2.2.4 Quit
The program should print a goodbye message, and safely terminate without crashing.
> 4
Goodbye
2.3 Base Gameplay
During base Qwirkle gameplay, the 2 players take turns placing tiles from their hand onto the board.
At the start of the player’s turn, the program should show (in order):
1. The name of the current player
2. The scores of both players
3. The state of the board
4. The tiles in the current player’s hand
5. The user prompt
The current player may then take one of two actions:
1. Place a tile onto the board
2. Replace on tile in their hand
Once the player successfully takes their action, their turn ends, and the other player’s turn starts.
Alternatively, the player may perform one of two game functions:
1. Save the game to a file
2. Quit the game
Below is an example of a sequence of actions and game functions for two players, named A and B. The next
sub-sections, describe the individual aspects of the base gameplay.
7< previous output >
A, it’s your turn
Score for A: 6
Score for B: 6
0 1 2 3 4 5
-------------------
A | | | | | | |
B | | |B4|B6|B5| |
C | | |R4| | | |
D | |Y1|Y4|Y2| | |
E | | |P4| | | |
F | | | | | | |
Your hand is
Y5,G5,R5,O2,B1,P6
> place G5 at C4
B, it’s your turn
Score for A: 8
Score for B: 6
0 1 2 3 4 5
-------------------
A | | | | | | |
B | | |B4|B6|B5| |
C | | |R4| |G5| |
D | |Y1|Y4|Y2| | |
E | | |P4| | | |
F | | | | | | |
Your hand is
P2,P3,O6,G1,Y4,B2
> replace G1
< gameplay continues >
2.3.1 Tile Codes
Tiles are represented by a 2-character code:

To make it easier to visually differentiate tiles, colours are represented by letters, and shapes are represented
by integers. The codes are given in the table below
Colour Colour Code Shape Shape Code
Red R Circle 1
Orange O 4-Star 2
Yellow Y Diamond 3
Green G Square 4
Blue B 6-Star 5
Purple P Clover 6
For example, the Yellow Square tile is represented by the code: Y4
!
The Start-up code provides useful #define statements for these codes.
82.3.2 The Board
The display of the game board consists of two features:
1. Tile Display
2. Grid Co-ordinates
The board is a 2D grid of tiles, up to a maximum size of 26x26. However, some locations of the 2D grid may
be empty, meaning that no tile has been placed there. When the board is displayed, all locations that contain
a tile are filled with the tile code, and empty locations filled with two-spaces.
!
The examples is this spec use an expandable board (see the Minor Enhancements in Section 4.1). That is,
the board is only as large enough as necessary, and expands as the players add tiles.
For the base game-play you may use a fixed size board.
The grid co-ordinates use:
Uppercase Letters for rows
Integers for columns
Board locations are always referenced in row-column fashion:

For example, the blue square is at grid co-ordinate B2, and the yellow circle is at grid co-ordinate D1.
0 1 2 3 4 5
-------------------
A | | | | | | |
B | | |B4|B6|B5| |
C | | |R4| | | |
D | |Y1|Y4|Y2| | |
E | | |P4| | | |
F | | | | | | |
As a hint, you could store the board as:
A 2D array of Tiles
A vector of vectors of Tiles
2.3.3 The Player’s Hand
The player’s hand is an ordered linked list of tiles.
!
In your implementation you must use a linked list to store the tiles in the player’s hand. You must
implement your own version of a Linked List.
The player’s hand is displayed as a comma separated list of tiles.
Your hand is
Y5,G5,R5,O2,B1,P6
The order of tiles in the player’s hand is important for testing purposes!
When removing a tile, the remaining tiles stay in the same order.
2.3.4 The Tile Bag
The tile bag, contains the rest of the tiles that are not on the board or in player’s hands. The tile bag must
be stored as an ordered linked list. The contents of the tile bag is never displayed to the users. However, the
contents of the tile bag is stored in the saved game file.
9!
In your implementation you must use a linked list to store the tiles in the tile bag. You must implement
your own version of a Linked List.
The order of the tile bag is determined when generating a new game. When a tile is drawn from the bag, it is
taken from the front of the linked list. If tiles are added to the bag, they are added to the end of the linked list.
2.3.5 Player Action: Place a Tile
The current player may place a tile onto the board using the command:
place at
The command contains two elements:
1. A tile to place
2. The grid location to place the tile
For example, using the above hand and board, if the player performs:
> place G5 at C4
This results in the board:
0 1 2 3 4 5
-------------------
A | | | | | | |
B | | |B4|B6|B5| |
C | | |R4| |G5| |
D | |Y1|Y4|Y2| | |
E | | |P4| | | |
F | | | | | | |
After the command is given, the program must:
1. Check that the command is correctly formatted.
2. Check that the placement of tile is legal according to the rules of Qwirkle.
If the player’s action is legal, the program should:
1. Place the tile onto the board
2. Update the player’s score
3. Draw a replacement tile from the tile bag and add it to the player’s hand, if there are available tiles
4. Continue with the other player’s turn
2.3.6 Player Action: Replace a Tile
The current player may replace one tile in their hand using the command:
replace
For example, using the above hand the player may take the following replace action:
> replace P6
After the command is given, the program must:
1. Check that the command is correctly formatted.
2. Check that the tile is in the player’s hand.
If the player’s action is legal, the program should:
1. Remove the tile from the players hand and place it in the tile bag. (If the player has two tiles with the
same code, the first tile in the list should be replaced)
2. Draw a new tile from the tile bag and add it to the player’s hand
103. Continue with the other player’s turn
2.3.7 Function: Saving the Game
The current player may save the game to a file using the command:
save
The program should save the current state of the game to the provided filename (overwriting the file if it already
exists). Then the program should display a message and continue with the gameplay. The current player does
not change, so that a player may save the game and then take a turn.
> save savedGame
Game successfully saved
>
If the program has problems saving the file, it should display a message, and continue with normal gameplay
without crashing.
The format of the saved file is as given below. Each item is saved on a new line.









The format for each of the items is:
Name: ASCII text
Score: Integer
Player hand and tile bag: comma separated ordered list
Board: Same as printed when showing the game board, including the co-ordinates
For example, if the game in Section 2.3 was saved the saved game file will look like:
A
8
Y5,R5,O2,B1,P6,Y3
B
6
P2,P3,O6,Y4,B2,O3
0 1 2 3 4 5
-------------------
A | | | | | | |
B | | |B4|B6|B5| |
C | | |R4| |G5| |
D | |Y1|Y4|Y2| | |
E | | |P4| | | |
F | | | | | | |
P2,B5,.....
A
112.3.8 Function: Quit
The program should quit without crashing, as per the instructions in Section 2.2.4.
2.3.9 Special Operation: QWIRKLE!
If the player scores a Qwirkle (see the game rules) on their turn, then the program should print out an additional
message, before displaying the game information. Remember to update the player’s score accordingly.
> place .. at ..
QWIRKLE!!!

>
2.3.10 Special Operation: Starting a New Game
When a new game is started, a special sequence of operations must be conducted:
1. Create the ordering for the tile bag
2. Set up the initial player hands
3. Start with an empty board, with player 1 as the starting player
You will need to devise your own algorithm to “shuffle” the bag of tiles to create a “random” initial order. This
is left up to your own invention. The lectures will talk about randomness is C++ programs.
Then the initial tiles are added to the player’s hands. 6 tiles are drawn from the tile bag and placed in the 1st
player’s hand. Then 6 tiles are drawn from the tile bag and placed in the 2nd player’s hand.
Finally, the board starts with no tiles placed, so that when displayed, it should be empty.
2.3.11 Special Operation: Ending a Game
The game ends when:
1. The tile bag is empty, and
2. One player has no more tiles in their hand
If the game ends, the program should:
Display the end game message
Display the scores
Display the name of the winning player
Then quit, according to Section 2.2.4.
For example:
Game over
Score for : 000
Score for : 000
Player won!
Goodbye
122.3.12 Special Operation: Loading a Game
To load a game from a saved game file, the program should read the contents of the saved game file, and update
all data structures in the program using the information in the saved game file. See Section 2.3.7 for the format
of the saved game file. Specifically, the program should take note of:
The player’s name and scores
The tiles in each players hand
The state of the board
The order of the tiles in the tile bag
The current player - the next player to take a turn
Once the game has been loaded, gameplay continues resumes with the current player.
2.4 User Prompt
The user prompt is displayed whenever input is required from the user. It is a greater-than symbol (>), followed
by a space. It is assumed that all user inputs are provided as a single line of input.
When shown the prompt, the user should see in their terminal window:
> v
If at any point the user enters invalid input, or the validation checks of the input fail (see each section) then
the program should print Invalid Input and re-show the prompt.
> qwerty
Invalid Input
> v
2.4.1 EOF Character
If an any time the user enters the EOF (end-of-file) character, the the program should Quit, following the
procedure in Section 2.2.4. That is:
> ^D
Goodbye
!
This behaviour with the EOF character is necessary to ensure your program terminates at the end of
every test case.
2.5 Rule Changes
For the base Qwirkle implementation, the following rules have been modified:
A New game always begins with Player 1 and an empty board
Tiles are placed one at a time.
Players can only replace one tile at a time
Maximum board size of 26x26
There are only 2 tiles of each type (rather than 3 of each type). This makes it highly likely the game will
fit within the 26x26 board, and reduce the complexity of your test cases.
!
For your Milestone 3 enhancements, you may restore some or all of these rules to their original form.
133 Deliverables
3.1 Mandatory Requirements
As part of your implementation, you must:
Implement your own Linked List
Use your Linked List implementation to store the player’s hands and the tile bag.
!
If you fail to comply with these mandatory requirements, marks will be deducted.
3.2 Milestone 1: Test Cases
For Milestone 1, you must develop test cases for your Qwirkle implementation, including your enhancements.
These test cases will help ensure that your Qwirkle implementation is correct.
A single test case consists of 3 files, 2 mandatory and 1 optional.
1. .input - Input to provide to the Qwirkle program via stdin
2. .output - Expected output from the Qwirkle program on stdout
3. (Optional) .save - Expected output of the saved game file.
A test is run using the following sequence of commands.
./qwirkle < .input > .gameout
diff -w .output .gameout
if [-e .save] diff -w -y .save
If this command displays any output, then the test has failed.
To make testing reliable, you should note if the test evaluates the saved game output, then ensure the test uses
a suitable filename in place of .
!
Testing uses the diff command. This command checks to see if two files have any differences. The -w
options ignores any whitespace.
3.3 Milestone 2: Basic Implementation
For Milestone 2, you must implemented the base Qwirkle program as described in Section 2. Your base
implementation should pass all test cases that you developed in Milestone 1.
!
Your base implementation will only be considered to be sufficient if it is fully functional and error-free.
3.4 Milestone 3: Enhancements
For Milestone 3, you need to develop one or more enhancements to the base Qwirkle program. Milestone 3 is
optional. You should only commence enhancements if your base implementation is fully functional.
Enhancements may be either minor or major. To get a higher grade you will need to implement one or more
minor or major enhancements. This is described in the marking rubric. Enhancements only count towards this
Milestone if they are fully functional and error-free.
143.5 Milestone 4: Report
You are required to submit a report (of no more than 4 pages), that analyses and evaluates what your group
has done in this assignment. Your report should comment on:
Your use of ADTs, such as your Linked List, use of arrays and vectors.
Design of your software
Efficiency of your implementation
Effectiveness of your Test Cases
Group co-ordination and project management
Your report should note the strengths and weakness of these elements. Good analysis provides factual statements,
evidence and justifications for conclusions that you draw. A statements such as:
“We did because we felt that it was good”
is not analysis. This is an unjustified opinion. Instead, you should aim for statements such as:
“We did because it is more efficient. It is more efficient because . . . ”
3.6 Presentation
During Week 12, your group will present and discuss your Qwikle program to your lab demonstrator and/or
the lecturer. In your presentation you should:
Demonstrate your Qwirkle implementation and enhancements
Demonstrate how your test cases prove your implementation is correct
Discuss the design and efficiency of your software
Each presentation will be 10 minutes long, with 5 minutes for questions.
It is up to your group to decide how to best conduct this presentation. The purpose of the presentation is to
demonstrate and convince the assessor of the quality of your group’s software and overall work.
3.7 Weekly Progress Updates
Every 1-2 weeks in labs, you will have a brief update with your lab demonstrator. You can discuss:
1. Your group’s progress
2. Ask questions about your software design and implementation
3. Raise issues
4. Demonstrate your consistent and regular contribution to the group
!
One of the criteria in the marking rubric is for consistent and regular group work. These lab updates will
help inform your final grade for your group work.
154 Enhancement Suggestions
These are some suggestions of enhancements you could implement. If you have your own ideas, discuss these
with your tutor or on the forum to make sure you know whether they count as minor or major.
4.1 Minor enhancements
!
Minor enhancements are smaller in scope, and require only a small modification to your software design.
4.1.1 Help!
Whenever there is a user prompt, the user may type “help”and the program should display some text to help
the user determine what they commands they may execute.
4.1.2 Better Invalid Input
Whenever the user enters invalid input at the user prompt, the program should show a useful error message to
explain why the input was invalid.
4.1.3 Colour
Use colour to display tiles on the board and in the player’s hand. The Linux, Mac (and most similar) terminals
support the use of colour through the use of escape codes. A simple internet search will show you tutorials for
working with escape codes.
4.1.4 Unicode/Emoji Tile Symbols
Use Unicode or Emoji for displaying tiles when printing information for the users to stdout. You can embed
Unicode symbols or Emoji symbols directly into C++ files when used for writing information to output streams.
Most modern terminals also support the display of unicode symbols and emoji.
However, the saved game file must still be plain-text, and use the tile codes listed in Section 2.3.1.
4.1.5 Simple Hints
Provide a hint to the user of where a given tile could be placed on the board, and how many points the user
will score. You will need to invent your own command so the user can ask for a hint.
4.1.6 Expandable Board
The board should only display enough rows and columns to fully show the board, plus one additional empty row
and column around the edge of the board. Any additional empty rows and columns should not be displayed.
4.1.7 High Scores
The program maintains a list of high scores achieved by any player who has played your game of Qwirkle. You
will need to devise a way to save, load, and display the high scores.
164.2 Major enhancements
!
Major enhancements are large in scope, and require significant modifications to your software design.
4.2.1 3-4 Player modes
Implement the 3 or 4-player mode of Qwirkle. You will need to change the number of tiles in each player’s hand
according to the rules of Qwirkle. This will also affect the format of the saved game file.
4.2.2 Place Multiple Tiles
Allow a player to place multiple tiles. You will need to invent your own command(s).
4.2.3 Write an AI
Develop an AI so a your program can be used in single-player mode, and a person can play against the computer.
The AI should only place one tile at a time. If the AI cannot place any tiles, then it should replace one tile
from its hand.
If you would like an additional challenge, you may allow the AI to place as multiple tiles.
175 Getting Started
5.1 Managing Group Work
To help manage your group work, and demonstrate that you are consistently contributing to your