Create Computer Player

[madhukannan]

Two players taking turns on one mouse to put down markers is tedious and inefficient. Creating a computer player to play against will be a better alternative.

Estimated Points: 500

[asyung]

F16 OK (500 points)

[Sierrasch]

This could be really challenging depending on the complexity of the AI you create. At it's simplest, you could have the AI make a random move, but that is not very good and will likely not earn you many points. On the other end of the spectrum, you could implement an algorithm such as minimax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax). This is much more challenging and should give really strong results, which will mean it is worth a lot more points.

W18 OK (150-600 pts)

[meredithxu]

Steps: 1. A button that sends you to the computer player mode.
2. The interface looks the same as the original one but doesn't have an undo button.
3. Make a valid random move.
(Do a pull request)
4. A function that evaluates the board state.
5. One level minimax.
6. different levels minimax.

[Sierrasch]

Good list of steps. If up to step 3 is done I estimate that to be worth 250 points (this will mostly be infrastructure changes to allow for a computer player). If up to step 6 is done that will be worth 500-600 points depending on how good the AI is (evaluation function, efficiency allowing for extra minimax depth, etc..)

[Sierrasch]

In W18, a board evaluation function was added which is a key step in building an AI (at least with the minimax approach). Also, a "one layer" minimax was added (essentially just a for loop deciding the best move looking only 1 move in the future). All that is really left to do here is implement the full minimax algorithm (look it up on wikipedia). It's not as scary as it seems, but still is not something to be undertaken lightly. Strong algorithms and data structure knowledge would be very helpful in implementing this.