Awale Game, Chat, and Multiplayer Server

An C project that implements:

• A local Awale console game
• A simple TCP chat server and client
• A multiplayer Awale game server with a command-driven client

The code is portable (POSIX + minimal WinSock guards) and built via a single Makefile.

Overview

• src/game/ — Awale game logic and a local CLI (bin/awale).
• src/chat/ — Broadcast chat server (bin/chat/server) and client (bin/chat/client).
• src/game_server/ — Awale multiplayer game server (bin/game_server/server) and client (bin/game_server/client).

Default TCP port is 1977 for both Chat and Game Server. Logs from the game server are appended to server.log.

Prerequisites

• A C toolchain (clang/gcc) and make
• macOS or Linux (Windows requires WinSock and should compile with MSVC/MinGW with minor tweaks)

Build

• Build all binaries:
  • make
• Clean artifacts:
  • make clean

Run — Local Awale Game (single player)

• Start the local CLI game:
  • ./bin/awale
• Enter a hole index each turn and follow the prompts.
• Indices are 0-11:
  • Player 1 holes: 0-5 (bottom row)
  • Player 2 holes: 6-11 (top row)
  • The game ends when no valid moves remain; it prints the winner or a draw.

Run — Chat Server and Client

1. Start the chat server (listens on 1977):
   • ./bin/chat/server
2. Connect with one or more clients:
   • ./bin/chat/client 127.0.0.1 Alice
   • ./bin/chat/client 127.0.0.1 Bob
3. Type lines in the client; messages are broadcast to all other clients.
4. Press Ctrl+D (EOF) or stop the server to disconnect.

Run — Multiplayer Awale Server

1. Start the game server (listens on 1977):
   • ./bin/game_server/server
2. Connect clients with a nickname (sent on connect, but you still need to LOGIN):
   • ./bin/game_server/client 127.0.0.1 Alice
   • ./bin/game_server/client 127.0.0.1 Bob
3. In each client, use these commands (case-sensitive):
   • LOGIN <username> — Log in with a unique name
   • LIST — Show online users
   • CHALLENGE <username> — Challenge a user to a game
   • ACCEPT — Accept your pending challenge
   • MOVE <index> — Make a move (0-11)
   • LISTGAMES — Show active games and their IDs
   • OBSERVE <game_id> — Observe a game by ID
   • UNOBSERVE — Stop observing
   • MSG <text> — Send a global chat message
   • MSGTO <username> <text> — Send a private chat message to a user
   • HELP — Show available commands

Gameplay Notes

• First player is chosen randomly when a game starts.
• Board prints as ASCII for clarity; scores and turns are announced.
• When the game ends, the server declares the winner to both players and observers.

Logging

• The game server appends events to server.log with timestamps (login, challenges, moves, game over, observer join/leave).

Notes for Windows

• The code includes WinSock initialization/cleanup stubs.
• You may need to compile with MSVC or MinGW and adjust include/linker flags for WinSock (ws2_32).

AI Usage

• ChatGPT has helped me to understand the socket programming concepts and system call usage in the code.
• I have discussed with ChatGPT about the structure and logic of the game server, and I have got feedback about the steps to implement the multiplayer awale game.
• I have used ChatGPT and TRAE to help me debug the code and fix errors.
• I have used TRAE's auto code completion to edit C code (headers, function declarations).
• I have used Chinese to write the annotations in the code, and used TRAE to translated them into English across modules.
• I have used TRAE to drafted and refined README.md.

License

This repository is for educational use. No license is provided.