ConnectFour

A competition to find the ultimate AI bot to beat Connect Four.

Installation

Fork the repo:

• https://github.com/alanvoss/connect_four

Instructions

You have 1 hour to create the best bot that you can to play Connect Four. The winner will receive a prize of some sort (for those at the meetup for which this was programmed).

• try it out (might improve interface at some point)

  • you must run this in bash shell within no muxer for the colors to work properly

    > mix run -e 'ConnectFour.Controller.start_game([ConnectFour.Contenders.PureRandomness, ConnectFour.Contenders.PureRandomness])'

• create a contender (<project_root>/lib/connect_four/contenders)

  • take a look at PureRandomness for some ideas
  • it needs to be a GenServer that responds to:
    • :name: (return your team name)
    • {:move, board} calls (return the column from 0-6 that you would like to put your piece into)
  • utilize the BoardHelper (and refer to the tests) for several functions that simplify some common tasks
    • board evaluation
    • board creation
    • piece at given coordinate
    • "what would the board look like if I dropped my piece in this column?"
    • etc.
  • your GenServer can choose to store state if if wishes, but the full board will be passed each time.
    • 0 is an empty, eligible space / column
    • 1 is where you've moved previously
    • 2 is where your opponent has moved
  • test it against PureRandomness. if you can't beat it 100% of the time...
  • your GenServer should respond to all calls within 5 seconds. If not, you forfeit.
    • you are allowed to do as much background processessing as you want between calls.
    • you are allowed to spin up other processes.
    • the lifecyle of your bot will be around 10 seconds.
      • no supervisor will keep it alive (if your GenServer dies, tough luck)
      • it will be started each time a match with your (new) opponent begins
  • if you make a disallowed move (a column that is already full), you also forfeit.

• create a pull request

• we'll run a tournament with all the contenders to find the ultimate winner

  • to pit all contenders against each other

    > mix run -e 'ConnectFour.Controller.start_battle'