Description
For this assignment you will explore how to apply the object-oriented design ideas you learned in
class to design and implement the chess game. You will continue working with your partner.
Read the DCS Academic Integrity Policy for Programmming Assignments – you are responsible for
this. In particular, note that “All Violations of the Academic Integrity Policy will be reported by
the instructor to the appropriate Dean”.
IMPORTANT: Note that you will be maintaining your code in Bitbucket, which is a source code
repository. Learning how to manage your source code INCREMENTALLY and in COLLABORATION
with your project partner is an important skill, and Bitbucket (like Github) is a code repository that
allows you to do this effectively.
You will implement the game of Chess for two players. Your program, when launched, should draw
the board in text, on the terminal and prompt whomever’s turn it is (white or black) for a move. Once
the move is executed, the move should be played and the new board drawn, and the other player
queried.
• Output
• Input
• Ending the game
• Grading
• Submission/Code Maintenance in Bitbucket
• FAQs
Output
The board should be drawn on the screen with ascii art EXACTLY as shown in this example. Note
there is a blank line above and below any prompt/message your program will print, and the board
itself.
You will NOT use a graphical user interface, that is not the point of this assignment. If you do, your
submission will NOT be graded.
You MUST have white make the first move. Having black make the first move is not appropriate, and
will incur a penalty.
Note:
• Every piece must know what moves are allowed on it. If a player attempts an illegal move on
a piece, your program should not execute the move. Instead, it should print “Illegal move, try
again”, followed by the usual prompt (for white’s move or black’s move).
You don’t need to have a blank line between an attempted move, the illegal move warning,
and the actual correct move. You only need to have a blank line between the board drawing
and a move.
• When a move is made, and it puts the opponent’s King under check, your program should
print “Check” before prompting for the opponent’s move.
• If a checkmate is detected, your program should print “Checkmate”
• The last thing before termination should be a display of “Black wins”, “White wins” or “draw”.
Input
Your program needs to accept input of the form “FileRank FileRank”, where the first file (column)
and rank (row) are the coordinates of the piece to be moved, and the second file and rank are the
coordinates of where it should end up. (See the board example shown above.) All inputs will be on
the command line, one move at a time, not through a file.
The figure immediately below should make it clear which rank and file combinations belong to which
squares. The white pieces always initially occupy ranks 1 and 2. The black pieces always initially
occupy ranks 7 and 8. The queen always starts on the d file.
As an example, advancing the white king’s pawn two spaces would be input as “e2 e4”.
A castling move is indicated by specifying where the king begins and ends. So, white castling king’s
side would be “e1 g1”.
A pawn promotion is indicated by putting the piece to be promoted to after the move. So, promoting
a pawn to a knight might be “g7 g8 N”. If no promotion piece is indicated, it is assumed to be a
queen.
Example of black winning
Ending the game
• If checkmate occurs, the game shall end immediately with the result reported.
• A player may resign by entering “resign”.
o Example of white resigning
o Example of black resigning
• A player may offer a draw by appending “draw?” to the end of an otherwise regular move.
When a draw is offered, the other player is obligated to accept, and the game ends,
whatever the actual situation may be. (No justification is needed.) So the other player will
simply submit “draw” as the entirety of their next move. There will be no automatic draws
(due to unchangeing positions over long periods of time, etc).
o Example of a draw
You are NOT required to implement termination by threefold repetition, or the fifty-move rule. (You
are welcome to include them in your code to make it complete; however, there is no extra credit for
either.)
Grading
• Correctness, 90 pts: Implementation of all required functionality including drawing the
board:
o All legitimate basic moves for all pieces
o Castling
o Enpassant
o Promotion
o Identification of check
o Identifcation of checkmate
o Identification of illegal move (print “Illegal move, try again”)
o Resign
o Draw
o Drawing board display as specified
Note: You are NOT required to implement stalemate.
• Javadoc, 10 pts: Comment ALL classes, fields, and methods with Javadoc tags (not just
plain comments). Also, make sure you record your name in each Java file with the @author
Javadoc tag. Run javadoc to generate the Javadoc HTML documentation
There are numerous online resources that show how to write Javadoc comments, and how
to use the javadoc tool. Here’s one such resource. It’s pretty straightforward.
• Penalties
o 5 pts: ANY deviation from specified format for drawing the board such as extra
spaces, extra blank lines, weird characters, other sketchy artwork, etc.
o 5 pts: Game starts with black making the first move
o 5 pts: Javadoc HTML not generated
o Up to 5 pts: Incomplete Javadoc tags in code
o 5 pts (individual): No Bitbucket commit by Fri, Oct 15.
o 10 pts: Every time you ask us and we test another commit version in your repository
that is earlier than the last commit before the deadline.
o 10 pts: For every 2 hours of lateness, in case there is nothing in the repository for us
to test as of the deadline of Oct 27, 11 PM.
NOTE: This 2 hour block will be applied STRICTLY starting any time after 11 PM
(even if it is one second), in increments of 2 hours. NO EXCEPTIONS.
Submission/Code Maintenance in Bitbucket (No, you may NOT use
Github)
Use the Git/Bucket How-To to know how create a repository in Bitbucket ( and once again, NO, you
may NOT use Github!!!) and manage it using Git. There is a comprehensive walk through of all the
features you need to know to manage your code collaboratively. In particular, all Git examples are
shown on the command line, which is the recommended way to use Git from your computer. This is
because it is clear as to what’s going on, so it is easy to recover from mistakes, if any. (Using an
app/plugin with a GUI generally hides a lot of things under the hood, and if things go awry you may
not have enough transparent info to work with and fix things.)
Create a new repository and give your grader read access. You can give read access to your grader
at any time, there is no requirement that you give access immediately.
Since you are going to collaborate with your partner using Bitbucket, and we are going to get your
code from Bitbucket, there is no requirement of any specific IDE to use since it will be of no
consequence for the Bitbucket codebase. So on your local machine you can use any IDE you want ,
Eclipse/IntelliJ/whatever.
Create an Java project, name it ChessXX, where XX is the two digit group number. Use packages as
necessary. There should be at least one package, called chess, with the main class called Chess in
it. This is the class that we will run when testing your program.
Create a docs directory under the project. You will put your complete generated Javadocs HTML
documentation in this directory.
For code management on Bitbucket, one option is to make your project folder the root of your
Bitbucket repository. This way, when we get your project from Bitbucket, we get the entire project
space, with source and binary files, and all data that is in the project in the right places.
(Strictly speaking, we don’t need the binaries, so if you find another way to set up your repo that
holds all project source and data files, that’s fine.)
EACH partner in the team will make a first Bitbucket commit in the project by Friday, Oct 15. The
BitBucket commit does not have to be any Java code, you may commit any text file, with as little as
a single letter in it.
Thereafter, you will make commits incrementally, as and when you add reasonable functionality to
your implementation. Aside from that first commit that should come from each partner, we are not
asking for a specific number of commits from either partner, as long as you have found a way to
work together.
In any case, do NOT use Bitbucket like a Canvas assignment drop, as in not making any commits
after the initial required commit, then making the second one the final commit just before the
deadline. If you do this, you are wasting a great opportunity to learn an important skill you will be
required to use in real projects, and will have one less thing to show to prospective employers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can we assume the input will always be separated by ” “? That is, no inputs like “h7 h6draw?” or
“h6 h7N”. In addition, is extra space allowed? For example “h7 h6 ” or ” h7 h6″ or “e2 e4”.
A: All inputs will have exactly one space between components, such as “e2 e4”, or “g7 g7 N”. And
there won’t be any leading or trailing spaces.
Q: Do we have to implement a rule where a player is not allowed to make an otherwise valid move if
it will immediately put their king in check?
A: Yes. This qualifies as an illegal move.
Q: Do we need to worry about bad input, like a player entering “draw” without being asked by the
other player, or just entering things that don’t make sense, such as “x10 p14”?
A: No
Q: The assignment says we have to print “Illegal move, try again” if the player attempts an illegal
move, but can we print more specific messages to identify the kind of illegal move?
A: No, you must stick with the described format.
Q: Will differences in output such as “White is in checkmate” instead “Black wins” be OK?
A: No, it’s not ok. Your program should print “Checkmate” (followed by “White wins” or “Black wins”).
Q: We saw rules elsewhere on castling/dead position/what-have-you that go beyond the description
on the linked Wikipedia page. Should we implement those?
A: No, we are going with the Wikipedia page only. We are not all practiced Chess players.
Q: Should we print the board out again if the user tries to input an illegal move?
A: No
Q: If an opponent’s piece is captured, should we indicate a captured piece?
A: No
Q: For the resign examples, should we add “Black wins” or “White wins” at the end?
A: Yes
Q: Can we use Github instead of Bitbucket?
A: No
