lakermann/connect-four-challenge-server

Connect four bot challenge 2018/2019 server.

Connect Four Challenge Server

by Lukas Akermann, October 2018

This is a Java server for the connect four challenge.

Getting started

Download and extract the latest release.

Start the server inside a docker container:

docker-compose up

Start the server without docker:

java -jar connect-four-challenge-server.jar

Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

Profiles

There are two profiles to alter the behaviour of the server:

• default

  Each game must be scheduled via the user interface.

  The response to the player is delayed by 3 seconds after the game has ended.

• train

  The games are scheduled automatically.

  Immediate response after the game has ended.

Use the train profile with docker:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.train.yml up

Use the train profile without docker:

java -Dspring.profiles.active=train -jar connect-four-challenge-server.jar

Player API

The whole communication ist REST based. For more details about REST have a look at the following documentation:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REST

Overview over the available endpoints

Endpoint	Description	Link
POST /api/v1/players/join	Join a game and get a game id	Details
GET /api/v1/players/games/{gameId}	Get the current game state	Details
POST /api/v1/players/games/{gameId}	Drop a disc in a column and get the current game state	Details

Join a game

Join a scheduled game (you can't join multiple games at the same time).

Join Request

HTTP POST to /api/v1/players/join.

{
  "playerId": "<Alice>"
}

value	description
playerId	unique player id

Join Response

No game scheduled:

{}

Scheduled game:

{
  "gameId": "80dfa415-fbdf-451e-803e-0b9928bd6821"
}

Get a Game

Receive the state of a running or finished game.

Game Request

HTTP GET to /api/v1/players/games/{gameId}.

Game Response

The current game state.

Drop a disc

Drop a disc in a column.

Drop Disc Request

HTTP POST to /api/v1/players/games/{gameId}.

{
  "playerId": "Alice",
  "column": 1
}

value	description
playerId	unique player id
column	column number, first column is column 1

Drop Disc Response

The current game state.

Game State

{
  "currentPlayerId": "Bob",
  "players": [
      {
        "playerId": "Alice",
        "disc": "RED"
      },
      {
        "playerId": "Bob",
        "disc": "YELLOW"
      }
  ],
  "board": [
    ["EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY"],
    ["EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY"],
    ["EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY"],
    ["EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY"],
    ["EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY"],
    ["EMPTY","RED",  "EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY","EMPTY"]
  ],
  "finished": false
}

value	description
currentPlayerId	current player id
players[0].playerId	first player id
players[0].disc	first player disc color, RED or YELLOW
players[1].playerId	second player id
players[1].disc	second player disc color, RED or YELLOW
board	list of cells, EMPTY, RED or YELLOW
finished	true = game is finished, false = game is running
winner	null = game is running or draw, player id = game winner

Sequence of a game