GoPuzzles

By: Phillip SdaoErin NelsonEric Plulik

Shaun Slamka

Introduction

This project is an expansion of a board game for the Android

It is designed to be a puzzle game made after the game ‘Go’

This 10 week project includes Planning and pre-

programming Puzzle Creator application Level Selection Graphic Polish

The game of Go is a thousand year old

thought to have originated in China. It is a game of strategy played by both

farmers and peasants; and Lords and the upper-class

The game hit its stride of popularity when it traveled to Japan.

Today it is still very popular in eastern nations, and can be compared to the popularity of chess in the western hemisphere.

Game History

How it is played

The game is played on a 9x9, 13x13, or 19x19 wooden board.

Beads are placed one by one on any intersection of the board, including corners and sides.

The game is played until both agree that no more points can be gained by ether player.

The game is won by whoever has the most

amount of points. Points are gained in 3 ways.

By capturing an enemy piece By having a bead on the board By having territory that the opponent has

agreed he/she cannot capture.

Points

Liberties

Each pieces has “Liberties” that represent each line coming from the spot a bead occupies.

When a line is touching a spot occupied by an opposing bead, that line is no longer considered a Liberty.

When a bead has no more Liberties it is captured and taken off the board. This then becomes a point for the enemy player

When two or more beads are touching they

are considered a group A group shares its liberties. This means a group cannot be captured unless

the entire group touches no open spots. When a bead or group has only one liberty it is

considered to be in Atari. When a pro is playing a newcomer it is

considered polite to say Atari whenever a group or piece is put into Atari.

Groups and Atari

Seki

Seki is when it is unfavorable for ether player to advance

In this case each player is only awarded points for each piece in that placed and is not awarded points for territory

Formations

During the game Formations occur, which are the basis for the Puzzle portion of this Game.

Some formations are famous such as the stairway, and the net shown to the right.

In both formations black cannot escape.

Puzzles

Because these formations go from extremely simple to extremely complex, the idea for making puzzles out of completing small formations favorably exist.

In these puzzles a player makes a move, and the computer makes a response, completing all the correct responses gives the player his victory.

Like stated before the project expanded on a

crude game that displayed a single puzzle that could be worked through.

A player could place a bead, confirm placement and receive a response.

When the correct inputs were made, A victory alert was made and the player was thrown back to the main Menu.

Overview of Project

The Pre-Planning stage is a stage in the

project where we decided on the workflow, and made time estimates, and deadlines for parts of the Game.

These stages include making a level select, an Level creator, and polishing up the design itself.

Pre-Planing Stage

Difficultly Select Method

When developing the difficulty select I used an XML that allows you to select the difficulty you want to play which can be accessed from the main menu.

Once you choose the difficulty you want the button takes you those puzzles that are in that difficulty.

Each puzzle within the corresponding difficulty's is different.

The screen for the different levels uses a background that fits with the game itself and uses images that serves as buttons that allow to you go each puzzle.

This setup is reusable while maintain its appeal to the user.

Why we choose this setup

We choose this method of setting up the difficulty select because it’s the most efficient system we’ve seen used.

The most popular game at the moment that uses this set up is angry birds and its very appealing to the users based upon sales and downloads.

It provides a great template which is very diverse and easy to use. Applications that look appealing and have great functionality make a product more appealing.

Another benefit of this setup is it’s expandability and reusability on the programming end.

Expandability

Like we previously mentioned on the last side the setup we used is very open to improving or adding more content

It provides enough space to add more content which we plan to do in the paid version of the application

With said space there is room for more functions such as showing the full content of the app however they would be greyed out in the free version.

With that being said with additional content it will still be appealing to the user.

Screenshots

Screenshots

Screenshots

Level Creator

The Go Puzzle application reads XML in order to form the puzzle. Therefore in order to reduce human error, and increase efficiency a Level creator was made.

The level creator allows the maker to predict the moves a player will make and then provide a response. The response also holds the properties that decide whether or not it is a victory or a dead end for the player.

In order to create a puzzle a person first starts

the application. That person then clicks buttons to place

pieces in the setup that the board should take at the start of a puzzle.

The person then makes predicted player moves, and the AI responses for them, until all reasonable moves have been predicted.

Finally the person selects save and the puzzle is saved to an XML file.

Level Creator Work-Flow

Graphic Polish

At the start of the Project the application had nearly no polish.

A wood design was used for the background and buttons and increased aesthetic feel for the game.

Before and After

This 10 week project has done many things for

this application. It has expanded its functionality and has easy

to use content creation. With some tweaking for the demo and full

versions it will be ready for the android market

Conclusion