CSCI 1321 (Principles of Algorithm Design II), Fall 2003:
Homework 8

Credit:

Design 20 points; code 60 points.

Overview

The goal of this homework is to make your game as polished as possible in the time remaining -- both from the standpoint of a person playing it and from the standpoint of a person reading your code. Specifically, you are to do the following.

• Make your game as functional, playable, and pretty as you can in the time available to you.

• Fix any known bugs and/or unusually messy code. This includes correcting any problems I pointed out in grading your other assignments.

• Make the documentation consistent with the current state of the code and reasonably complete. I will grade the HTML version of your documentation, so be sure it includes everything you want me to read. If you haven't already done so, at this point you should do the following.
  • Be sure every class, and every public method or variable, has at least a brief comment describing what it is and how it fits into your game. (Exception: You do not need to describe how your list and priority queue classes fit into the game, just what they are in general -- e.g., ``linked list of game entities''.) For methods, also describe parameters and return values, unless their purpose is clear from their names and the overall comment about the method.

  • Be sure comments are consistent with the final state of the game. Ideally they will all be your comments rather than Dr. Lewis's instructions for how to use his code (this is particularly applicable to GameSetup).

• Undo the changes made for Homework 7 that would make the game less playable -- the command-line arguments that allow you to test performance and the code in your player class that prints out performance data. It's up to you which of your two implementations of the priority queue you use in this final version.

For this assignment, it would probably be best to start with the version of your game you turned in for Homework 6, since most of the additions required for Homework 7 should be removed for this final version.

Design

The design for this assignment will include descriptions of all your classes, plus a UML diagram showing how all your classes fit together.

Code

For the code part of this assignment, you should be fixing any bugs and also adding whatever code you need to make your game as polished and playable as is feasible in the time you have. This might include improving its look -- using the screen editor to draw a more complex map, using the image editor to create nicer images for blocks and entities, or figuring out how to import images from files in graphics formats (GIF, etc.).

Details

What files do I need?

You will need

• The JAR file for this assignment, PAD2Assn8.jar.

As before, you will probably find the project API and the Java 1.4 API (linked from the course ``Useful links'' page) useful.

You can use the Together project you set up for a previous assignment, but I usually recommend setting up a new project for each assignment.

Completing the design and code step

For this assignment there is no separate design step; you need generate only one version of the documentation, to be turned in when you turn in the code. When you're happy with how your code works (bugs fixed, messy code cleaned up, features added as time permits), generate a final version of your documentation, putting it in the proper directory as described in the overall ``Project Description'' document. For this assignment please try to use the ``generate HTML documentation'' feature of Together even if you didn't do so before, so your documentation will include a UML diagram of all your classes. Then turn in your code as described in the ``Project Description'' document. For this assignment, you will be turning in all your source-code (.java) files, plus possibly a file saved from the screen editor -- basically, everything I need to recompile and run your game. You do not need to send me .class files or the files that contain your Together project (*.tpr, etc.).