Thursday 13 March 2008

Goban v0.1

Back in November I wrote about building a Go board. This past week I actually started building and scripting it, and without too much trouble it now has the basic functionality.There are still a lot of things I need and/or want to add. The biggest thing is probably that when a move is made that would capture stones, the board does not automatically remove them (the prims have to be deleted manually). Adding this feature is going to require me to store the board's state, which means more use of LSL lists, which have a strange and not very elegant set of utility functions.I also need to figure out how to attach the stones to the board after I rez them. If the board is moved, the stones will just stay there and be floating in space. Also, does anyone if there is a way to prevent those particle effects when something is rezzed or an object says something?There are two "modes". Two avatars can click on the board and join the game, and then the board will have them take turns placing stones. There is also a "Free Mode" where stones can be freely placed. Stones have to be placed by typing a command on chat channel 1. In game mode, you can just type "/1 d12" when it is your turn. In free mode, placing stones resembles the GTP protocol (e.g., "/1 play black d12" or "/1 play w k4), but you can specify more than one vertex in a single command and it will place them all. I'd like to allow placing stones by clicking, but I'm not sure if that's possible. I would have to put an invisible prim at each vertex to detect the click.

The board can be changed to 9x9 and 13x13 as well as the normal 19x19 size.Feel free to drop by my house and try it out, or IM me if you want someone to play against or to teach the rules (despite my interest in Go, I have not played many actual games and am not very good). Any suggestions or bugs reports are welcome.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is seriously freaking cool, Colin! I *LOVE* Go, though I too am not all that great at it.

I'd love to play a game with you, though at the moment I'm in far too much pain to be able to make it in-world.

Soon, I hope!

Anonymous said...

Dude, you seriously suck :(

I've spent the entire time since you posted this looking for ways to port GNU GO so that I can run a GO server on my website, and have gotten sucked into GO forums and GO blogs and downloaded 7 GO computer games so I can play offline.

Your post got me all excited again about a game I haven't even played once in the last three years...

You suck :)

Can't wait to see your game!

Colin said...

Hahaha! Actually, part of the reason I used GTP for many of the commands is so that it will be easier to let it talk to programs such as GNU Go through HTTP requests.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, I cannot run GNU Go on my server or I'd offer to let you connect to that. I'm sure there are other public servers that you can connect to.

I have some ideas on how you might be able to get around the problem with moving the board, but I'm letting them simmer on the back burner while I'm at work :) I'd love to talk with you about the project, though.

Hehe, I went looking for my books on how to play, couldn't find them, and ordered two from Amazon last night. You suck *and* you cost me money, lol. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I just realized there is an interesting bit of synchronicity here...

Two days ago, Zai Zou (who is a very good friend of mine IRL) had been talking about the Samurai Champloo series and had suggested that I check it out, since I like Bleach and other similar shows.

In the last episode I watched (Episode 5, I think) the game of Shogi was a part of the story line, and I remember thinking "I like Shogi, but I like Go better. I should find someone to play Go with". (OFF TOPIC: Spell check suggested "hogtied" as a replacement for "shogi")

Are you planning on making this Goban for sale? If so, I'll definitely buy one!!!

Colin said...

OMG, I have unleashed a Monster!!

Maybe the spellchecker thought that Go is also better than being hogtied?

I'll probably sell them once I get it working a little smoother. I might also rent some land and open a Go club.

Colin said...

p.s.: Have you seen Hikaru no Go? It is an anime entirely about Go!

Malachi Rothschild said...

I want to learn how to play Go.

Colin said...

IM me next you see me online and I will show you.

Malachi Rothschild said...

Thanks Colin. You can has ∏.