Cpsc 115 Program 2: Tic Tac Toe Game

Programming Assignment #2: Tic Tac Toe Game
Due Date: Monday, May 1, 2006

Tic Tac Toe

Write a TicTacToe subclass of TwoPlayerGame and a TicTacToePlayer class that implements the IPlayer interface to play a computer-based version of TicTacToe. Although it is not necessary to write an applet GUI for this project, it might be fun to do so. Here's an example

Click here for a demo of a Tic Tac Toe Applet.

Note: This project is considerably more challenging than the Skip Cipher Project. It requires the use of an array to store the Tic Tac Toe board as well as advanced GUI elements, such as GridLayout and ImageIcons.

The `TicTacToe` Class

The TicTacToe class should be a subclass of abstract TwoPlayerGame and it should implement either (or both) the CLUIPlayableGame or the GUIPlayableGame interface. See Figures 8.19 and 8.23 for details on the superclasses.

This means that in addition to whatever instance methods and instance variables you need for your Tic Tac Toe game, your TicTacToe class must have the following method implementations:

getRules():String -- override this inherited TwoPlayerGame method.
gameOver():boolean -- a method to determine when the game is over.
getWinner():String -- method to report the winner.

The following methods are inherited from the IGame and GUIPlayableGame interfaces and must be given implementations in TicTacToe (assuming a GUI is used).

reportGameState():String -- a string representing the Tic Tac Toe board.
getGamePrompt():String -- a string used to prompt players.
submitUserMove(move:String):String -- the players use this method to submit moves in the game.

Of course, the TicTacToe class must be designed to keep track of things like the state of the game board, whose turn it is, and so forth. Some of these functions (whose turn) can use methods inherited from the TwoPlayerGame class.

The `TicTacToePlayer` Class

The TicTacToePlayer class must implement the IPlayer interface, which means it must provide an implementation of the following method:

makeAMove(move String):String -- this method is used by the player to move a move in the Tic Tac Toe game. It would be called when it is the computer's turn to play. The TicTacToePlayer must be given a reference to the TicTacToe object, so that it can retrieve information about the game's state.

The GUI

Download the TicTacToeApplet.java file. This file is complete and needn't be changed. However, it assumes that two image files, x.gif and o.gif, store the graphical X and O icons that are used in the game.

The applet assumes you have implemented a TicTacToeGUI class that contains a constructor with the following signature: TicTacToeGUI(ImageIcon oIcon, ImageIcon xIcon). The reason for this is that because of Java's security requirements the applet has to load the images, which it then passes to the GUI.

Your GUI class will need ImageIcon instance variables. Suppose you store the nine JButtons representing the Tic Tac Toe square in an array. Then here is how you would associate an ImageIcon with the kth button. In this example, board[k] is a JButton and xButtonIcon is the ImageIcon:

board[k].setIcon(xButtonIcon);

To arrange the TicTacToe board into a 3 x 3 matrix, you can simply use a GridLayout. In this example the eight JButtons that make up the visible Tic Tac Toe board are contained in a JPanel:

buttons = new JPanel();
buttons.setLayout(new GridLayout(3,3));  // Arranges components in a 3 x 3 grid
buttons.setBorder(new TitledBorder(prompt));
// Here you need a loop to add each button to the panel:
   board[k] = new JButton(""+k);      // Buttons are initially labeled 0..8
   board[k].addActionListener(this);  // Each button has a listener
   buttons.add(board[k]);             // Just add the button to the grid

Note that in the demo applet, the squares on the board (the JButtons) are simply labeled 0 through 8. The icons are only associated with the board after the user or the computer has made a move. When a new game is started, the button's labels go back to their initial state.

In your actionPerformed() method, you can use a loop to determine which of the eight buttons was clicked and then take appropriate action.

Compiling and Running

There is no need to modify any of the files in the TwoPlayerGame hierarchy. Therefore, these classes and interfaces making up the TwoPlayerGame hierarchy have been organized into a Java archive named nplayer.jar. Download nplayer.jar and place it in your Tic Tac Toe directory. Then to compile your programs use the following command:

   javac -classpath nplayer.jar:. *.java                  // Compiles all java files
   javac -classpath nplayer.jar:. TicTacToeApplet.java    // Compiles the applet and all files it uses

Using Images

If you want to use the same images that were used in the demo, download images.jar and place it in your Tic Tac Toe directory.

The Applet Tag

If you are using the downloaded nplayer.jar and images.jar, then your applet tag should be coded as follows:

<applet codebase="./" archive="nplayer.jar, images.jar" code="TicTacToeApplet.class" width=500 height=500 > </applet>

Programming Assignment #2: Tic Tac Toe Game Due Date: Monday, May 1, 2006