OVERVIEW

In this assignment, you are going to design and develop an interactive sliding puzzle game for both 8 and 15 numbers.  An 8-number puzzle has a square-framed board consisting of 8 square tiles, numbered 1 to 8, initially placed in random order, while a 15-number puzzle there are 15 numbered square tiles, from 1 to 15, as shown above respectively.  The game board has an empty space where one of adjacent tiles      slides to. The objective of the game is to re-arrange the tiles into a sequential order by their numbers     (left to right, top to bottom) by repeatedly making sliding moves (left, right, up or down).  The following  figure shows an example of one 8-number puzzle where “INITIAL” is the starting point of the game, and  the player needs to repeatedly slide one adjacent tile, one at a time, to the unoccupied space (the            empty space) until all numbers appear sequentially, ordered from left to right, top to bottom, shown as

“FINAL” .

SCOPE

1.    At the start of the game, display a brief introduction about the game.

2.    Prompt user to enter 4 letters (a-z), case-insensitive, used for the left, right, up and down           moves.  User is free to pick any four letters such as j, k, r, f for left, right, up and down                  respectively. Your program must perform appropriate input validation such as repeated letters, too many or too few letters, non-letter characters and so on.

3.    Prompt user for selection of either 8 or 15 puzzle, then generate a randomized, SOLVABLE 8 or 15-tile puzzle accordingly; have it displayed on the screen using simple ASCII characters (0-9).

4.    Repeatedly prompt user the tile to slide to the empty location (left, right, up or down) - the   location of the tile relative to the empty location.  In the prompt the valid sliding move(s) are shown together with the designated letter (from step 2 above). For example:

a.    Enter your move (left-j, right-k) >

5.    After each move, show the updated puzzle on the screen and prompt further move if needed.

6.    Inform user when the puzzle is solved (i.e. the numbered tiles are in sequential order, left to  right, top to bottom); then prompt user to continue another game or terminate the program.

7.    Track total number of moves made for each game and have it displayed as the puzzle is solved.

8.   Validate all input as mentioned above, including whitespaces from the input such as leading and trailing spaces as well as spaces in between.  Your program must not crash and must prompt       user for input again with a friendly message indicating the detected error (if any).

NOTE:

•    Keep your entire source code in ONE SINGLE file.

•    Use only standard python modules

•    In your design stick ONLY to functions, in other words, no class objects of your own.

STARTUP OPTIONS

Not applicable

SKILLS

In this assignment, you will be trained on the use of the followings:

•    Functions (with parameters and return) for program structure and logic decomposition

•    Input() - Input Validation & Program Robustness

•    Standard objects (strings, numbers & lists)

•    Control statements to interact with users

•    Variable Scope

•    String formatting (method style)

DELIVERABLES

1.    Program source code (A1_School_StudentID_Source.py)

where School is SSE, SDS, SME, HSS, FE or LHS and StudentID is your 9-digit student ID.

Submit the python file by due date to the corresponding assignment folder under “Assignment (submission)”

For instances, a SME student with student ID “119010001” will name the program as follows :

•    A1_SME_119010001.py:

5% will be deducted if file is incorrectly named!!!

TIPS & HINTS

•    Beware of variable scope as you might keep a few variables as global such as puzzle

•    Refer to python website for program styles and naming convention (PEP 8)

•    Validate all inputs - if incorrect input is detected then display a friendly response and prompt the input again.