The-Fruit-Rage
This is a software agent that can play this game against a human or another agent.
#Rules of the game
The Fruit Rage is a two player game in which each player tries to maximize his/her share from a batch of fruits randomly placed in a box. The box is divided into cells and each cell is either empty or filled with one fruit of a specific type. At the beginning of each game, all cells are filled with fruits. Players play in turn and can pick a cell of the box in their own turn and claim all fruit of the same type, in all cells that are connected to the selected cell through horizontal and vertical paths. For each selection or move the agent is rewarded a numeric value which is the square of the number of fruits claimed in that move. Once an agent picks the fruits from the cells, their empty place will be filled with other fruits on top of them (which fall down due to gravity), if any. In this game, no fruit is added during game play. Hence, players play until all fruits have been claimed.
10 x 10 game board with 4 types of fruits denoted by digits 0, 1, 2 and 3 in the cells. By analyzing the game, your agent should decide which location to pick next.
Game Setup
Figure 1 depicts a sample 10 x 10 game board with 4 types of fruits denoted by digits 0, 1, 2 and 3 in the cells. By analyzing the game, your agent should decide which location to pick next. Let’s assume that it has decided to pick the cell highlighted in red and yellow in figure 1.
Figure 2 shows the result of executing this action: all the horizontally and vertically connected fruits of the same type (here, the selected fruit is of type 0) have been replaced by a * symbol (which represents an empty cell). The player will claim 14 fruits of type 0 because of this move and thus will be rewarded 14^2 = 196 points.
Figure 3 shows the state of the game after the empty space is filled with fruits falling from cells above. That is, for each cell with a * in figure 2, if fruits are present above, they will fall down. When a fruit that was on the top row falls down, its previous location is marked as empty (i.e., it becomes a * symbol). That is, no new fruits are injected to the top of the board. In addition to returning the column and row of your selected fruit, your agent will also need to return this resulting state after gravity has been applied. The game is over when all cells are empty, and the winner is determined by the total number of points, that is, sum of [fruits taken on each move]^2 (it is possible to end in a draw if both players score the same). In figure 3, the opponent player then decided to pick the location highlighted in green and yellow. Upon selecting this cell, all 12 fruits of type 1 connected to that cell will be given to the opponent player and thus the opponent player will gain 12^2 = 144 points. In figure 4, cells connected to the selected cell are marked with * and in figure 5 you see how some of those picked fruits are replaced with the contents of cells above (fruits above fell down due to gravity).
End of game: when the board is empty (no more fruits), the game is over. The score of each agent is the total points accumulated during the whole game (the sum of [fruits taken on each move]^2). The agent with the highest score wins. If both agents scored the same, the one with the most remaining time wins (to avoid draws during the competition).