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About

Tic Tac Toe Animation

We've all probably played a game of Tic Tac Toe / Noughts and Crosses, this classic game is quite simple to play, but it is an interesting challenge to write an algorithm that can play (intelligently) for you.

Rules

  1. You play on a 3x3 game board.
  2. You and your opponent will play one after another.
  3. You need to get 3 cells in a row, in any direction, to win.
  4. If you take too long to play (usually 100ms), you lose.

Writing Your Own Player

You will now write an algorithm (player) that can play Tic Tac Toe!

Your player needs to:

  1. Play a valid move.
  2. Receive and record an opponent's move.

Now is a good time to ensure you have the tic-tac-toe-player repository available (see The Welcome Page), and open it in your code editor.

The Starter Player

The starter pack provides a player that plays Tic Tac Toe by picking valid moves at random. Not the best strategy. You will soon improve it, but let's ensure the starter player works on your machine first.

Running the Starter Player

Run the following command in the tic-tac-toe-player directory to install required dependencies:

npm install

Now run uabc to connect your player to the lobby you created earlier (replacing YOUR_LOBBY_NAME and YOUR_PLAYER_NAME with appropriate values):

uabc --host "https://server.socialgorithm.org" --lobby "{YOUR_LOBBY_NAME}" --token "{YOUR_PLAYER_NAME}" -f "node run_player.js myPlayer"

If all goes well, your player should show up in the list of available players.

You now need another player to compete against. Open a new terminal window and run the above command again (changing the player name).

You can now start the game (you may have to click "Play Next Match" in the top right corner).

Improving the Starter Player

So now you've got the starter player working, let's improve it! In the starter pack, find the players directory.

So far, you have been running the myPlayer.js implementation. This is a copy of the random.js file, so as you improve myPlayer, you can ensure you are getting better results versus random.

Let's dig into the myPlayer.js file to see what it is actually doing. There are three functions of interest to us:

  1. LINE 17: init: () => void Function that is called when a new game is about to begin (the player will normally reset their board state at this time).
  2. LINE 21: getMove: () => Move
    Function that is called every time it is your move.
  3. LINE 28: onOpponentMove: (move: Move) => Move
    Function that is called every time the opponent makes a move.

If you read the getMove function, you will see that it calls the getRandomValidMove() function. As the name of the function indicates, this function returns a random valid move, which is then returned to the server.

So, to stop playing randomly, replace the call to the getRandomValidMove() function with a function of your own. It might help you to first understand what that function is doing, copy it and then make your modifications. You can also refer to the SubBoard API to see what functions are available on the SubBoard/game object.

Every time you use the addMyMove or addOpponentMove functions, remember that the board object is copied, so (as is done in the getMyMove function), you must update the existing game variable with the return value of addMyMove/addOpponentMove, i.e.:

this.game = this.game.addMyMove(myMove);

Testing your improvements

To test your improvements, run the myPlayer implementation (or any other player you have created), against the random implementation. You can connect the random implementation to your lobby by running:

uabc --host "https://server.socialgorithm.org" --lobby "{YOUR_LOBBY_NAME}" --token "random" -f "node run_player.js random"

Competing

To compete, simply replace the name of your test lobby with the lobby name given to you by the Socialgorithm mentors running the workshop.

Good luck!