GamesCrafters :: Edit Game

Creating Your Own Gamesman Module

Read About Gamesman
- Explore this website a bit more.
- Sign up for Sourceforge and connect to us via CVS.
- Learn how to use CVS if you don't already know how to use it
Install Gamesman
1. At your UNIX Compatible shell, run
  % ./configure
2. Next, run
  % make
  You're done!
Choose Your Game
- Design What Game You Want To Code.
- Resources:
  - Elwyn Berlekemp, John H. Conway, and Richard K. Guy. Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, Volume 1,2. Academic Press Inc., 1982. (red and blue books)
  - Franco Agostino and Nicola Alberto DeCarlo. Intelligence Games. Simon and Schuster, 1985.
  - Andrea Angiolino. Super Sharp Pencil & Paper Games. Sterling Publishing Co, Inc., 1995.
  - John D. Beasley. The Mathematics of Games. Oxford University Press, 1989.
  - R. C. Bell. Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations. Oxford University Press, 1979.
  - R. C. Bell. The Boardgame Book. Exeter Books, 1983.
  - Robbie Bell and MIchael Cornelius. Board Games Round the World: A Resourse Book for Mathematical Investigations. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
  - Gyles Brandreth. The World's Best Indoor Games. Pantheon Books, 1981.
  - Matthew J. Costello. The Greatest Games of All Time. John Wiley & Sons, 1991.
  - Jon Freeman. The Playboy Winner's Guide to Board Games. Playboy Press, 1979.
  - Frederic V. Grunfeld. Games of the World : how to make them, how to play them, how they came to be. UNICEF, 1975.
  - Karl-Heinz Koch. Pencil & Paper Games. Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 1992.
  - Pentagram. Pentagames. Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1990.
  - David Pritchard. Brain Games. Penguin Books Ltd., 1982.
  - Eric Solomon. Games with Pencil and Paper. Dover, 1993.
Create Variants For Your Game
- Think of other rules for your game.
Code Your Game

First, find a shortened version of your game name. Example: Tic-Tac-Toe - ttt
Take a look at modules already written for Gamesman to get a good idea on what you'll be doing.
Familiarize yourself with the Gamesman hashing facility in hash.c and hash.h. You will be using these to generate POSITION data types.
You must have these functions written at a minimum to run Gamesman on your game.
1. MOVEliST *GenerateMoves (POSITION position)
  - Returns a MOVEliST containing all the possible moves from the given position.
2. POSITION DoMove(POSITION position, MOVE move)
  - Applies the move to the position and returns the new position.
3. VALUE Primitive(POSITION position)
  - Returns the value of the given position
  - A VALUE is one of win, lose, tie, or undecided.
4. void PrintPosition(POSITION position, STRING playersName, BOOLEAN usersTurn)
  - Prints the board with all necessary information
5. void PrintComputersMove(MOVE computersMove, STRING computersName)
  - Prints the computer's move nicely.
6. void PrintMove(MOVE move)
  - Prints the move in a human readable format.
7. USERINPUT GetAndPrintPlayersMove(POSITION position, MOVE *move, STRING playersName)
  - We actually wrote this one for you. You only need to change one line.
8. MOVE ConvertTextInputToMove(STRING input)
  - Converts a text move into your internally represented move.

Design Your Graphics Interface
- Decide How You Will...
  - Draw Your Pieces
  - Interact With Your Pieces
  - Display All Of Your Moves At Once (Through value-moves)
Code Your Graphics Interface
- Learn Tcl/Tk. We use Tcl/Tk to run the Gamesman graphics interface.
- Code Your Tcl file in the $GAMESMANROOT/tcl directory. Take a look at preexisting files for ideas.

You're done!

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Creating Your Own Gamesman Module

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