IS660Z – Programming Games
Using Visual Basic
Required session 3
June 16, 2004
Agenda
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Last minute corrections and fixes to
Cannonball and posting of assignment
Discussion questions from Blackboard
Overview of Minesweeper, Tic Tac Toe
Suggestions for other games
Lecture begins soon …
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Students can finish up Cannonball and
post to digital drop box
Students missing project 2 presentation
will present
Discussion questions
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Managing enhancements
Keeping cannon length constant
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Finding the formulas to solve this problem
Angles vs. radians
Structures in code
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Functions – return a value that answers
a question or solves a problem
Sub-routines – carry out a task but do
not return a value
Event handler – responds to an event
captured by OS
Final project
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Final project presentation next
Wednesday
Your choice:
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Enhanced Cannonball
Minesweeper
Tic Tac Toe
Your own game?
Final week wrap up
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Second exam last hour of class
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Conducted online
Same kinds of questions as midterm
Open books, open notes, but no electronic
resources (Internet)
Week 4 discussion postings due by 9 am
Saturday, June 26th
Post-course anonymous survey due by 9 am
Saturday, June 26th
Enhancements to Cannonball
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Scoring
Move the target as well as the cannon
(requires multiple timers)
More realistic rendering of cannon,
target, scene
Other ideas?
Minesweeper
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Control array of label objects represents
the minefield
Mines are randomly scattered
throughout the minefield and hidden
from player
Sophisticated mouse actions determine
player’s move
Minesweeper Design Issues
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3 parallel data structures
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Actual minefield visible to player
Hidden location of mines
Location (state) of player’s markings, i.e.
what cells have been uncovered or flagged
Minesweeper cont.
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Visible minefield – control array of label
objects
Two internal arrays
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Two dimensional array of Boolean values
(True, False)
One array records hidden location of
mines, other status of each cell
Similar to spreadsheet
2 dimensional arrays
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Declaration:
Dim blnMinesOn (1 to conSize, _
1 to conSize) As Boolean
Access individual element with 2 subscripts:
blnMinesOn(i,j) = True
Processing requires nested loops:
For i = 1 to conSize
For j = 1 to conSize
blnMinesOn(i,j) = False
Next j
Next i
Tic Tac Toe
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Simple child’s game is last chapter in
the book!
Requires two dimensional array to
represent board
Implement strategies for computer’s
choice of move (AI)
The Cat wins in case of a tie
Tic Tac Toe Design Issues
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How to recognize a win? (p. 183)
Drawing a winning line
Cascading events (p. 182)
Implementing levels of play for the
computer (p. 185)
VB Exercise
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Pre-minesweeper – introduces
algorithm for recognizing mouse
combination clicks
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Left click
Right click
Left click with right button down
Last week!
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See you online