Overview

In groups of around five students, you will work together to produce a Python program for playing a new variant on the card game Uno.

Group Formation

The information about groups is posted on the Moodle page (Group Project section).

Description of the Game

Unois a card game based on a deck of cards. There is a description of these cards here:

https://www.unorules.org/how-many-cards-in-uno/

For the purposes of this coursework, please ignore the blank cards.

There is a basic tutorial on how the game works here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWoSZmHsCls

and there is a more detailed description here:

https://www.unorules.org

In addition to those rules, your game should include one further rule. At the beginning of each turn, before playing any card, the player must choose one card from their hand, put it on the bottom of the discard pile, and then take the top card from the draw pile and put it in their hand.

There is a rule in the game that the player should shout “Uno” once they have one card in their hand, and if they forget to do so, an opponent can shout this instead. Implementing this rule is not necessary in this variant of the game, though you could implement it as an extension.

Your program will be simulating a single round of the game, i.e. playing until one of the players is left without cards.  Once the game round ends, you need to show the scores of each player (based on the cards they still have). You do not need to implement a scoring mechanism for playing multiple game rounds as playing multiple rounds of the game is not a compulsory part of the task.

Some versions of the game include  Swap Handsand Shuffle Handscards. Implementing these is not necessary in this variant of the game, though you could implement them as an extension.

Task

The overall task in this coursework is to create a Python program to allow a human player to play a single round of this new variant of the Uno game, playing against one or more computer opponents. You must use the Pygame framework to implement this. Details of this are athttps://www.pygame.org, and it will be introduced in lectures.

You should include the following in your solution:

    A simulation of the deck of cards and the basic gameplay, including the initial dealing of 7

cards to each player, creating the draw pile and discard pile, allowing the human player to play turns of the game (including the new rule), controlling computer players who take it in turns with the human player. The effects of the non-numbered cards (skip turn, reverse, take 2, wildcard, and wildcard+take4) should be included.

    The gameplay. In a turn, a player has to

o (New rule) Choose one of the cards in their hand, place it at the bottom of the discard pile and take the top card from the draw pile into their hand; and

o Play the normal Uno turn, that is do one of the following (taken from Wikipedia):         play one card which matches the card at the top of the discard pile in color,

number, or symbol;

     play a wild card; or

     draw the top card from the deck (you are allowed to play it immediately).         You might find it useful to initially create just the 76 numbered cards, with matching just on

numbers/colours, get that working, and then add the other cards later in the development of the program.

    You should use the facilities in Pygame to create a visual interface to this, so that the user can

see pictures of their cards, see the card on top of the discard pile, and watch the cards being played onto the discard pile by other players.

    You should implement computer players for the game. Initially, this could consist of the

computer playing a random card that matches the card on the top of the discard pile. Later on in the development of your program, you could make it more sophisticated. For example, the computer might keep track of which cards have already appeared in the game, and choose which card to play based on that information. You might also think about strategies for when best to play one of the non-numbered cards (for example, the computer player might hold back a “draw 2” card until the opponent after them in the turn sequence has a very small number of cards).

    When a player  (human or computer) wins, the program should display a congratulation

message and the scores of the players, based on the values of the cards they have; the higher is the total value, the worse it is for the player.

    Importantly, you must incorporate an aspect of Nottingham into the visual design of your

cards. That could be the University or the city. Games that do not include this aspect will fail the assessment. For example, your cards might include images from the campus or city on the cards, as illustrated here:

    Your  group  should implement  some  extension(s)  to the game. This  could be  a better

computer player, a new kind of card, an additional rule for the game, a scoring mechanism across multiple rounds, more sophisticated visuals, or any other additional aspect of the game.

There will be time set aside for working on the coursework in the lab sessions, but you will not be able to complete the task just in that time, you will need to do the majority of work outside of that time.

Working on the Project

This is a group project and every member has to contribute to the project.  The contribution of each member must include writing substantial amount of code.

Teams have to make use of Gitlab to collaborate.  The main reason for using Gitlab is to assist the development process and learn a technology used by the majority of software developers.   Also, commits to Gitlab can later be used as evidence of individual contributions.

Although not compulsory, it is a good idea to select a team lead. Team lead will usually be responsible for organising team meetings, allocating tasks, leading discussions, etc.  Team leads will usually be expected to do a little less coding than the other team members.

Marking Criteria

The following criteria will be used in assessing the coursework:

Group grades will be given according to the following guidelines:

A grade will be given to the group, which will then be adjusted based on assessment of each students’ contribution to give a final mark.