irrelevant. But for the examples in this documentation, the the 0,0 cordinate is located on the top-left of the board, and 7,7 is located on the bottom-right of the board. Initially there are two white chips and two black chips each organized diagonally in the center of the board:

      0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7

   0

   1

   2

   3              W   B

   4              B   W

   5

   6

   7

Black always has the first move. Each player must place their color chip on the board in a square that is horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent to at least one opponent's chip on the board. Beyond the opponents chip must be a straight row of contiguous chips terminated another one of the player's own chips.

In each instance where a row of opponent chips is terminated by the player's recently placed chip and another one of that player's chips, the opponents chips are said to be "flipped". When this happens, the opponents chips change color and become owned by the player that just played a chip.

For example: At the beginning of the game, Black always moves first and always has the following moves available: (3,2), (2,3), (5,4), (4,5). Suppose that black were to place its first chip on (2,3), resulting in the following layout:

       2   3   4   

   3   B   W   B

   4       B   W

Since the new chip at (3,2) now causes the white chip at (3,3) to be in between two black chips, that chip would be flipped:

       2   3   4   

   3   B   B   B

   4       B   W

White must now play a chip at (2,2) for a diagonal, (4,2) for a vertical, or (2,4) for a horizontal row.

If a player is un-able to place a chip on the board in a way that causes at least one flip, they must pass their turn. The game is over under the following conditions:

1. All squares are occupied.
2. Neither player has any moves available.
3. One player has had all chips eliminated.

At the end of the game, the winner is the player with the most chips on the board.

METHODS

new

This object constructor returns a new Games::Othello object.

game_over

This method returns a boolean to indicate if the game is over. See the above game description for more information.

whos_move

This method will return the character 'b', or 'w' to indicate if it is presently black or white's turn.

possible_moves

This method returns a hash of hashrefs.

The outer hash keys are strings representing the comma-separated x and y coordinates of a particular chip placement that is available in the present turn (i.e. "3,4"). The values are hashrefs containing information about that chip placement for the present turn.

An empty outer hash indicates there are no chip placements possible.

Each inner hashref contains the following key/values:

  • x

    This is the x-axis value of the placement.

  • y

    This is the y-axis value of the placement.

  • chips

    This is a list of opponent's chips that will be flipped over if the move is executed. Each chip is represented as an array-ref containing the [x,y] pair of coordinates for the chip to be flipped. Because the rules of the game state that you must always flip at least one opponent's chip or pass your turn, it is assumed that this list will always contain at least one element.

pass_to_opponent

This method passes game play to the opponent. This may only be when there are no possible moves available for the current player.

If the turn is passed to the opponent while there are moves available, then a Games::Othello::InvalidMove exception will be thrown. (see EXCEPTIONS, below)

place_chip

This method accepts two parameters: x and y coordinates where the player has elected to place their chip.

When called, this method will update the state of the board to reflect that the chipped has been place. Any opponent chips that need flipped will be flipped and the game will be updated so that it is the other player's turn.

A list of chips that were flipped will be returned by this method in the form of [x,y] pairs in array-refs.

If place_chip is called with an invalid set of coordinates, then a Games::Othello::InvalidMove exception will be thrown.

chip_layout

This method returns information about the position of all chips on the board. It returns an array of arrays. Each outer array represents one row on the board (starting from 0), and each inner array represents the horizontal grid squares in that row (starting from 0).

Each square is represented with the single character 'b' for a black occupied square, 'w' for a white occupied square, or ' ' (single space) for an un-occupied square.

score

This method returns the black score and white score in a list. The score for each player is simply a count of how many chips they have on the board.

EXECPTIONS

Games::Othello uses the Exception::Class model for errors.

AUTHOR

Daniel J. Wright, <DWRIGHT at CPAN.ORG>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-games-othello at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Games-Othello. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

    perldoc Games::Othello

You can also look for information at:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Games::Backgammon for giving me some thoughts on how to organize this.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2006 Daniel J. Wright, all rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

1 POD Error

The following errors were encountered while parsing the POD:

Around line 215:

You forgot a '=back' before '=head2'