As a keen noughts and crosses (/tic-tac-toe) player (and aspiring champion), I need a web service that allows me to play against a computer via a REST API. The API must allow me to create a new game, make the next move in a game, and list all games previously played.
Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (British English) is a game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. The player who succeeds in placing three of their marks in a diagonal, horizontal, or vertical row is the winner. It is a solved game with a forced draw assuming best play from both players.
An example game series can be represented as:
# A blank board
[
[".", ".", "."],
[".", ".", "."],
[".", ".", "."],
]
# First move
[
[".", ".", "."],
[".", "X", "."],
[".", ".", "."],
]
# Second move
[
[".", ".", "."],
[".", "X", "."],
[".", ".", "O"],
]
# Third move
[
[".", ".", "X"],
[".", "X", "."],
["O", ".", "O"],
]
...and so forth
Use Python (any flavour) to develop a REST API that:
- Allows me to create a new game of Noughts and Crosses, and returns the game ID.
- Allows me to make the next move by specifying the co-ordinates I wish to move on. e.g.
{"x": 1, "y": 1}would denote a move to the middle square by the requesting player, and returns the new state of the board after the computer has made its move in turn. Note: There is no need to create an AI opponent, random moves are fine - Allows me to view all moves in a game, chronologically ordered.
- Allows me to view all games I have played, chronologically ordered.
- Surprise us! Use your inherent style and panache to sprinkle that extra bit of gee-whizz atop your solution.
- Please work independently without code review by others.
- It's our intention that you spend between 3 and 4 hours on this task.
- This challenge is deliberately vague on detail to give candidates the opportunity for a wide range of solutions. That being said, feel free to reach out and ask questions as needed.
- There is no 100% correct solution, be creative! We are just as interested in your approach to problem solving as we are in your actual solution.
- Remember that we'll schedule a debrief interview with you afterwards to discuss the code and ask questions, so you'll be able to explain what you've done!
- Code style, comments, and general code hygiene matter despite this being a test!
- Once completed, please create a README file describing:
- How to run your project (or where it is hosted),
- How much time you spent building the project,
- Any assumptions you made,
- Any trade-offs you made,
- Any special/unique features you added,
- Anything else you want us to know about,
- Any feedback you have on this technical challenge -- we care deeply about our hiring process here at Ethyca, and about the engineers who go through it (that's you!) -- we wholeheartedly promise any feedback will be met with a warm thank you!
- The assignment can be published and shared with us via any code sharing platform such as Github, Gitlab, or sent as a .zip file to the Ethyca employee who sent you this task.
- We'll review your submission in advance of your debrief interview, and look forward to talking to you about it!