Run BlockGame to play.

The game is played on a randomly-generated game board made of squares of four different colors, such as the following:

At the beginning of the game, each player is assigned a randomly-generated goal. There are two types of goal:

• Blob goal. The player must aim to create the largest “blob” of a given color c. A blob is a group of orthogonally connected blocks with the same color. That is, two blocks are considered connected if their sides touch; touching corners does not count. The player’s score is the number of unit cells in the largest blob of color c.

• Perimeter goal. The player must aim to put the most possible units of a given color c on the outer perimeter of the board. The player’s score is the total number of unit cells of color c that are on the perimeter. There is a premium on corner cells: they count twice towards the score.

There are three kinds of moves a player can do:

• rotating a block (clockwise or counterclockwise),

• reflecting the block horizontally or vertically (i.e. along the x-axis or the y-axis if you imagine the origin of the axes being place in the center of the block), and

• “smashing” a block (giving it four brand-new, randomly generated, sub-blocks).

After each move, the player sees their score, determined by how well they have achieved their goal. The game continues for a certain number of turns, and the player with the highest score at the end is the winner.

Different types of goals could be added, or computer players can be implemented so that players can challenge themselves against an AI. The possibilities are endless ;)