Java Framework for two-player board games

This project was inspired by recent successes of board game-playing AI and also served to polish my OOP. It is a Java Framework for two-player board games; I have so far implemented tic-tac-toe, but the framework can accommodate any two-player board game (complete four, chess, go, …).

This doc describes

• the game flow
• player types
• the class structure
• a class tree
• heuristics for approximating field scores

Game Flow

Game flow is managed by a Controller, which operates on generic Board and Player Classes.

1. The Controller passes a turn to the current Player
2. The current Player selects a move
3. The controller checks the validity of the selected move
4. The controller updates the Board
5. The controller prints the current Board.

If the Board is in a game-over configuration (either Player won or ‘draw’):

6. The Controller terminates the game and prints the result.

Player types

Computer Players differ by their implementation of tree search algorithm. The MiniMaxPlayer implements the minimax algorithm; the AlphaBetaPlayer implements minimax using alpha-beta pruning to search the game tree up to a maximum depth maxDepth; the MCTSPlayer implements a Monte Carlo tree search.

Class Structure

Overview of Classes and their most important methods

Controller(Board, Player, Player):
    run(): while game is ongoing, passes turns between players, checks validity of selected moves and updates Board 

Test():
  main(): initialise Board, Player1, Player2, Controller and run()

Board(n_rows, n_cols):
  gameOver()
  generatePossibleMoves(currentPlayer): generate all possible moves for currentPlayer
  scoreHeatmap(scores): print board with scores for each empty field
    
	TicTacToeBoard
	  gameOver(): implements TicTacToe-specific termination condition

Player(int):
  selectMove(Board,currentPlayer)

	ComputerPlayer(int):
	treeSearchEval(Board, currentPlayer)
	selectMove(Board,currentPlayer): move selection, implemented by subclasses
	evaluateMoves(currentPlayer, moves): calculate scores for moves
	
		RandomPlayer(int):
		  treeSearchEval(Board, currentPlayer): select random move

		MCTSPlayer(maxRunTime):
		  treeSearchEval(Board, currentPlayer): select move by Monte Carlo tree search

		AlphaBetaPlayer(maxDepth):
		  treeSearchEval(Board, currentPlayer): select move by alpha-beta pruning

			MiniMaxPlayer(maxDepth):
			  treeSearchEval(Board, currentPlayer): select move by minimax algorithm

Filter():
  apply([][])

	SingleFilter():
	  apply([][]): apply individual filter to Board

	MultiFilter():
	  apply([][]): apply multiple filters to Board

Class Tree

Heuristics for approximating scores

SingleFilter and MultiFilter estimate the score of a Board based on the number of adjacent equal fields (based on the rules for winning TicTacToe). They are used to evaluate a proposed move when maxDepth is reached during an alpha-beta pruning tree search.

Ideas for additions

• a HumanPlayer; such that treeSearchEval() returns a keyboard input
• better heuristics, e.g. learn move scores from (self-play generated) training data
• ...