gomoku - Man Page

game of 5 in a row

Synopsis

gomoku[-bcdu] [-D debugfile] [inputfile]

Description

gomoku is a two player game where the object is to get 5 in a row horizontally, vertically or diagonally on a 19 by 19 grid. By convention, black always moves first. With no arguments, gomoku will display a playing board and prompt for moves from the user. Valid moves are a letter for the column and a number for the row of an empty board location. Entering ``quit" or ``resign" will end the game. You can save the current state of the game by entering ``save" and supplying a file name when prompted. The optional file inputfile can be used to restore a saved game.

The options are:

-b

This option sets background mode. Input moves are read from standard input, the computer picks a move, and prints it to standard output. The first input line should be either ``black" or ``white" to specify whether gomoku has the first move or not respectively. This option was intended for game tournaments where a referee program handles the board display and pits one program against another.

-c

Computer versus computer. gomoku will play a game against itself. This is mostly used for testing.

-d

Print debugging information. Repeating this option more than once yields more detailed information.

-D debugfile

Print the debug information to debugfile instead of to the standard output.

-u

User versus user. This is mostly used for testing.

Author

Ralph Campbell

Acknowledgements

The board display routines were based on the goref program written by Peter Langston.

Info

August 4, 1994