Halma Game: Rules and Play Sequence

This is a programming assignment. You will be provided sample inputs and outputs (see below). Please understand that the goal of the samples is to check that you can correctly parse the problem definitions and generate a correctly formatted output.

In this project, we will play the game of Halma, an adversarial game with some similarities to checkers. The game uses a 16x16 checkered gameboard. Each player starts with 19 game pieces clustered in diagonally opposite corners of the board. To win the game, a player needs to transfer all of their pieces from their starting corner to the opposite corner, into the positions that were initially occupied by the opponent. Note that this original rule of the game is subject to spoiling, as a player may choose to not move some pieces at all, thereby preventing the opponent from occupying those locations. Note that the spoiling player cannot win either (because some pieces remain in their original corner and thus cannot be used to occupy all positions in the opposite corner). Here, to prevent spoiling, we modify the goal of the game to be to occupy all of the opponent’s starting positions which the opponent is not still occupying.

- Once a piece has reached the opposing camp, a play cannot result in that piece leaving the camp.

- If the current play results in having every square of the opposing camp that is not already occupied by the opponent to be occupied by one's own pieces, the acting player wins. Otherwise, play proceeds to the other player.