Sparhawk's OTHELLO (PreRelease 4L) has been launched (9/18/2003).

PLAY NOW

This page last modified February 29, 2004 at 3:21 PM PST.


KNOWN BUGS/ERRORS
None to currently report.

RECENT UPDATES
Update in PreRelease 4L (9/18/03): Interface Update: Changed some of the links to buttons and introducing a dummy "Intelligent" level to clean up the interface and prepare for the introduction of the "Intelligent" level. Just to be clear, however, the "Intelligent" level may still be several months from completion.

Update in PreRelease 4K (9/14/03): The "mouse follower" introduced in PreRelease 4J has been eliminated, and chalked up as a failed experiment.
Now, instead of the mouse follower, an arrow between the scores in the bottom portion of the screen switches direction and color to show the current player.
Also, the font size of the score tally on the bottom of the screen has been adjusted to be easier to read.

Update in PreRelease 4J (9/11/03): The completion of the last 2 days rewrite attempts, this version has the following improvements:
  • Netscape (6.x+, 7.x+) and Mozilla FireBird (0.61+) are now fully supported.
  • Using more standards-based JavaScript code, there is only one section remaining that has separate browser-independent code.
  • In the only browser-independent code remaining (and a new feature in the game), the mouse cursor now is followed by a smaller version of the active player's piece.
     This feature currently works only in Internet Explorer. In Netscape/Mozilla, the active player color is located in the top-left corner of the game.
  • The game now has a better response time, and you can only click on the available slots.
  • The board squares are now made using colored DIVs instead of color GIFs, allowing faster load times on slow connections.
  • The question marks are now preloaded into hidden DIVs when the game is loaded, so they can be changed into visible DIVs when necessary, thereby reducing lag time between turns (the graphic doesn't have to be loaded from the server every time).

    Update in PreRelease 4I (9/11/03): After almost a year off, this version is a partial, non-functional re-write of the code in an attempt to speed up the system.

    Update in PreRelease 4H (9/10/03): After almost a year off, this version is a partial, non-functional re-write of the code in an attempt to speed up the system.

    Update in PreRelease 4G (9/12/02): Thanks to a quick peek at the code, Charles Paulson, a classmate of mine at Boise State University, discovered why the computer player was taking its sweet time playing its turn on even the easy level, and why there were occasional delays in drawing the gameboard.
    I have now implemented his suggestion, and the computer player is much, much faster now. Thanks, Charles!

    Update in PreRelease 4F (6/19/2002): The 'GOTCHA' problem should be fixed now. Previously, if the AI made a move that prevented the human player from making a move, it showed a message like "GOTCHA! You can't move, so I get to go again!", but then never went again, freezing gameplay. This issue should now be corrected.

    Update in PreRelease 4E: A few gameplay issues have been resolved:
       * The game doesn't freeze as often if the human player can't make a move,
       * The computer no longer refers to itself in the 3rd person (it now says 'I' instead of 'Mr. Computer'),
       * If the computer player can't move, the 3-second delay has been eliminated,
       * EndGame is now recognized in all proper situations.

    Update in PreRelease 4D: A few people informed me that there are legal moves which the computer doesn't recognize as legal moves, and does not make the moves available to the player (human or computer). This issue has been resolved.

    Update in PreRelease 4C: Now the computer player moves a bit slower and uses a different graphic to show you where he went. Before this, it was difficult to see where the computer player went.
    Now the gameplay system (not the artificial intelligence) is a bit smarter, remembering to catch the end of the game in (most of) the correct spots.
    Thanks to Tracy from GhostsOfIdaho.org for reminding me of this problem. Check out his link from the main page.
    The 'Intelligent' level will be coming soon (i.e. sometime before the year 2003).