Project Reflection

For this project, which was to design and develop a playable board game of our choice, I decided to make a replica of the popular game Connect 4.  I used the framework from a previous project of tic-tac-toe to design the turn based system in the code.  Each turn consisted of a click where the user would place a token that was either red or yellow. The board consisted of a 7×6 grid of circles which was designed to mimic the actual game.

I broke this project up into a few different pieces, there was the database setup, the login and registration portion (which included a dashboard), and then the actual game. The actual game is the most important part, and unfortunately this caused me to redirect my time towards making the game instead of the login and register.  The most important part is the part that handles when a space on the board is clicked, which is basically what I built the rest of the game code around.  I have several features that I added that were not required, such as a system that had the game to follow the “physics” of the real life Connect4. This “physics” system made it so that you could only place a piece on the bottom row, once you did that, the column where you placed that piece would become free.

Overall this project was definitely a good learning experience, for how to manage my time and how to set reasonable goals. Because at the beginning of the project I had major goals for what I could do. However I was quickly humbled by the time constraints which did lead to not all of the project being completed but I got the main game finished and I am proud of how it turned out.  Although there are some bits I would change or features I would add if I could, like a scoreboard.  I found this project to be an excellent review of everything we’ve been learning in class.

Connect4 DDM