Background

Boggle is a word game that is played on a 4x4 board with 16 letter tiles. The goal is to find as many words as possible given a time constraint. For this exercise, we are making one modification. Now it is possible for one or more of the letter tiles to be blank (denoted by *). When a tile is blank, it can be treated as any other letter. Note that in one game it does not have to be the same character for each word. For example, if the tiles C, T, and * are adjacent. The words cot, cat, and cut can all be used. You will be given a text file containing all valid English words (a dictionary). You will also be given an initial board configuration as a text file with commas separating the letters. Use this as a guide for how to set up the board.

For example, a file may contain:

A, C, E, D, L, U, G, *, E, *, H, T, G, A, F, K

This is equivalent to the board:

A C E D
L U G *
E * H T
G A F K

Some sample words from this board are ace, dug, eight, hole, huge, hug, tide.

Requirement

• Implement an API in the language/framework of you choice, that lets user play a single-player game of Boggle.
• All responses of the API endpoints should be in JSON format.
• The API endpoints will be following:

Create the game

• Endpoint

POST /games

• Parameters:

  • duration (required): the time (in seconds) that specifies the duration of the game
  • random (required): if true, then the game will be generated with random board. Otherwise, it will be generated based on input.
  • board (optional): if random is not true, this will be used as the board for new game. If this is not present, new game will get the default board from test_board.txt

• Response:

  • Success (status 201 Created)

{
  "id": 1,
  "token": "9dda26ec7e476fb337cb158e7d31ac6c",
  "duration": 12345,
  "board": "A, C, E, D, L, U, G, *, E, *, H, T, G, A, F, K"
}

Play the game

• Endpoint

PUT /games/:id

• Parameters:

  • id (required): The ID of the game
  • token (required): The token for authenticating the game
  • word (required): The word that can be used to play the game

• Response:

  • Success (status 200 OK)

{
  "id": 1,
  "token": "9dda26ec7e476fb337cb158e7d31ac6c",
  "duration": 12345,
  "board": "A, C, E, D, L, U, G, *, E, *, H, T, G, A, F, K",
  "time_left": 10000,
  "points": 10
}

Show the game

• Endpoint

GET /games/:id

• Parameters:

  • id (required): The ID of the game

• Response:

  • Success (status 200 OK)

{
  "id": 1,
  "token": "9dda26ec7e476fb337cb158e7d31ac6c",
  "duration": 12345,
  "board": "A, C, E, D, L, U, G, *, E, *, H, T, G, A, F, K",
  "time_left": 10000,
  "points": 10
}

Testing

• We provide a set of integration test so that you can try it with your solution. You can add more tests, but you shouldn't modify the current test, because we will use it to validate your code. The test suite is not an exhaustive set, so your code can still fail even if you pass all the tests.

How to run test

• Install ruby

• Install gem:

bundle install

• Edit .env file and replace sample SERVER_URL with your server url
• Run test:

rspec

Submitting the solution

• Send us your solution whenever you’re done.
• There should be a short README explaining your solution and how to setup the project from scratch.

What we care about

• We're interested in your method and how you approach the problem just as much as we're interested in the end result. It would be nice if you can show us how you tackled it, why you chose the approach you did, etc.

• That said, here's what you should aim for with your code:

  • Clean, readable, production quality code; would we want to work with your code as part of a bigger codebase?
  • Good modelling and design decisions (ex: if you use multithread solution, is your code thread-safe?).
  • Extensible code; adding features will be another exercise when you come back.
  • Good use of your programming language idioms.
  • Solid testing approach (this is not compulsory, though)

We haven't hidden any nasty tricks in the test. Don't overthink it. Just write nice, solid code.