Tic Tac Toe

We want to bring the pen-and-paper game Tic-tac-toe to the digital age, but with a little twist: the size of the playfield should be configurable between 3x3 and 10x10. And we also want the symbols (usually O and X) to be configurable. Also it should be for 3 players instead of just 2.

Environment Setup

Introduction

The motive of this section is to provide a detailed steps of the environment setup for the tictactoe application. The application is developed using Java, and the build and configuration processes are managed by Gradle.

VSCode

This application is built using VSCode. Use this LINK To install VSCode.

Github

1. Download and install git from HERE.
2. Verify git version using this command git --version.
3. Download and install Git Credential Manager for Windows. Or check HERE how to configure the credential storage for you OS.
4. Clone the repository to your machine using this URL. Choose a folder destination for your project.

Gradle

1. Download & Install the package manager for windows Chocolatey.
2. Use Chocolatey to install Gradle. $ choco install gradle.
3. For other OS's check HERE how to install Gradle on your machine.

Run the application

1. Clean and build the repository using this command gradle clean build.
2. Make sure the build was successful and the app is ready to run using this command gradle test.
3. Everything is set let's run the application using gradle run.

Application Design

Brief

Due to the nature of my current role and working hours; I had to divide my time on building this application into 4 days. I tried to have a declarative commits that would imply the progress as I go. Below you can find the steps of the iterations I followed during development:

1. Focusing on writing a designated component for each feature of the application.
2. Make each feature work with the basic functionality.
3. Write unit tests for the optimistic paths and start refactoring and enhancing the code.

Design patterns

1. Memento: Capture and externalize the application internal state so that it can be returned to this state later. It encapsulates a "check point" capability.
2. Singelton: Ensure a class has only one instance, and provide a global point of access to it. Encapsulated "just-in-time initialization" or "initialization on first use".
3. Command: Encapsulate a request as an object, thereby letting you parametrize clients with different requests, queue or log requests, and support undoable operations.

Computer Player

As per the task description I gave the least priority for having a super smart CPU. I focused on implementing the ability to win/block if there is a chance as described HERE.