Desdemona 1.01b
© 1998 Grayson Myers
Grayson.D.Myers@williams.edu

Desdemona is a freeware version of the classic strategy game Othello for the BeOS.  

In case anyone doesn't know, here are the rules in a nutshell:

+the game is played by two players.  each player takes a turn by placing a disc of his color on some open space on the playing field.
+discs of the opposing color which lie between the disc just placed and another disc of that player's color either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally are "captured," and become the current player's color.
+only moves that involve flipping at least one disc are legal.
+if a player has no legal moves, play returns to the other player.
+when neither player can move, the game is over.  The winner is the player with the most discs of his color.

How to use the program:

	the game starts out between two human players.  If you would like to change this (i.e. play a computer opponent) select the desired difficulty from the Game menu submenus.  Currently, Easy Medium and Hard are rather arbitrary settings representing looking 1, 2, and 3 moves ahead in the search tree respectively.  The Custom setting allows you to tell the computer to look an arbitrary number of moves ahead, and set the number of moves before the end of the game to use the end game evaluator.  This evaluator is different from the regular one in that it looks ahead until there are no moves (the end of the game) and minimaxes the number of squares of a certain color directly rather than using a more complex evaluator function.  Generally, setting this number above ten will cause some pretty long thinking delays towards the end of the game.  To see some statstics (some of which might not be very interesting to you) about the current computer player, select Show Stats from the Game menu.  The Undo command (only available if there is at least one human playing) reverts the game back to the way it was before the last human player moved.  There isn't really much point in undoing only computer moves.

Notes:

+I made this game as an experiment in basic AI concepts (minimax, alpha-beta pruning) and the BeOS (mt first BeOS app).  I really cannot vouch for how well it can play, since I myself am not a very good player.  Also, this is beta software, which may contain bugs.

+The graphics file that came with the program must reside in the same directory as the application and must be called "graphics" in order for the program to work.  

+Running this game in 8-bit color is extremely ugly.  Please use a higher bit depth.  (If you really want a set of graphics that, in my opinion, are not as cool but look better in 8-bit color, email me, i'll send them to you.)

+Currently this is only a PPC version, due to my hardware limitations.  As soon as I get the appropriate hardware, I'll release an x86 version. 

+I would really appreciate feedback on this program.  If you would like to see it improved, or if any of the features in the list below especially appeals to you, please write me!  Otherwise, I may turn my efforts to other projects (The BeOS is in need of so much...)  You can write to me with comments, complaints, bugs, etc. at:  Grayson.D.Myers@williams.edu.

Stuff To Do:

+optimize the alpha-beta search routines!! (these could probably be made much faster)
+implement a customizable opening book to make for more varied computer play.  (there are over 70 openings documented on the internet!)
+implement IOS (Internet Othello Server) support, to allow playing over the internet (I really haven't looked into the logisitcs of this one much)

Version History:

+1.01b - fixed a bug so that Desdemona now recognizes draws (thanks to John Cooke for noticing my oversight)

+1.0b - first relased version of Desdemona

Legal Stuff:

THIS PROGRAM IS DISTRIBUTED AS IS.  DISTRIBUTION IS ONLY ALLOWED BY
THE ORIGINAL SELF-EXTRACTING ZIP FILE.  THIS PROGRAM IS ABSOLUTELY FREE.  NO
PROFIT MAY BE GAINED BY THE DISTRIBUTION OR SELLING OF THIS SOFTWARE.  ANY
MODIFICATION MADE TO THE SELF EXTRACTION ZIP FILE, THIS DOCUMENT OR PROGRAM
CODE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.  I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED TO YOU, YOUR COMPUTER, OR ANYTHING ELSE BY THIS PROGRAM.