Four-Play: playable demo

Posted by , 07 August 2005 · 29 views

Work on my board-game homebrew is going well. The current demo is a fully playable two player version where both players share one joystick. The controls are simple: push left and right to select a column, and push down to drop your piece. Use reset to clear the board. The rules are simple too. The winner is the first player to get four in a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.The software automatically ends the game if the four pieces in a row are vertical. Since this is a work in progress, the human players will have to end if the win is in another direction.

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NEW: August 18th version, shown at VgXpo Dallas. Changes are described in comment #6.

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Attached Thumbnails

Attached Files

fourplay_aug7.zip (1021bytes)
downloads: 76
fourplay_aug18.zip (1.26K)
downloads: 67

Cybergoth
Aug 9 2005 1:47 AM

Hi Zach!

Looking great so far. MBs original boardgame was always one of my favourites. Can't wait to play against an AI

Greetings,
Manuel

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Zach
Aug 9 2005 11:47 PM

Cybergoth, on Tue Aug 9, 2005 2:47 AM, said:

Hi Zach!

Looking great so far. MBs original boardgame was always one of my favourites. Can't wait to play against an AI

Greetings,
Manuel

Thanks Manuel. I've got a good AI algorithm working in C and it's just a matter of porting it to assembly. A DOS implementation of my AI can be downloaded from a previous blog entry. I have never won on level 3.

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Cybergoth
Aug 11 2005 12:32 PM

Hi Zach!

Hm... just tried level 3 and already won the first game against it

Greetings,
Manuel

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Zach
Aug 12 2005 4:00 PM

Cybergoth, on Thu Aug 11, 2005 1:32 PM, said:

Hm... just tried level 3 and already won the first game against it

OK, after a while I figured out how to win at level 3. To make smarter AI, I'll have to learn how to do Alpha-Beta pruning. Then you might be able to play at levels 4 and 5. (Actually you can play above level 3 now, but it takes a long time for the computer to move.)

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Cybergoth
Aug 12 2005 4:39 PM

Hi there!

Zach, on Fri Aug 12, 2005 10:00 PM, said:

Cybergoth, on Thu Aug 11, 2005 1:32 PM, said:

Hm... just tried level 3 and already won the first game against it

OK, after a while I figured out how to win at level 3. To make smarter AI, I'll have to learn how to do Alpha-Beta pruning.

Well, the game I played I tried my standard "ramp" strategy:

   *   
  * *  
 *   * 
*     *

I worked so far that I had *won* slots 1 and 5. Thus forcing us both to build towers on the remaining slots:

x xxx x
x xxx x
x x*x x
x *x* x 
x xxx x
* xxx *

In that situation it's his turn and I won.

I think for the computer to have a chance to break that strategy, it should follow a rule like that early in the game:

if(two or more slots are considered equally good moves)
{
take the slot with the lowest number of pieces in it
}

Greetings,
Manuel

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Zach
Aug 19 2005 1:35 AM

Those who will be attending the vgXpo in Dallas will get a chance to sample Four-Play at the AtariAge booth. I just submitted an updated demo with the following changes:

Each player now uses their own joystick.
Game ends automatically with four in a row in any direction.
Scanline count stabilized at 262 lines.

The more I think about the A.I. the more I think I'd be better off doing a one-player puzzle game for the 1K competition. In fact, I've already got a good demo working, and I'll post it once everyone gets back from CGE and vgXpo.

I will bring Four-Play and my 1K puzzle game to the Classic Game Expo in California this weekend. Anyone with a 2600 set up is welcome to take a look.

On a side note: Saw a live performance by Carrot Top at the California State Fair tonight.