2-player Checkers

Current Version: V0.3

Basics

This is a local 1v1 version of Checkers / English Draughts.

The program isn't fancy, it was a console printed version of the game (now upgraded to have a GUI). It pushed me up to and past the limits of my programming ability :)

It's my first GUI... so it's ... well, you'll see. It's also done in Java Swing which is dated. Will move it over to JavaFX presently.

I come back and add new concepts as I learn them.

The Move Itself

The player selects a square (their own piece), then a destination square. The program will then execute the move if legal, providing feedback to the user. There is a silly winner declaration screen at the end.

What the move operation checks

• The direction must be appropriate for the player (up for black, down for white) - a king may move up or down
• The source piece MUST NOT be empty, NOR an opponents piece.
• The destination square MUST be empty
• The total distance of move MUST NOT exceed 2 squares
• If the move is a 2-square move:
  • The piece in the middle MUST BE an enemy piece
  • Otherwise the entire move is invalidated
• The movement of the piece must be directly diagonal
• Jump insistence:
  • If a player has an attack they must take it
  • If a player has multiple attacks, they must choose one of them
  • If a player makes an capturing move, and can then make another attack off the new position, they MUST do so in the same move (chaining)
• If the move is accepted overall and the destination square is the furthest row from their starting row AKA the king-row (top row for black, bottom row for white), the piece is upgraded to a king

The program then will do the actual move operation and move the piece, capture if needed, upgrade if needed

Win Conditions

There are two win/loss conditions:

• 1 - You lose if you have no pieces on the board
• 2 - You lose if you have no valid moves available

The files

The program is made up of 2 Java packages.

logic

Checkers.java

A static class, this is the home of the main(). Generally administrates the flow of the game and the GUI.

Enums.java

Contains the enumerated type constants for the program (color palette, test/ normal board setups, Icons, window dimensions, and directional Modifiers of the GamePiece 2D array instance field of GameBoard.

GameBoard.java

A non-static class that represents the checker board. A lot of the program's logic lives here (reflected in how much larger this file is). The actual business creating and holding a GameBoard object, moving pieces around the board, and capturing pieces is done here.

GamePiece.java

A non-static class used to describe the GamePiece object; the actual checkers pieces. Here lives various methods for creating and editing GamePiece's and retrieving data from the GamePiece objects

Log.java (currently disabled while GUI is implemented)

A basic logging system that outputs a file suffixed with a YYYY-MM-DD HH-MM-SS date stamp from the initialisation of the program. Signifcant events are logged here, along with any errors that arise during game operation

GUIs (all non-static)

JFrame_GUI.java

A child class of the JFrame Swing class, configured for this program.

JPanel_Intro.java, JPanel_PlayerNames.java, JPanel_Game.java and JPanel_Game_Squares.java

Children of the JPanel Swing class, configured for this program.

JButton_aSquare.java

A child class of the JButton Swing class, configured to represent a single square on the checker board.

Credit for images used

Checkers Pieces images

adapted by me using gimp from https://woodexpressions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/258015Main2DB.jpg

Checker board graphic from intro screen

https://content.mycutegraphics.com/graphics/play/checker-game-clip-art.png

Winner GIF

https://giphy.com/gifs/barstoolsports-gambling-barstool-beadvised-ZcUGu59vhBGgbBhh0n

Still to do

• Unit Testing
• GUI implementation in JavaFX