tic-tac-toe

A CLI implementation of Tic Tac Toe in Java using the Minimax algorithm

How to play

This is a simple CLI application. Once started, it expects the user to enter a command:

Input command (type help for help): 

There are three commands:

1. help
2. start <player_1> <player_2> with <player_n> being one of: user, easy, medium, hard
3. exit

The help command prints some helpful information about the commands available, while the exit command exits the application. This leaves us with the start <player_1> <player_2> command which expects the types of the two players.

The Player Types

There are four player types:

1. user: a human player
2. easy, medium and hard: more or less "intelligent" opponents controlled by the computer

When it's a human player's turn, they are asked to enter the coordinates of their next move in form of two integers ranging from 1 to 3 each, e.g.:

Enter the coordinates [row column]: 1 1

By entering 1 1 an X (or an O - depending on if they're the first or second player) is placed in the upper left corner of the board:

+-------+
| X     |
|       |
|       |
+-------+

Computer controlled Opponents

• easy - this one just makes random moves
• medium - this one makes random moves, unless they can make a winning move (if they already have two in a row) or a blocking move (if the opponent has two in a row)
• hard - this one uses the Minimax algorithm to make the best move possible