four-in-a-row
v1.0.1
Published
Four-In-A Row game logic library. No need to write the logic for the game yourself
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Four-In-A-Row.js
Four-In-A Row (aka "Connect Four" or "Four-In-A-Line") game logic library for JavaScript. No need to write the logic for the game yourself.
This was adapted from my Making Four-In-A-Row Using JavaScript blog series.
Table of Contents
Installing
Package Manager
You can use your favourite package manager to install the library.
For example:
npm install four-in-a-row
No build step
No build step required. Add four-in-a-row.js or four-in-a-row.min.js directly to your projects.
Examples
Usage
import { Game } from "four-in-a-row";
const game = new Game();
const startingMoveResult = game.playMove(0); // Yellow Token placed at row: 0, column: 0.
const nextMoveResult = game.playMove(1); // Red Token placed at row: 0, column 1.
Full Example
For a full example of how to use the library, check out out the demo example which is a four-in-a-row HTML5 Canvas game.
Public API
Create a new game
import { Game } from "four-in-a-row";
// Create a new game
const game = new Game();
// Check current status of game
const initialStatus = game.status;
// Get starting color
const startingColor = game.startingColor;
// Get current turn
const turn = game.currentTurn;
// Make a move
const moveResult = game.playMove(0);
// Retrieve game board
const board = game.currentBoard;
// Restart game
game.reset();
Contstants
GameStatus
import { Game, GameStatus } from 'four-in-a-row';
console.log(GameStatus.IN_PROGRESS); // "in-progress"
console.log(GameStatus.START); // "start"
console.log(GameStatus.WIN); // "win"
console.log(GameStatus.DRAW); // "draw"
const game = new Game();
console.log(game.status === GameStatus.START); // true
MoveStatus
import { Game, MoveStatus } from 'four-in-a-row';
console.log(MoveStatus.INVALID); // "invalid"
console.log(MoveStatus.WIN); // "win"
console.log(MoveStatus.SUCCESS); // "success"
console.log(MoveStatus.DRAW); // "draw"
const game = new Game();
const moveResult = game.playMove(0);
console.log(moveResult.status === MoveStatus.Success); // true
PlayerColor
import { Game, PlayerColor} from 'four-in-a-row';
console.log(PlayerColor.NONE); // "none"
console.log(PlayerColor.YELLOW); // "yellow"
console.log(PlayerColor.RED); // "red"
const game = new Game();
console.log(game.startingColor === PlayerColor.YELLOW); // true;
console.log(game.currentTurn === PlayerColor.YELLOW); // true;
game.playMove(0);
console.log(game.currentTurn === PlayerColor.RED); // true;
console.log(game.currentBoard);
// game.currentBoard
// { 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
// { 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
// { 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
// { 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
// { 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
// { 0: 1, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 1, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
BoardDimensions
import { BoardDimensions } from 'four-in-a-row';
console.log(BoardDimensions.ROWS); // 6
console.log(BoardDimensions.COLUMNS); // 7
console.log(BoardDimensions.WIN_LINE_LENGTH); // 4
BoardToken
import { Game, BoardToken } from 'four-in-a-row';
console.log(BoardToken.NONE); // 0
console.log(BoardToken.YELLOW); // 1
console.log(BoardToken.RED); // 2
const game = new Game();
game.playMove(0);
console.log(game.currentBoard);
// Output (`Uint8Array[]`- each Uint8Array element contains a `BoardToken`):
// [
// { 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
// { 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
// { 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
// { 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
// { 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
// { 0: 1, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 1, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
// ]
Instance methods
playMove(columnIndex: number)
Returns a MoveResult
object
{
// Uint8Array[] - Each Uint8Array element contains a `BoardToken`
nextBoard: [
{ 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
{ 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
{ 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
{ 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0, 5: 0, 6: 0 },
{ 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 2, 5: 2, 6: 2 },
{ 0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 1, 4: 1, 5: 1, 6: 1 },
],
// PlayerColor
winner: 'yellow',
// MoveStatus
status: 'WIN',
// BoardPosition[]
winLine:
[
{ row: 5, column: 3 },
{ row: 5, column: 4 },
{ row: 5, column: 5 },
{ row: 5, column: 6 },
]
}
reset()
Restarts the game.
Game Over State Behaviour
You can find out if the game is over by checking for the for a win or draw in the status
field of a MoveResult
or the status
field of a Game
.
if the game is over, calls to playMove()
will return the last MoveResult
(Details of the move that put the game into a game over state).
You'll have to call the reset()
to get out of the game over state.