This is stage #1 of the course project. The main concepts covered are:
You have been assigned to a development team whose task is to
design an on-line game similar to a very popular word game called
Scrabble (TM of Hasbro). If you haven't played Scrabble you
should try it - it's fun! We're serious! If you haven't played
Scrabble, get together with your team members on a Friday night and
play. Consider it homework. You will have a much better understanding
of the issues involved if you have played the game, even though this
game differs in several important respects.
Description of pieces used to play
The game is played on a board with a 12x12 grid and a set of 144
letter tiles. Each tile has an (upper-case) letter from the English
alphabet inscribed on it as well as a point value. The point values of
the tiles, as well as quantity of each type of tile, is given in the
table below:
| Letter |
Number of tiles |
Point value |
| A |
12 |
1 |
| B |
3 |
5 |
| C |
6 |
3 |
| D |
6 |
3 |
| E |
14 |
1 |
| F |
3 |
5 |
| G |
3 |
5 |
| H |
6 |
3 |
| I |
12 |
1 |
| J |
1 |
10 |
| K |
1 |
10 |
| L |
6 |
3 |
| M |
3 |
5 |
|
| Letter |
Number of tiles |
Point value |
| N |
10 |
1 |
| O |
12 |
1 |
| P |
3 |
5 |
| Q |
1 |
10 |
| R |
10 |
1 |
| S |
10 |
1 |
| T |
10 |
1 |
| U |
3 |
5 |
| V |
1 |
10 |
| W |
3 |
5 |
| X |
1 |
10 |
| Y |
3 |
5 |
| Z |
1 |
10 |
|
The rows and columns of the board divide it into regions called
squares. Note that a square is distinct from a tile. A tile
may be place on a square during game play. One of the squares is
chosen at random to be the "home square".
Preparing to play
Before the game begins each player is given twelve tiles. These
tiles are kept hidden from the other players. The order of initial
play is determined at random, but once determined is fixed for the
rest of the game.
How to play
Players alternate turns trying to form words on the game
board. Words may be formed horizontally (reading left to right) or
vertically (reading down), but never diagonally. A word must be at
least two letters long. The first player to place a word must
place one of the tiles of their word on the "home square".
In subsequent turns the word which a player places on the board must
intersect with or touch an existing word on the board. Examples are
shown below.
The word placed (which we’ll call the primary word) as
well as any other words formed (which we’ll call
secondary words) must in general be valid words.
Validity checking is very simple for this first stage: any combination
of letters is considered to be a valid word. In later stages a more
sophisticated form of validity will be required.
If at the end of a player’s turn they have less then twelve
tiles they are given tiles to replenish their supply (so that they
again have twelve tiles), assuming this is possible. If there
aren’t enough tiles to replenish a player’s supply they
get all remaining tiles. Once there are no tiles remaining, players
continue the game with the tiles they have.
The game ends if no player can form a valid word with the tiles
they have, or if one player
places all of his or her tiles on the board and there are no more
tiles to pick up.
Word placement examples
Here are some examples showing how words can be placed on the
board. The first word must be placed over the "home
square”, either vertically or horizontally. For example, if the
first word played is "dog" it can go in any of the following
ways. The letter placed over the “home square” is
CAPITALIZED.
Dog
dOg
doG
D d d
o O o
g g G
Assume that the first word is placed as shown:
dOg
Player 2 might form the word "save" and place it as
shown:
dOgs
a
v
e
Player 3 might form the word "old" using the letters
"l" and "d" from their own tiles and the
"o" which is already on the board:
dOgs
l a
d v
e
Aside from the first word placed, every word put on the board must
use a letter of an existing word (this is what player 3 did) or add a
letter to an existing word to form a new word (this is what player 2
did).
Suppose now that player 4 wants to place the word
"gag". Assuming we are checking words for validity there is
only one placement possible:
g
a
dOgs
l a
d v
e
The other two placements are not permitted because for either
placement the other letter combinations formed are not valid
words. Consider the first alternate placement:
dOgs
laa
dgv
e
This is not allowed since "laa" and "dgv" are
not legal words. The second alternate placement (shown below) is also
not permitted because "lgag" is not a word, and neither is
"gg":
dOgs
lgag
d v
e
In stage one (this stage) all these placements must be allowed,
since no validity checking is to be performed.
How to score
At the end of each turn the score for the word that the player
placed on the board is calculated and added to the player's overall
score. The score for a word is the sum of the point values for each of
the tiles that were placed.
Scoring example #1
Suppose the word "dog" is the first word placed on the
board, as in the placement example given above.
Since
d has a point value of 3
o has a point value of 1
g has a point value of 5
the score is 3 + 1 + 5 = 9.
Scoring example #2
Suppose the word "save" is the second word placed on
the board, as in the placement example given above. Since two
words were formed by the tile placement, “dogs” and
“save”, both words are scored.
Since
d has a point value of 3
o has a point value of 1
g has a point value of 5
s has a point value of 1
the score for “dogs” is 3 + 1 + 5 + 1 = 10, and since
s has a point value of 1
a has a point value of 1
v has a point value of 10
e has a point value of 1
the score for “save” is 1 +
1 + 10 + 1 = 13. The total score
for this turn is 10 + 13 = 23.
Scoring example #3
Suppose the word "old" is the third word placed on the
board, as in the placement example given above. Even though only
two tiles were placed on the board by the player on their turn
(“l” and “d”) they get points for all the
tiles that are part of the word. Therefore,
since
O has a point value of 1
l has a point value of 3
d has a point value of 3
the score is 1 + 3 + 3 = 7.
How to win
The player who has the greatest number of points at
the end of the game wins.
Stage 1 requirements
Please read the following requirements
carefully! While the final game
will require more functionality, the customer expects the following in the
first release.
Functionality
The following functionality must be present in the
system. Note that a graphical user interface is NOT desired at
this point. A purely text-based user interface must be provided
instead. The following functionality must be verified via unit
tests that you write.
Game set-up
- Registration of the
number of players. At this point
only two players are required. It
is acceptable if the program assumes that there are exactly two players.
- The names of the
players must be entered.
- Order of play
must be determined randomly, and all players must be informed of the order of
play.
- Players must be
given their initial tiles.
- The “home
square” must be chosen at random.
- The initial (empty)
board configuration must be shown, with the “home square” clearly
identified.
Game play
- Players must be
given an opportunity to play their turn in the order determined in the game
set-up.
- At the beginning of a player’s turn the current state of the
board must be shown to the player. This must include a display of the
current player's available tiles (but must not include the
tiles of any other player, nor the remaining available tiles).
- On a
player’s turn they must be able to,
- A player will only
be allowed to complete their turn if the tiles are placed on the board in a
legal configuration (over the home square on the first turn, connecting to an
existing word on subsequent turns; furthermore all tiles placed must be in a
straight line, and in a contiguous block).
- A player may complete their turn even if the word placed is not
valid (i.e. every word must be considered valid).
- Once a player has completed their turn all of the words they
formed during that turn are scored, and the sum of the scores of all
of the words is added to the player’s overall score. The
player receives new tiles from the tile supply, as described
above. The player must be informed of each player’s score,
including their own new score, and of how each of their words was
scored.
Game completion
- Once the game is
finished the player with the highest score is announced, and the players are
listed in order of their score, from highest to lowest, in the following
format: “Name : Score”
Package naming
Your code must be placed in packages as appropriate.
None of your code may be in the default package. Your packages must be named “edu.buffalo.cse.teamX.???”, where X is the number of your team and ??? is the name of the
package. You must at a minimum have
one package for your code, and one package for your unit tests.
Code documentation
You must document every class and every class member
using Javadoc documentation comments. See the Javadoc Tool Home Page
for more information. See in particular the page How to
Write Doc Comments for Javadoc and javadoc
- The Java API Documentation Generator.
Technical guide
You must submit a technical guide which
describes the design of your project, testing that you have done, any required
functionality which your project does not implement or does not implement
properly, etc. The technical guide
must be either a PDF or a Word document.
Teams
Teamwork guidelines
It is important that there is a roughly equal
division of labor amongst teammates. It is unacceptable for one person to be
expected to do most of the work. Given the structure of the program it is also
most unlikely that this person will successfully complete the project.
Teammates who are not doing work will receive a grade of 0 for the project.
If you are having trouble with an unmotivated group
member you should seek to solve the problem at the group level first. If this
does not work, you may seek the aid of the instructor. However, be warned that
when seeking the instructor's aid we will verify the teamwork points given to
the individual. Bottom line is that if that person had previously been given
good reviews, no action will be taken.
Team meetings
To help you manage your time, here are some do's and don'ts for
recitation:
- Do NOT write code during recitation time.
- Do discuss
- accomplishments (goals met) since last meeting
- problems (goals not met) that have come up since last meeting
- goals for next meeting
- schedule for the next week for pairs to meet to pair program
- Do have someone take notes each meeting, and keep notes in your
repository. You will be required to submit one set of
meeting notes per week.
- Do compromise.
- Do NOT exclude team members - use all your team's resources.
Team peer-evaluation mechanism
The project submission for a team is graded as a
whole, but each team member receives an individual grade which is based on that
submission grade. The procedure for calculating individual grades is described
below. The procedure is based on an assessment of each team member's
contribution to the overall project submission. To assess individual member's
contributions we will use a peer-based evaluation mechanism.
Here's how it works. Each person is given 10 points per group member to award.
For example, for a team of five, each team member has 50 points to divide
amongst all the team members, including themselves. A team member may award a
maximum of 15 points to any one person.
Points should be awarded to team members as an
indication of your perception of how much work they did relative to others on
the team. If you feel everyone did about the same amount of work you should
award everyone 10 points.
Notice that you evaluate your own contribution. Notice
also that you must award all of the points you have available to you. Finally,
be aware that the peer evaluations are submitted individually and are
confidential – your teammates will NOT know how you rated them.
After we get all of the peer evaluations we will
calculate the average of the points allotted to each team member.
Your individual grade project will be your average
score multiplied by the overall project score, divided by 10.
Example
Consider a group made up of Cindy, Peter, Sally and
Ulrik. As usual Sally does a fantastic job, Cindy and Ulrik do a moderate job
but Peter didn't do much of anything. The table below shows the points that
each team member awarded to the others.
|
|
Sally awards
|
Cindy awards
|
Ulrik awards
|
Peter awards
|
average
|
|
Points awarded
to Sally -->
|
12
|
15
|
15
|
14
|
(12+15+15+14)/4 =
56/4 = 14
|
|
Points awarded
to Cindy -->
|
11
|
10
|
9
|
6
|
(11+10+9+6)/4 =
36/4 = 9
|
|
Points awarded
to Ulrik -->
|
11
|
9
|
10
|
6
|
(11+9+10+6)/4 =
36/4 = 9
|
|
Points awarded
to Peter -->
|
6
|
6
|
6
|
14
|
(6+6+6+14)/4 = 32/4
= 8
|
Sally's average score is 14. Cindy and Ulrik each
have an average score of 9. Peter trails the pack with an average score of only
8.
If this team's project submission received 80% overall,
then Sally would get 112% (!), Cindy and Ulrik would each get 72%, but Peter
would get only 64%. Since Peter’s scores were so unbalanced we would look
carefully at the documentation in the code to see what each of the team members
contributed, and based on this we might adjust (either up or down) the score of
any individual; the team as a whole would likely be called in for a meeting to
find out what is happening with the team.
In extreme cases I reserve the right to ignore the
peer evaluations and grade students based on their documented contribution to
the project.
Team Submission
Each team must submit one jar file, exported from your eclipse workspace,
containing:
- Source code, properly javadoc'ed (do NOT include .class files),
together with .project and .classpath
files, and any UML class diagrams you think may be useful
for the graders.
- Technical guide
- Team meeting notes
IMPORTANT! Name your jar file with using your team designation as
follows. If your team is cse116i, then name your jar file
cse116i-stage1.jar
Note that this is all lower case!
The submission deadline is on or before 11:59.59 PM
on Sunday, September 30, 2007.
The submission command is "submit_cse116".
Individual Submission
Each member of your team is required to submit a peer evaluation
file. You must name your peer evaluation file with the
following format:
team-peer-yourLastName-1.txt
For example, if your team is cse116i, and your last name is Smith,
then name your peer evaluation file:
cse116i-peer-smith-1.txt
Note that this is all lower case!
The submission command is "submit_cse116".
