NAME¶

gomoku — 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.