Nomv 0.7.4.1

For this intermediate version I focused on the GUI (it's the "terrible GUI update" I wrote on the previous post).

I'm trying to separate Nomignolov from the GUI. By doing this I hope I could reuse the GUI to write some small utility programs for Nomv or completely different things. My idea is eventually to publish the GUI's sources.

The AI is still very weak. It analyses a fixed number of moves ahead for every game. To speed it up a bit (a lot), it looks ahead at each node with probability 0.5. I plan to work on the algorithm so that the number of moves depends on the branching factor of the game's tree, and on the time granted by the user.

I still need to update the documentation.

Nomv 0.7.4.1 is here.

It's time for this tired programmers to have an holiday, so I'll be visiting Budapest and other near places for the next two weeks (not that this blog is fast paced enough to need such an announcement!).

Logo

Ta-da! The new logo!

I'll add another post with the rules of 3verse, one of the new game of version 0.7.

By the way, version 0.7 is in reality just version "0.6.7.2 (beta) 06/08/2k6". Anyway I'm writing a terrible GUI update, which I hope it will be ready by the end of next week.

3verse

the game

3verse is a game for two players. The action takes place on a board of 8x8 squares. The first player owns pieces X, the second player owns pieces O.

At the beginning of the game, each player has two pieces on opposite corners, a sufficient number of pieces and two marks off board.


Players drop one pieces and move his two marks at a time. Who move last is the winner.

the move

The moving player removes his marks from the board, if any.

He chooses one of his pieces already on the board. We will call it the anchor. Then he drops his first mark in an empty square in the same row or in the same column of the anchor. Then he drops his last mark in an empty square in the same row or in the same column of his first mark, but not in the same row or in the same column of the anchor. Then he drops one of his off board pieces in an empty square in the same row or in the same column of his last mark, but not in the same row or in the same column of his first mark.

There can't be any pieces (X, O, or other player's marks) between the anchor and the first mark, between the first and the last mark, between the last mark and the dropped piece.

Here are 3 moves:







other info

I call the path between the anchor and the dropped piece a 3verse', because squares are alligned in three consecutive lines. In the game, you reach the dropping piece with a 3verse. Using k-1 marks, k = 0, 1, ..., you can play kverse.

3verse was invented by me between July and August 2006. I hope the game is new, easy and fun.

Nomv 0.7

An update, at last!

What's new:
- Simple minimax
- New games: Diffusion, 14-15, 3verse
- Review a played game
- other things.

Download it here.

Documentation is not updated...

In a couple of day I'll add a post with the rules of "3verse", a very simple game invented by me on july. I hope it's really new!

Thanks to Matt who noticed the bug, now Nomv will run on Windows XP with Service Pack 2.

I've realized that december the first will be the first birthday of Nomv, so I must work hard and publish version 1 by then!