/ 
Games-Pentago-0.01
/ Games::Pentago

NAME

Games::Pentago - Represent and play Pentago games and its variants.

SYNOPSIS

# Using the gameplay loop
use Games::Pentago;
my $pentago = Games::Pentago->new;
$pentago->play;

# A 4-player variant
my $pentagoXL = Games::Pentago->new(
     board_size => 3,
     players    => ['X','O','#','%']
);
$pentagoXL->play;

DESCRIPTION

Pentago is a two-player abstract strategy game invented by Tomas Flodén. The game is played on a 6×6 board divided into four 3×3 sub-boards (or quadrants). Taking turns, the two players place a marble of their color onto an unoccupied space on the board, and then rotate one of the sub-boards by 90 degrees either clockwise or counter-clockwise. A player wins by getting five of their marbles in a vertical, horizontal or diagonal row. If all 36 spaces on the board are occupied without a row of five being formed then the game is a draw.

A Games::Pentago object represents a game of Pentago or a variant.

For specifying direction, use the constants Games::Pentago::CW and Games::Pentago::CCW. Sub-boards are enumerated with integers starting at 0 in the upper-left corner.

METHODS

Construction

new()

Constructs a new Pentago game. If you want a variant of Pentago, you can change the default values by passing arguments on the form (key,value). Possible keys are:

sub_board_size     Side length of a sub-board (default 3).
board_size         Number of sub-boards on one side (default 2).
row_length         Number of marbles in a row required to win (default 5).
players            Reference to an array of the players' symbols.
empty_symbol       Symbol for empty squares (default '.').

Object methods

move()

Makes a move, i.e. puts a marble belonging to the current player, rotates a sub-board and makes the next player the current player. Takes four arguments: the X and Y coordinates, subboard and direction.

rotate()

Rotates a sub-board. Takes the sub-board and the direction (Games::Pentago::CW or Games::Pentago::CCW) as arguments.

next_player()

Makes the next player the current player. Takes no arguments.

player()

Returns the symbol of the current player. Takes no arguments.

valid_square()

Returns true if the given square is on the board. Takes X and Y as arguments.

at()

Returns the symbol at a square. Takes X and Y as arguments.

empty()

Returns true if a square is empty. Takes X and Y as arguments.

set()

Puts a symbol on an a square. Takes X, Y and the symbol as arguments. The symbol must correspond to a player.

str()

Returns a string describing the game position. Optionally takes a combination of flags as an argument.

DISP_NO_AXES     Do not write the axes and borders.
DISP_NO_SPACES   Do not put spaces between columns.
DISP_NO_NEWLINES Remove all newlines.

Sample output, without flags:

           0 1 2 3 4 5 
         +------------
	0| . . . . X .
	1| . . O O . .
	2| . . X . . .
	3| . O . . . .
	4| X . O . . .
	5| . X . . . .
print()

Prints the output of str. Takes the same flags as str.

winners()

Returns a list of the players who have the required number of marbles in a row.

play()

Enters a play loop that reads from standard input and lets you play the game.

AUTHOR

Tim Nordenfur, <tim at gurka.se>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-games-pentago at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Games-Pentago. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc Games::Pentago

You can also look for information at:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Pentago was found by Tomas Flodén.

Parts of the introducing text were taken from the Wikipedia article on Pentago.

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2010 Tim Nordenfur.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.

See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.

1 POD Error

The following errors were encountered while parsing the POD:

Around line 56:

Non-ASCII character seen before =encoding in 'Flodén.'. Assuming UTF-8