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Four-Play MGC Demo

Posted by Zach, 05 June 2006 · 24 views



Here is the demo recently shown at the Midwest Gaming Classic. It includes substantial improvements over the last release:

* Title screen
* Board and marbles made taller
* All winning combinations highlighted when a player wins in more than one direction.
* Entire board blinks when game ends in a draw.
* Barndoor effect and a stable scanline count during the thinking process.
* Game responds to immediate threats and wins instantaneously.

The most difficult programming is over. Now it's just a matter of finishing up some final details. :)

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Nathan Strum
Jun 5 2006 11:04 PM
Nice!

Although I still can't beat it. :)
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Zach
Jun 6 2006 6:53 AM

Nathan Strum, on Tue Jun 6, 2006 12:04 AM, said:

Nice!

Although I still can't beat it. :)
The next version I release will have multiple difficulty levels.
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Zach
Jun 6 2006 4:08 PM
Bump. Added the excellent label by Nathan Strum. I also owe supercat thanks for not using the idea for the Strat-O-Gems label. :)
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Gateway
Jun 6 2006 11:36 PM
I finally beat the computer! :)

I have a screengrab from z26, but I don't see how to post images here in the blogs. :)

To win, I was able to force blue to drop in the spot below where I needed because I had filled all of the other collums with a stalemate scenario (blue on top of red on top of blue, etc. ). After blue couldn't make a play anywhere else, I was able to connect 4 reds on my next move. :lol:

P.S. Cool label for the cart! :) Good job, Nathan! And great job on the game, Zach! :D

If somebody knows how, I can attach my winning screenshot.
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Thomas Jentzsch
Jun 7 2006 1:20 AM
3:0 :)
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Zach
Jun 7 2006 3:59 AM

Gateway, on Wed Jun 7, 2006 12:36 AM, said:

I finally beat the computer! :)

I have a screengrab from z26, but I don't see how to post images here in the blogs. :D

To win, I was able to force blue to drop in the spot below where I needed because I had filled all of the other collums with a stalemate scenario (blue on top of red on top of blue, etc. ). After blue couldn't make a play anywhere else, I was able to connect 4 reds on my next move. :lol:

P.S. Cool label for the cart! :) Good job, Nathan! And great job on the game, Zach! :D

If somebody knows how, I can attach my winning screenshot.
Congratulations on winning, Weston. The higher levels will anticipate the kind of trap you described. :) I don't believe anyone can attach to blog comments. It's not exactly a screenshot, but you can convert your winning position to text. I usually use 'X' for red, 'O' for blue and '·' (alt+250) for blank.
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mojofltr
Jun 7 2006 8:21 AM
Great job on this one, Zach! I can't wait to see it finished!

Nathan, I love the label! It's cool to look at each of the faces individually and know what each one is thinking! :)
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Thomas Jentzsch
Jun 7 2006 11:57 AM
Yup, great label! :)

BTW: "higher levels"? Is the difficulty selectable somehow?
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Zach
Jun 7 2006 12:21 PM

Thomas Jentzsch, on Wed Jun 7, 2006 12:57 PM, said:

Yup, great label! :lol:

BTW: "higher levels"? Is the difficulty selectable somehow?
Not yet, but soon. (I spent far too much time making the menu scroll :))

Regarding the label, take a good look at the board position, and the marbles' expressions, and I'll bet you can figure out which red guy was the last to drop.
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Cybergoth
Jun 7 2006 1:55 PM
Brilliant artwork Nathan! :lol:

Zach, on Wed Jun 7, 2006 6:21 PM, said:

Regarding the label, take a good look at the board position, and the marbles' expressions, and I'll bet you can figure out which red guy was the last to drop.

I actually can't tell, because both players seem to act pretty silly. Most likely the leftmost in the middle section. Acually no matter which red was last, blue should've won a round earlier already, so he's either silly or mean :)
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supercat
Jun 7 2006 11:05 PM

Cybergoth, on Wed Jun 7, 2006 2:55 PM, said:

Acually no matter which red was last, blue should've won a round earlier already, so he's either silly or mean :)

Blue's last play was the top one in the group of three. This created the threat of a diagonal which Red blocked with a piece one square down and to the left of it. Unfortunately, the play also created a three-in-a-row vertically on top of which Blue was able to add another piece to complete a foursome.
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Cybergoth
Jun 8 2006 2:13 AM

supercat, on Thu Jun 8, 2006 5:05 AM, said:

Cybergoth, on Wed Jun 7, 2006 2:55 PM, said:

Acually no matter which red was last, blue should've won a round earlier already, so he's either silly or mean :lol:
Blue's last play was the top one in the group of three.

He should've placed it one more to the right instead and he'd already won one coin earlier.

supercat, on Thu Jun 8, 2006 5:05 AM, said:

This created the threat of a diagonal which Red blocked with a piece one square down and to the left of it.

Why should red have bothered to block anything from blue, when he could've just won the game by completing the diagonal from the bottom to the left? Reds last was the leftmost in the middle section, just like I said :)
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Thomas Jentzsch
Jun 8 2006 3:12 AM
Looks to me like Blue likes torturing Red a bit. :)
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Cybergoth
Jun 8 2006 4:12 AM
Yup. That's what I meant when saying that he's either silly or mean :)
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Zach
Jun 8 2006 7:32 AM
Aha, there is more than one way to look at the board. I think it was the sleeping piece that moved last. He was so sleepy, he not only missed a chance to win, he failed to block a vertical blue threat and even created a new diagonal one. By not paying attention, red literally dropped the ball.

I can see a scenario where blue is taking the first chance to win. It requires red not taking a win for a couple turns.
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Nathan Strum
Jun 9 2006 7:48 PM
Ha! I finally played it to a draw!

In my own little world, I like to consider that a victory. :lol:

Incidentally, I find this whole discussion about what's going on in the label artwork to be really fascinating. :)
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Thomas Jentzsch
Jun 10 2006 12:54 AM
Any chances for making the AI harder? With red it is very easy to win for me and even with blue it's IMO still too easy.

BTW: How about restarting a finished game by pressing the fire button?
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Nathan Strum
Jun 10 2006 1:11 AM

Thomas Jentzsch, on Fri Jun 9, 2006 11:54 PM, said:

Any chances for making the AI harder? With red it is very easy to win for me and even with blue it's IMO still too easy.
Show-off. :lol:

Thomas Jentzsch, on Fri Jun 9, 2006 11:54 PM, said:

BTW: How about restarting a finished game by pressing the fire button?
That one, I can agree with. :)
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Zach
Jun 10 2006 8:29 AM

Thomas Jentzsch, on Sat Jun 10, 2006 1:54 AM, said:

Any chances for making the AI harder? With red it is very easy to win for me and even with blue it's IMO still too easy.
The MCG demo was set to level 2 out of 4. Still I don't know if the VCS can ever be competitve with the TJ without taking several minutes to plan. The unbeatable programs out there use a large database of opening moves and obviously run on faster computers.

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BTW: How about restarting a finished game by pressing the fire button?
Definitely. It's on the agenda.

BTW, Albert and I recently decided the release date: August 19th.
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Thomas Jentzsch
Jun 10 2006 3:22 PM

Zach, on Sat Jun 10, 2006 4:29 PM, said:

The MCG demo was set to level 2 out of 4.
I guess then it should become strong enough. How long will the AI "think" in level 4?

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The unbeatable programs out there use a large database of opening moves and obviously run on faster computers.
I don't play by any database and my brain gets slower every year. :)
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