3D Tic-Tac-Toe

Summary

This is a program that allows any number of people to play 3D Tic-Tac-Toe, on a board of any size. Each player needs a copy of the executable, a proper configuration file, the ability to listen for incoming TCP connections, and the ability to make outgoing TCP connections.

Dependencies

• openFrameworks
• Boost.Asio
• Boost.Program_options

Build Instructions

On Linux, with openFrameworks installed and the OF_ROOT environment variable pointing to your installation of openFrameworks, building is as easy as:

git clone https://github.com/vszabo2/3d-tic-tac-toe.git
cd 3d-tic-tac-toe/3DTicTacToe
make

The executable is generated in the bin subdirectory of 3DTicTacToe.

The debug build can be done with make Debug, and the tests can be built with make tests.

This project was developed on Linux, with gcc 11.1.0, openFrameworks 0.11.2, and boost 1.78.0. However, C++, openFrameworks, and boost are cross-platform. With some re-generation of the build files, this project should build on any common platform. Some special configuration will be needed on other platforms to link to the boost_program_options library and to build the tests.

Configuration File

This program requires some configuration files to run. They describe how a game is set up. Each configuration file needs to have all of the following properties defined:

• sideLength: The board will be of size sideLength * sideLength * sideLength. This property needs to be the same for all players.
• playerCount: The number of players. This property needs to be the same for all players.
• playerIndex: This player's position in the move order, a number between 0 (inclusive) and playerCount (exclusive). This property needs to be different for all players.
• myPort: The port on which to listen for a connection from the previous player in the order. This property does not need to be the same for all players.
• nextAddress: The address at which to try to connect to the next player in the order. This property does not need to be the same for all players.
• nextPort: The port on which to try to connect to the next player in the order. This property does not need to be the same for all players.

The syntax of the config file is a series of lines of the form property = value. There are some example config files for playing games on one computer in the ExampleConfigs directory. demo.sh is provided to easily run these examples.

Usage Instructions

Each player needs to start the game program and pass as the first command-line argument the relative or absolute path of an appropriate config file. Once all necessary connections have been established, the board will be displayed and the game will begin. The player whose turn it is (initially the one with playerIndex 0) will have a yellow cursor displayed in the board. This player can move the cursor with the W, A, S, D, Q, and E keys (as indicated on the screen near the board). When this player has moved the cursor to the desired location, they can press the Enter key to signal this. This player's move will be recorded, and play will pass to the next player.

The winner is the first to fill a row/column (in any of the 3 horizontal/vertical directions) or a diagonal (in any plane) with their own marker.

Networking Details

The application establishes TCP connections directly between players in a ring. The diagram below shows an example for four players. The numbers represent the playerIndex, and the arrows represent TCP connections.