I just finished creating a Tic-Tac-Toe with AI game, and I’m really excited about it! A few months ago I built a simple 2-player version while in the Intro to Ruby section of the curriculum, and that felt like such a feat at the time. I looked back at my code to use some of my methods in this current iteration. I found that I’ve made a lot of progress in my growth as a Ruby developer. My recent code is more efficient and simplified. For instance, instead of @board = [" "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "] I can simplify and reduce the likelihood of human error by setting the board equal to Array.new(9, " "). Building the game this time around wasn’t as tough as I thought it would be, and I even ended up enjoying it. I had the most fun building the AI and CLI. The strategy for the computer player looks like this:
It checks if a certain position would be a valid move, meaning that the spot is not already occupied. First it tries to go for the middle spot, then the corners, then as a last resort it goes for the outer middle spots. I tested this strategy in the CLI by making the computer play itself 100 times and report the wins.
This method invokes the game.play method which will return “won” if any game has been won.
The results have been a draw between the computer vs. computer, after playing 100 times repeatedly, so the middle > corners > leftovers strategy works.
Although not required for the project, I added some functionality for the user. After testing the gameplay over and over, I found that I really wanted the option to exit the program at any time. So I added that into the code and put the directions in the start of the game.
I also included a visual reference of the possible positions the player could choose from.
I was eager to work on this project each day, because it’s an interactive product of my code that I could share with the world. This is the first time as a developer I will have my code reviewed, so it feels like a milestone. While I taught myself coding for a year before starting at the Flatiron School, I was missing out on mentorship. I am really looking forward to the constructive feedback I’ll receive on this project, as well as the projects ahead.