Towers.jl

A Julia project originally made in Julia 1.2.0 featuring the game of Towers.
Similar to the one of chiark you can find here.
Succesfully tested in Julia 1.5.3.

This project features:

• A fully playable game of Towers
• Game generation with different board sizes and difficulty options
• Importing and exporting using a Boardstring, compatible with chiark's online version
• A solving algorithm (with optional explanation and visualisation of each solving step)
• Easy customisation of input keys and appearance.

Getting Started

1. Install Julia from this site.
2. Dowload a copy of this project.
3. Run the script Towers.jl in the Julia REPL by using the include function. This file is located in the Towers Game folder.

include("path\\to\\Towers Game\\Towers.jl") # on Windows
include("path/to/Towers Game/Towers.jl") # on Mac

4. Hit Enter to start the game.

How to interact?

Press a character like u or d, followed by Enter, to move Up or Down.

When the Start button is highlighted in the menu, some summarising instruction text will appear in the bottom left corner. This will give you more information on what commands exist.

All input keys can be configured in the first few lines of the Towers.jl file.
Search for this piece of code and change the characters in the Tuples:

global const KEY_UP = ('u','e')
global const KEY_DOWN = ('d',)
global const KEY_LEFT = ('l','s')
global const KEY_RIGHT = ('r','f')
global const KEY_CTRL = ('_','-')
global const KEY_PENCIL = ('p',)
global const KEY_TOGGLE_ERRORS = ('o',)

Entering more than one character in a Tuple will bind multiple keys to the same functionality.

Example: By default, you can move Up by pressing u OR e, followed by an Enter press.

Remember: Every input has to be followed by an Enter press. When just pressing Enter without a preceding key, this will function as select.

Import & export

Every game is uniquely defined by a Boardstring. When playing a game, this is being displayed at the top left of the REPL.

Example of an 8x8 game's Boardstring:

8:5/4/3/2/3/2/2/1/1/2/3/2/3/2/4/4/4/3/3/4/4/2/2/1/1/2/2/3/2/3/3/5,d5a2d1h2a3c4f2b8b5a4_8b2b5d4h5a

You can use this unique fingerprint to save an interesting game for later or to send it to someone else. Furthermore, it is fully compatible with chiark's online version, providing a fluent transition between online and offline experience.

To import a game from a Boardstring, select the Load button in the start menu and press Enter. Next, you can paste a valid Boardstring, hit Enter again, and the corresponding game will be loaded in.

Hint: You can have a try with the example Boardstring from above.

Ctrl mode

When playing a game, try hitting the - key (or _), followed by Enter. This will put the game into Ctrl mode.

From this mode, you can:

1. Type 'solve' to solve the current game, instantly.
2. Type 'solvestep' to solve the current game, step by step, whilst displaying explanation about each step taken.
   Hit Enter to go to the next step.
3. Run any Julia command and thus also access the functions of Towers.jl and Solver.jl.
4. Type 'exit' to exit the game.

Appearance

You can change the appearance of the game by changing the following constants, located at the top of the Towers.jl file:

global const COL_PLAYVALS = :yellow
global const COL_GAMEVALS = :normal
global const COL_PENCIL = :light_cyan
global const COL_GRID = :light_black
global const COL_ERROR = :light_red
global const COL_HIGHLIGHT = :blue
global const COL_QUESTION = :light_green
global const COL_EXPL = :light_blue
global const COL_GUESS = :light_magenta

Documentation

The Towers FlowCharts folder provides a visual representation of the code. The Towers Solver.pdf file in that same folder contains all of the basic rules used by Solver.jl, along with examples.