<div>I'd like to suggest these assignments from a class I took. They start off easy and then get harder. </div>
<div>Only assignments 1 - 4 use java. Assigment 4 is a version of minesweeper called spam sweeper.</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.cs.hmc.edu/courses/2006/spring/cs60/assignments/hwindex.html">http://www.cs.hmc.edu/courses/2006/spring/cs60/assignments/hwindex.html</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Joel<br><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 11/20/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Emerson, Tom</b> <<a href="mailto:Tom.Emerson@wbconsultant.com">Tom.Emerson@wbconsultant.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Does anyone have a specific goal in mind? Any particular problem you<br>need solved where "Java" fits the bill as the language in which it
<br>should be implemented?<br><br>If not, I'd like to suggest a (relatively) simple game (compared to<br>top-of-the-line/state-of-the-art blockbusters out there ;) )<br><br>The game I have in mind, or rather, the class of games, would be
<br>"Hamurabi". For those not familiar with 101 basic games, the premise is<br>simple: you're the ruler of the kingdom of Hamurabi; each year your<br>administrative staff comes to you for advice -- how many acres of land
<br>to plant, how much to tax to levy, how much to spend on healthcare, and<br>so on. After retrieving your inputs, the game calculates "a cycle" (one<br>year) and tells you how many people were born, died (of starvation
<br>and/or disease), immigrated/emigrated; how much (surplus) gain was<br>stored vs. how much spoiled (or eaten by rats), or if demand exceeded<br>supply. Your "score" is the population and/or treasury balance.
<br><br>You'll notice I said "class of games" -- there are other very similar<br>games out there: lemonade stand, coffee tycoon, (in fact, all the<br>"tycoon" games to some extent) that all work off the same premise: you
<br>make decisions about raw materials (lemons, coffee, acres to plant), how<br>much to charge (selling price, tax), and the game goes through some<br>"magic calculation" to determine profit/loss (population,<br>
taxes/treasury). For the Hamurabi game in particular, knowing the<br>internal values (i.e. x bushels of grain supports y people, spoils at a<br>rate of z%, etc.) allows you to back-calculate the optimum number to<br>plant to feed your people, tax accordingly, and grow your
<br>income/treasury. Of course, knowing these values in such great detail<br>makes the game less enjoyable (there's no suspense to the outcome) so<br>later versions and variations add more variables and/or randomness to<br>
the factors (or in the sim-whatever and whatever-tycoon games, forces<br>you to make decisions "in real time") so that "as a human", you couldn't<br>possibly calculate the "optimum" values for every setting or scenario.
<br><br>What makes this worthwhile as a study goal is that it doesn't have to<br>have "fancy graphics", "3-d interface", and so on -- just a way to get<br>inputs and a way to display the results (it is a console/terminal based
<br>program to begin with...) And although the original was in "BASIC",<br>being that it is a "simulation", it lends itself well to being done<br>"with objects" (raw material object, storage object, etc.) without
<br>concern for what those objects are (lemons vs. coffee beans)<br><br>Hmmm... I've gone on a little longer than I intended -- what I really<br>wanted to know was: is there interest among the group as a whole to<br>consider this, or should I make this my own personal goal? (
i.e., a<br>"Hamurabi engine" in Java)<br>_______________________________________________<br>Java-sig mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Java-sig@sgvlug.net">Java-sig@sgvlug.net</a><br><a href="http://sgvlug.net/mailman/listinfo/java-sig">
http://sgvlug.net/mailman/listinfo/java-sig</a><br></blockquote></div><br>