Quoridor Board Game - Online Challenge feature

No doubt, the Online Challenge feature is getting more and more attention. To fully 'gamify' the entire world, the Android games designed have to be able to connect to someone from different corners of the world to some extent.

So, allow me to have a new post to make this big announcement for my Quoridor Board Game - a Beta version of the Online Challenge is available now!

Previously, i promised that if the number of ratings have reached 100, the Online feature would be added. But to everyone's surprise, the feature comes earlier. A beta version of the feature has been integrated.

Something to note is that, the initial stage of the Online Challenge could only connect you to a randomly assigned opponent. In each game, in order to avoid some monkeys who spend too much time idling, each side is required to make a move (pawn moving or wall placing) within 90 seconds. Furthermore, if you are playing this Quoridor Board Game not at the peak time (when is the peak time ya?), you might have no luck challenging anyone...

A good experiment to prove the online feature works is to have 2 devices playing at the same time. Here, i assume that your internet connection is 100% stable. Else... you know... oops :) All i could say is that, it would be further improved in the future.

This is my first time featuring a real-time turn-based game. Of course, all the dirty back-end stuffs are implemented through a third party API. Let's see how this magic goes...

Quoridor Board Game - Lessons and future improvement

Few months ago, I published the Quoridor Board Game, with the promise that, if the user rating exceeds the threshold of 30, I would further improve the game. Today, you guys really make it... (btw, is that a coincidence?). And I would spend more time and efforts into polishing this board game.

The truth is, before it reached 30, a number of enhancement has been made, from time to time, especially on the user interaction parts. Yet, I am aware that it still has room for improvement. Here, I would like to briefly summarize what it lacks of, and what should be possibly improved.

1. Computer AI (Artificial Intelligence) difficulty

Honestly, the current Quoridor computer is still too weak to be taken as a training. A number of players have complained for this. This is my first priority. And i see my competitor could make it as well. So, no excuse. Just a matter of time.

2. User's friendliness

In order to squeeze a 9 x 9 matrix board into mobile devices (plus walls and others), it is undoubtedly a challenging task. This is especially significant when the player is required to drag and place the walls. The existing version has been designed such that when the wall is moved around, the surrounding tiles are highlighted to make the movement clearer. Apart from that, some users request that it would be greater to add a 'confirm' button, to be able to 'revert' in case there is a typo made accidentally. Guys (and girls), i copy that!

3. Undo feature

This is another challenging feature which greatly tests the programming skills of the game creator. I am not sure if this is needed. But nothing to lose if it is getting integrated.

4. Challenge other players Online

Definitely, this is a very demanding feature. Playing with computer all the time would be too boring... However, i set no date for this feature to come true, yet. After all, without the sufficient amount of players, this feature could hardly impress anyone. Moreover, enabling the Online Challenge Mode would cost. (Maybe i should wait until the number of rating exceeds 100? :p)


Updated on 30th Nov 2013:
- A Hard Mode is added to the latest release.
- An Undo feature is added. This might help address the issue of 'wrong wall placement', while helping the players to have a better analysis of the computer AI's game play.
- You can choose which player to start first through the green Setting button.

Quoridor Board Game is in the Google Play Store now

Yeah, after several weeks of hard work, I manage to come up with a unique Android game published in the Google Play Store - Quoridor Board Game.

Quoridor Board Game Icon

Quoridor is a turned-based strategy game. It can be played by 2 players or 4 players (However, I only enabled 2-player-mode at the moment). Let's briefly brush up the rules of this game:

a) The Quoridor board consists of 9 x 9 tiles (squares)
b) In the 2-player-mode, each player (represented by a pawn) is placed at the end (and center) of each side facing each other.
c) To win this game, you have to move your pawn to the either tile at the opposite site.
d) In each turn, you are allowed to move your pawn or to place a wall (in order to block your opponent or to block a potential block)
e) The pawn is only allowed to move 1 step, except when you are face to face with your opponent.
f) The wall is not allowed to cause a dead end to both players.

Feel free to enjoy the game and give comments~

Notes:

• An AI-mode is added into the game. At the moment, the computer AI (oops, is mobile device AI) is a bit dummy. I will further improve the game if there are more than 30 ratings. :)
• To move a pawn or a wall, you have to TOUCH and DRAG at the same time.
• To abandon moving a pawn, you can place the pawn back to the original location.
• To abandon moving a wall, you can drag it to the drop zone on the right side.