I’ve picked up a project from 2019/2020 that I worked on during the pandemic to play the board game Blokus remotely in multiplayer: 1v1, 2v2, or 1v1v1v1.
I’ve polished it and fixed quite a few things. Let me know what you think; it will be on the stores in the coming days.
What is included
Online and local (hot-seat) multiplayer with official rules:
4 players: one color each.
2 players: two colors per player, alternating turn order.
3 players: one color each, plus a fourth color shared in turns.
Multilingual support: English, French, Spanish, and German.
Lobby interface: game code entry (maskable), player ready indicators, and host crown.
Drag-and-drop with grid snapping.
Instant visual feedback: validation checkmark when placement is allowed.
End-of-turn button or message explaining why a move is rejected.
Oo yes - That’s great. Blockus is one of my favourite board games. I’d love to see how you’ve set the logic up here so I think i will get this one. Did you consider logic for AI?
Thanks, I didn’t think I’d pick this project back up, but it’s fun to work on the multiplayer, even if it’s complicated with variable syncing and turn-based mechanics; you don’t realize how many edge cases can softlock a game.
I’m thinking of adding a 1vsAI mode, but it shouldn’t be unbeatable; usually, bots are way too strong. What parameters should I consider, and what probabilities for good or bad moves?
It’s something worth exploring.
I played a game with my brother, and we had the idea to see the players’ hands and see when pieces are hovering over another one.
So I made this:
The hand is from the player who is playing Yellow and Green, and the marker shows where the pieces are hovering over another one.
Have you ever played the ‘quirkle’ mobile version. The ai is well done on it. There’s three levels of ai strength to choose from. None of these levels, even ‘expert’ are perfect and in quirkle there’s chance involved but as the game goes on you can begin to work out what pieces are left and have a bit of a edge over it. There’s no chance element in blokus (unless players 3 and 4 are laying pieces randomly) so the ai can’t be too good. I still haven’t worked out the best strategy in blokus as we usually play with four of us.
I think Ill have a look later at blokus strategy and then dig the box out and see if anyone fancies a game.
I have always played with 4 or 2 players, but always the wrong way; with 2, I didn’t know you had to share the colors of the non other players. It’s true that it’s more logical, but I mostly played games with 4 ^^
In terms of difficulty, it should be doable, but it’s important to get the weights adjusted properly, which I think is not an easy thing to do.
