Problem Description
Rules from
Wikipedia.org:
"This version (also called "Hounds and Hare")
is played on an 8×8 checkerboard. As in draughts, only the dark squares are
used. The four hounds are initially placed on the dark squares at one edge
of the board; the fox is placed on any dark square on the opposite edge.
The objective of the fox is to cross from one side of the board to the
other, arriving at any one of the hounds' original squares; the hounds'
objective is to prevent it from doing so.
The hounds move like a draughts man, diagonally forward one square. The fox
moves like a draughts king, diagonally forward or backward one square. There
is, however, no jumping, promotion, or removal of pieces. The play
alternates with the fox moving first. The player controlling the hounds
moves only one of them per turn.
The fox is trapped and loses when a hound occupies all of its potential move
squares."
Background & Techniques
Here's a first playable version of Fox & Hounds.
Might be good to help explore strategies. So far to me, it looks like the
Fox has a big advantage but a viewer thinks that, as a 12 year old, he
had a winning strategy for the Hounds. If you find one, use the
frrdback link below to let me know.
Drag/drop pieces to play. Press U key or click Undo button to
undo a move.
Within a game, boards can be saved and later restored, although "undo" info
starts over when you do this.
This 1st posted version of Fox & Hounds was derived from TBoard
object in the Checkers game
previously added to DFF. The 4 Hounds are defined as normal
checker pieces and the Fox is initialized as a king so that he can move in
any diagonal direction. A Gameover function was
added to detect when either the Fox or the Hounds had a winning position.
The Fox wins when his row is less than or equal to any of the Hounds.
The Hounds win when the Fox has no available moves. Every game has a
winner, there are no draws.
Most of the other changes were to eliminate the jumping and piece removal
logic from the Checker TBoard version.
Addendum August 9, 2007: Version 2.1 posted today overcomes a big
deficiency for those wanting to provide feedback on specific boards and
games - there was no way to capture the information. Board cells are
now labeled and moves are displayed as they are made. "Undo"
has been augmented with a "Redo" button and keyboard key. "Save"
and "Load" buttons now write or reload a text file with set of moves
represent the current board position.
Addendum September 1, 2007: In the ongoing search for a
winning strategy for the Hounds, Version 2.3 posted today allow the user to
select who moves first. Perhaps being able to have the first move is
just the advantage that they need!
Running/Exploring the Program