Hi all! I'm a long-time lurker but this is my first time posting.
For a while now, I've been tinkering with a Gomoku (Five-in-a-Row) game for PICO-8 with a basic but entertaining AI player.
I'm quite a fan of the Gomoku Narabe Renju game for Famicom (essentially the same game with slightly more complex rules), and originally, I started out to make a version of that. But as usual, it was becoming larger in scope than I was comfortable with. So to actually make progress I decided to simplify things a lot.
Ultimately, this version is a regular game of Gomoku that uses the Long Pro opening rule and requires exactly five stones in a row to win (ignoring six or more in a row). Each game consists of a tournament with a minimum of five rounds. The winning player is the one with more than two wins over their opponent.
Controls:
Z: Start/Place piece
X: Surrender round
Up/Down/Left/Right: Select an intersection
I hope you enjoy the progress I've made so far. There are most certainly bugs that I haven't ironed out yet. So if you think you've come across one I'd love to know!
Great pico-ization (not an actual word) of a classic board game with a fairly challenging AI.
I would only suggest moving the surrender option to the pause menu to prevent accidental clicks (it might help to assume every Z is also sometimes an X press for mobile users).
Other things that would be nice, if space (and time) permits:
- Option for freestyle rules, which most players would probably be familiar with.
- An easy mode, where the AI occasionally doesn't choose the most optimal move but maybe still prioritizes open 3 or 4 threats.
- AI never surrenders, b/c there's a good chance new players will overlook an opportunity to win, and making the 5-in-a-row feels good 😀
Great entry and gold starred!
Thanks a lot for the great feedback. Moving surrender to the menu is a good idea. Gives me a chance to learn that API too.
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