TicTacToe in Ruby

Summary

This is a game of Tic-Tac-Toe aka Noughts and Crosses, built in the Ruby language. If you would like to read more on the rules of this game: Wikipedia

I built this game with the following restrictions:

• Playable in 3 modes:
  • Human VS Human
  • Human VS Computer
  • Computer VS Computer
• When playing against the computer, the computer must never lose
• The user should also have the choice of which player goes first.

Challenges & Learning Outcomes

I really enjoyed the whole project all the way from the paper sketches to passing the tests.

I found this a bit more complex that I would have imagined before starting it. The complexity that I came across was mainly dealing with the AI (Computer player).

It was easy to get the computer to make a random move but then getting the algorithm right to make the "best" move took some time. I realised that I was approaching the problem from a messy angle and that caused the delays. I then came across the MINIMAX Algorithm after researching the matter extensively. This took me quite a while to understand and apply properly. After hours and hours, I managed to successfully implement the algorithm and plug it into the Game.

I found it was a better approach to place all the Game rules in front of me and then write up the pseudo-code for it, bearing in mind the "best" moves.

I used the guard gem for this project, which I haven't used in a while. This really helped with the TDD aspect.

I also realised that when I got to completing the first Version (Human vs Human), the red-green-refactor cycle became a bit messy. This is something I aim to work on for the next project.

What helped me quite a lot throughout this project was to constantly play the Tic-tac-toe game against myself in order to visualise the "best" moves.

Future Plans

• Test the MINIMAX properly
• Clean up the runner file lib/play_game.rb => bin/ttt
• Seperate the CLI code from the business logic
• Make a Web app version with Sinatra/Rails
• Make the Command line version look nicer
• Use a game engine such as Gosu
• Make this into a Gem

Setup

git clone [email protected]:zlahham/tic_tac_toe.git
or
git clone https://github.com/zlahham/tic_tac_toe.git

cd tic_tac_toe

bundle

bin/ttt

Enjoy the Game!

Testing

git clone [email protected]:zlahham/tic_tac_toe.git

cd tic_tac_toe

bundle

rspec