COMP 303 Fall 2010

Milestone 3 - GUI and Integration

$Revision: 1.1 $ $Date: 2010/10/26 20:34:00 $

Objectives

To provide an opportunity to gain additional experience and skills with:

GUI Programming
The Observer design pattern
Complete application development and deployment

Required Problem

Implement the GUI module (see the project overview) to complete your Hearts application. This module should allow users to play an unlimited number of games against computer players. Your GUI should contain at the very least the following elements:

A visual representation of the human player's cards
A visual representation of each computer player's cards
A visual representation of the cards played in each turn.
Visual cues as to the state of the games, including players' decisions (plays, exchange, etc.). You don't need to explicitly represent every state, but it should always be clear from the UI what state the game is in, what happened, and what should happen next.
A visual explanation of game points at the end of a game (e.g., cards accumulated and total points displayed).
An "autoplay" mode, where if a certain key or button is pressed, the human player's move is automatically played by a robot.
The possibility to change the name of each player.
The possibility to change the smartness level of each robot.

In addition, the GUI module should enforce the rules of the game (e.g., it should only reveal the computer player's cards once they would be visible in an actual game). It should also not be possibly to corrupt the GUI or to trigger invalid actions.

Bonus Problems

Implement or expand additional features, such as the additional features proposed for Milestone 2. You can discuss feature ideas with the instructor.

Bonus marks for this part of the project will depend on the overall quality of the project and are at the discretion of the instructor.

In addition, the TAs and instructor will also select a best project, which will be publicly released on the course webpage (with the developers' permission).

Deliverables

A project zip file file containing all your code and class files. Please submit through WebCT. See the schedule for the deadline.
A UML class diagram modeling the design of the GUI. The diagram must be in jpeg format.

Evaluation

This part will be worth 40% of the overall project grade. In marking your project, we will looking for the following points:

Overall quality of the design
Correctness of the code (i.e., freedom from bugs)
Completeness of the functionality
Quality of the class diagram
Interface quality (layout, responsiveness, etc.)
Overall project quality

Submission

Submit one version per team using WebCT before the hard deadline. You are encouraged to submit early and submit often. Late submissions receive an immediate penalty of 8 marks out of 40, with an additional penalty of 2/40 per hour (e.g., a submission 2hrs late receives -10/40=-25%). The submission site closes 12hours after deadline and projects not submitted by then are not graded and receive a mark of 0%. See the main course web page for deadlines and the details of the submission policy.