Connect 4 is a two player board game that takes place in a 6x7 grid. Players alternatively drop their discs into one of the 7 columns of the grid. A column is always filled up from bottom to top. The player who achieves the connection of 4 discs (horizontally, vertically or diagonally) wins the game. The game ends up in a draw when the grid is full without any straight connection of 4 discs from a single player.
This repository is intended to serve as an exercise to learn Prolog. We implement the Connect 4 game providing a naive machine player, which tries to achieve the following goals within a single depth level (priority decreases from top to bottom items):
- Win within a movement.
- Intercept a 4-connection from the opponent, placing the disc in a spot that increases a machine's connection.
- Intercept a 4-connection from the opponent.
- Play arbitrarily. By default, it drags the disc in the first free spot from left to right columns.
We recommend using the GNU Prolog Compiler (gprolog) developed by Daniel Diaz. Once gprolog is installed, the steps to run the game are straightforward:
- Execute
gprologin command line. - Once in gprolog environment, compile with
[connect4].. - Finally, run game with
connect4.. Enter a character from A to G to drop a disc down to the associated column.
It may also work with other compilers, although we haven't tested them.
We leave the following items as open improvements:
- Develop an Artificial Intelligence for the game in Prolog.
- Develop a user interface.