Mancala Board Game

My MSc Computer Science group project.

Project Context

Your group has been tasked with designing a digital version of the ancient game Mancala. The system, as outlined in this document, will fulfil many requirements that your client wishes to see implemented in the near future.

Mancala is a traditional African game, thought to be one of the oldest board games in existence still today. There are several variations of the game, but for this task, the base version of the game is to be used. Mancala is a two player game with the following rules.

1. The Mancala board is made up of two rows of six holes, with a larger hole on both sides of the rows.
2. Four pieces are placed in each of the 12 holes.
3. Each player has a store (called a Mancala) to the right side of the Mancala board (the larger hole at the end of the rows).
4. The game randomly choses a player to start. That player then picks up all of the pieces in any one of the holes on their side.
5. Moving counter-clockwise, the player deposits one of the stones in each hole until the stones run out. • If you run into your own store, deposit one piece in it. If you run into your opponent’s store, skip it. • If the last piece you drop is in your own store, you get a free turn. • If the last piece you drop is in an hole with pieces, you pick those pieces up and move again. • If the last piece you drop is into an empty hole, your turn is over the other player begins their turn.
6. The game ends when all six spaces on one side of the Mancala board are empty.
7. The player who still has pieces on his side of the board when the game ends capture all of those pieces.
8. Count all the pieces in each store. The winner is the player with the most pieces.

Game System Structure

This section will describe in detail the exact elements of the proposed system and what features are to be supported.

1. Game Modes

The proposed system will allow for two modes of game style; traditional and arcade. The traditional variant of the game will follow the exact rules outlined in Section 2 (and as the video demonstration describes).

The arcade version will expand on the base version of the game and add new gameplay elements into the system. In this mode players will have access to two power-ups at the start of a game:

1. Continue Turn - When used, a player can continue their turn once an empty hole. The player must move to the next hole which contains stones and continue from that point

2. Double Points - For a single turn all points added to a player’s store are doubled. These power-ups may only be used at the start of a turn and must be stated by a player at this time. In addition to power-ups, the arcade version allows for the support of 3 special stones that either player could encounter during a turn:

3. Half hand - In this case, the special stone will reduce the number of pieces picked up by half. In cases of odd numbers the result should be rounded up (e.g. a result of 2.5 would round to 3). The remaining stones (those not picked up) will remain in the hole.

4. Reverse turn - Rather than following an anti-clockwise movement, for the next round move in a clockwise direction.

5. Switch sides - A player must take the stones from the opposite side of the board (instead of where they have chosen)and take turn from that position

Each time a player picks up a set of stones from a hole to begin a move, there is a 10% chance of one of these special stones being triggered on that player turn. That is each time a player picks up pieces there is a 1 in 10 chance of a special stone triggering an action. The system should clearly present the information that they have picked up a special stone to a user in an appropriate manner.

Mancala

1. All images are in 4K resolution, click to enlarge for better viewing.

2. Gameplay

The system needs to support two player games on a stand-alone local machine. Players should be able to pick a profile before starting a game. Additionally, it is required that a computer player can also be created to play against.

3. Users

There are two types of users in the system:

3.1 Administrators - Can approve new users joining the system and will assign new users. The administrator will also have access to an extra information screen showing the most frequent users that have logged onto teh system , as well as the frequency of power-ups and special stones used in the arcade version of the game.

3.2 Players - Can play the game of Mancala as described in this document

4. User Information

Each player in the game must have an account, which we refer to as the user’s profile. the following information is linked to a user’s profile:

1. A username that allows access to the profile
2. A first and a last name
3. The date and time of the last time a user was logged in
4. A profile image
5. A win percentage

You should design and implement classes to manage this information. Also, you should create an graphical user interface that allows the input of this information to create a new account.

5. Player Records

The system should track the wins and loses of each player in the system. This information will then be used to calculate win percentages for every users profile page, as well as a leaderboard. This leaderboard will provide a tabular view of the players on the system and rank them according to either their win percentage or total number of wins.

6. Favourite Players

Users shall be able to browse the limited profiles of other users (username, profile image and win percentage only) and mark them at favourites. Users shall also be able to unmark a user as a favourite. When browsing the leaderboard, the user shall also have the ability to mark a player as a favourite.

7. Information Since Last Login

The user will have the ability to look at a variety of lists which will contain information that has 2 changed since the last time they logged in. Specifically:

7.1 Games that have been completed since they last logged in

7.2 Changes to their position in the leaderboard

8. Profile Images

Each user must have a profile image that can be selected from a file. The user can select one of these as their profile picture.

9. Other Properties

Initially, all the information shall be stored in files on disk. More specifically, the Mancala game must have the following property:

9.1 For all users, their profile information, game history and favourite user list must be saved to disk locally. When you restart the program, these details will be loaded from a series of files.

The first version of Mancala that you create should operate on a single machine. A user logs in to the program and performs actions which are saved locally to disk on that machine. The user logs out. A new user can then log in to view what has changed. When you start the implementation part of the project, please do not proceed to something more complicated until you have all Mancala functionality working well locally on one machine

10. Data Persistence

The user profile data, menu data, and all other system data is persisted across running of the system. That is, if the user quits the application, then upon reopening of the application, the data is not lost.

11. Libraries and Frameworks

You must programme this game in Java using JavaFX. You may use any classes and packages that are part of the standard Java SDK. If you wish to use any additional tools / libraries, first discuss with the module co-ordinator. You may not use any other libraries or frameworks without first seeking approval. Please use the lectures to ask such questions.