Welcome to A*Star battles, a fun multiplayer game which pits human vs machine as each player must battle the 'finder' of the opponent.

The finder utilizes the path finding algorithm A star in order to try and reach a common goal before the opponents.

GOAL: The goal of the game is to move your snake in such a way that it blocks the opponents finder from reaching the target. You want your finder (which is the same colour as you) to reach the green goal square first. Each finder leaves a pink path behind it but players and their walls can still pass through these paths.

Included Files: - AStar.py - astarNode.py - client.py - custommap.txt - Game.py - gameOnline.py - GameOver.py - main.py - mapCreator.py - mapDesign.py - node.py - README - server.py - StartScreen.py - waitingScreen.py

Running Instructions:

Local:

1. Start up a game by running "python3 main.py" from the command line while
    in the directory containing 'main.py'

2. Then push '1' and press enter in order to enter in the local mode

3. The home screen displays the algorithm in use and it navigates to the green
    square from the start point

4. First you are able to select between game modes by pressing either '1','2' or '3'
    The harder the game mode the more obstacles are placed on the map

5. However, if you would like to create your own map you can press 'c' which will bring you
    to the map designer screen

6. The map designer screen works as follows:
    - Press down on the cursor to place a barrier
    - Press '1' to place player 1 flag
    - Press '2' to place the player 2 flag
    - NOTE: You must place player 1 flag first

7. To then save your custom map press 's' and enter in the name of the map. Then press enter

8. To load a custom map press 'v' and enter the name of the map. Then press enter.
    To see a custom map that we have created load 'custommap'

9. Now that the map has been selected, press enter to play the game

10. The blue player is controlled with the keypad and the orange player is controlled with 'WASD'

11. The Game is over when either a finder reaches the goal or a player snake becomes stuck and cannot move

12. From the GameOver screen the user can play again by pressing enter

Multiplayer:

    - Client:

    1. By default, multiplayer will attempt to connect to a server on 'localhost'.
        If you wish to connect to another server, replace 'localhost' on line 29 of
        'client.py' and on line 29 of 'gameOnline.py' with the desired web address.

    2. By default, multiplayer will attempt to connect over port '8888'. If you
        wish to connect over another port, replace '8888' on line 29 of 'client.py'
        and on line 29 of 'gameOnline.py' with the desired port number.

    3. Start up a game by running "python3 main.py" from the command line while
        in the directory containing main.py

    4. Then push '2' and press enter in order to enter in the multiplayer mode

    5. If you are the first player to connect to the server, you will be asked to
        set the game difficulty. Enter '1', '2' or '3' for easy, medium and difficult
        respectively. Otherwise, if you are player 2, you will wait for the other player to
        set the game difficulty.

    6. Upon connecting, play the game the same way that it is played locally, however
        both players now used 'WASD' for controls.

    - Server:

    1. By default, multiplayer is played over port '8888'. If you wish to connect
        over another port, replace '8888' on line 146 of 'server.py' with the
        desired port number.

    2. In the directory containing 'server.py', run 'python3 server.py'.

    3. Players should then be able to connect to the address of the server.

Requirements:

In order to run our game requires:
    - Pygame version
    - pickle
    - tornado
    - websocket
    - asyncio

This libraries can be installed on the VM by running the following, respectively:
    - pip3 install asyncio
    - pip3 install websocket

Notes and Assumptions:

Some lines of code are very long, especially when dealing with multidimensional
lists. Sometimes these especially long lines of code do not pass the pep8 line
length limit, however they were left these lengths to improve readability.

In the Map Designer, Player 1's flag must be placed BEFORE Player 2's flag
by pressing '1' AND THEN '2'.

In the Map Designer, both flags MUST be placed before saving, otherwise the
map will not load.

Reference:

The following was used as reference material throughout the course of the project:
    - For help on A*star: https://medium.com/@nicholas.w.swift/easy-a-star-pathfinding-7e6689c7f7b2
    - For help on Pygame: https://www.pygame.org/docs/