Move tokens in order to limit your opponent's moves. Game is over when one of the players has no free slots to place tokens. Moves are represented as in: 1 (up), 2 (up/right), 3 (right), 4 (down/right), 5 (down), 6 (down/left), 7(left), 8(up/left).
Players start with a token=10. Tokens are placed in up to three available slots in the chosen direction.
Gotcha game can be played in two modes:
- player 1 versus player 2
- player vs (automatic) machine
When in automatic (machine player) mode, moves are generated through a MiniMax implementation, with a maximum search depth of 5.
Heuristic used:
- Number of pieces spread on the board by current player minus by the number of pieces spread on the board by opponent, with a weight of 0.7;
- Number of possible moves left for current player minus by the number of moves left for opponent, with a weight of 0.3;
- After 30 turns, heuristic 1 weight is changed to 0.3;
- After 30 turns, heuristic 2 weight is changed to 0.7.