The objective of this assignment is to port your existing board game to Android.
Please fork this project and remove all collaborators except @jsw7 and @kqm1
This repository represents a skeleton to get you started. Once cloned, Android Studio should recognize the directory as one its own, and be comfortable opening the project. You may get various messages about library support, but they should be easily fixable by going through the suggested steps to download what's necessary.
Android Studio has the ability to manage a Git repository natively. If you decided to use this option please ensure that you are navigating source that is in your account. Further, please do not let their tools get in the way of providing quality commit messages.
A directory has been setup in which you should add the model from your existing board game implementation:
$> ls -1 app/src/main/java/edu/nyuad/boardgames
Chip.java
Game.java
GameIndexOutOfBoundsException.java
GameStateException.javaNote that the files that are there are the bare necessity: the API and
the exception definitions. If you did things correctly for board
games, you should probably only need to add the files in
src/impl/game from that project.
Because the directory has changed (from board-games), the packages assigned to the Java files must change as well. See the package definitions in the four Java files that are there to get a sense of what that means; particularly for the files you add.
When adding code, please obey the following:
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All concrete games should have a no argument constructor that sets things up. This was implied in the board-games assignment, so for most nothing should change.
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Classes that need to be written to help Android interact with your model should go in the main Android package. For example, if you require a class to translate Android coordinates into row-column coordinates for your game, that class should appear:
$> ls -1 app/src/main/java/edu/nyuad/androidgames MainActivity.java AndroidToGameTranslator.javaThe new class should not go in the
boardgamespackage, nor should you alter classes inboardgamesto make it work. In general, additions that your controller requires will make portability difficult.
Android is a "pervasive" framework. As such, there are many ways to do things. Do your best to follow "best practices" where you can.
Your app should:
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Present players with a list of games that are available (Connect Four, Complica, Tic-Tac-Toe). A player should be able to select that game and play should commence.
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As was the case with the console game, players should get turns. Touches to illegal positions, or to completed games, should "fail safely" by not interrupting the overall experience; the game certainly shouldn't fail!
For games that are column based (Connect Four and Complica), your model probably prevents chip placement to rows other than the top (zero). Maintaining this functionality is fine; however, if you feel it makes interaction more natural, you are free to allow players to touch any row, and ultimately drop the chip in the proper location. If you choose to do this, it is probably best to make this change -- a translation really -- in your controller (Activity).
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Keep a running display of the current player.
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Give some indication that the game is over. A user should be able to distinguish between a tie and a win. If the game has a winner, the winning player should be displayed.
Your Android implementation should be able to work with any model that obeys the Game API. This includes the three games that have been previously developed, as well as other games the grading staff have implemented.
The intention of the documentation is to give an overview of what objects exist and how those objects interact. Because there are several ways to do things in Android, the intention of this documentation is to provide a quick summary high-level of the design decisions you have made.
For each class in edu.nyuad.androidgames, denote the classes it
aggregates, composes, and extends. The expressed relationships only
need to be between classes within the edu.nyuad, and within the
Android library; documenting that a class composes a List or a String,
for example, is not necessary.
For a given use case, describe how the objects in
edu.nyuad.androidgames use one another to provide the experience. An
example use case would might be selecting Connect Four: from the time
the user is presented with the initial screen, outline the flow of
object creation and message passing that happens until the user is presented with the Connect Four board (prior to placing their first chip).
Interaction diagrams can be quite involved. Because we have not formally covered them, however, obeying the strict UML details is encourage, but not required. Instead, you can use simplified versions of the same idea -- Head First Android Development has several such examples (Page 121, 311, 355, and 382), as does Nerd Ranch. Essentially, the diagram should denote:
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The objects involved in the use-case.
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Messages passed between those objects.
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The ordering of interaction.
In many ways, the Android SDK is like one big hack fest. This means that while figuring things out can be tough, the ability to do almost whatever you want is there. You are free to choose whatever design you want in implementing your game; however, here are a few suggestions:
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It's probably best to draw the grid for the games using an AdapterView. The advantage is that you point a list of items at the view, and Android takes care of drawing them to the screen. There are AdapterView's for lists and grids specifically, and even some that are not necessarily bound to a layout "flow." Chapter 8 or 9 (depending on your edition) of Android Programming: Big Nerd Ranch Guide (Big Nerd) talks about some of these dynamic interfaces.
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Different games can technically be thought of as different activities. However, a full blown activity could also be seen as slightly heavyweight for what you need. Fragments are an Android concept that can fill that void. Chapter 9 of Head First Android Development (HFAD) does a great job of explaining what they are and how they work.
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... to that point, Intent'a provide support for passing messages to and from activities (or fragments). See Chapter 3 of HFAD or 5 of Big Nerd for more.
Please see the "Course Materials" section of the class syllabus for more information/resources on the books mentioned above.
You should continue to work with Git extensively. As previously mentioned, Android Studio provides native support; but you can also continue to work from the command line if you choose. Note that Android Studio automatically saves files, so before you decide to make wild changes, you may want to make a checkpoint commit.
Questions or discussions should take place via issues. Unlike with previous assignments, where issues were mostly used for problems or ambiguities, in this case issues can also be as a message board for ideas. In doing so, please be respectful of academic integrity and do not share literal solutions.
See the assignment listing in NYU Classes for the due date. We will grade the code that is on your master branch at the exact deadline.