Mastermind Slack Bot

This is a slack bot providing access to a multiplayer version of the Mastermind, on top of the APIs provided by mastermind-backend running at http://mastermind-macacoprego.herokuapp.com/.

This original game was for two players: One player becomes the codemaker, the other the codebreaker. The codemaker chooses a pattern of four code pegscodebreaker. The codebreaker tries to guess the pattern, in both order and color, within twelve (or ten, or eight) turns.

This bot mimics the codemaker role and supports multiple concurrent codebreakers for each game. This is a very simple implementation, with minimal interfaces, no authentication and was created during the participation of macacoprego.tech on the 2016's vanhackathon.

Installation

The bot runs in python3.5 using aslack asynchronous interface to slack. Typically you would run it inside a pyvenv:

$ git clone https://github.com/macacoprego/mastermind-bot
$ mastermind-bot
$ mkdir venv
$ pyvenv venv/mastermind-bot
$ source venv/mastermind-bot/bin/activate

It is distributed with setuptools, you only need to install it using:

$ python setup.py install .

And then:

$ mastermind-bot

It will ask you for the api token, you can also user --token or set MACACOPREGO_MASTERMIND_BOT_TOKEN.

Usage

The bot is currently very simple, you can create games, make a guess and ask for a hint.

Create games

Send a message to the bot (for the sake of the example, let's call it macaco):

@macaco create ... [list of players]

For example:

jvdm [6:42 PM] @macaco: create with @felipenfranco

macacoBOT [6:42 PM] @jvdm: sure, give me a second to create a game for you...

[6:42] @jvdm: the game #1 has been created, there are 2 players (@jvdm, @felipenfranco), you all may send guesses by sending messages like 'guess #29 <your guess>'.

Making a guess

Send a message to the bot like this:

@macaco guess #<game-id> <guess string>

And the bot will reply (to the same channel):

jvdm [6:42 PM] @macaco: guess #29 abcdefgh

macacoBOT [6:42 PM] @jvdm: 0 exacts, 6 nears (total guess: 1)

Guesses are all lower-case characters from a to g (8 possibilities, 8**8 combinations).

A reply with 8 exacts marks you as a winner. The other players can keep playing (the bot will accept their guesses) until they submit the correct answer. If you have already guessed the correct answer or if you send a invalid guess (for example, bad characters in the guess and so on) the bot only replies with:

macacoBOT [6:42 PM] @jvdm: bad guess

Yes, that's a FIXME.

Asking for a hint

To ask for a hint just say something to the bot with hint followed by a game id in the form #<id>, e.g.:

@macaco please, give a hint for the game #29?

Or:

@macaco with a hint i certainly can finish the game #29

The bot replies:

jvdm [6:51 PM] @macaco: with a hint I can finish #29

macacoBOT [6:51 PM] @jvdm: 'd' at position 0