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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:AMIGA NOTES
Notice:Join us in the *NEW* conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:HYDRA::MOORE
Created:Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:5378
Total number of notes:38326

3300.0. "GO on the Amiga" by JGO::CHAPMAN () Mon Jan 08 1990 10:26

    I've just seen that Fish Disk 289 has a GO playing program, called
    AmiGo. Anybody played this? What sort of game does it play? If it
    can play reasonably, this a quite an achievement. I started writing
    one myself a couple of years ago, but gave up trying to give it
    even basic skills.  I thought it was almost unprogrammable.
    
    
    INfinity Software(?) used to have a GO program I think, but I never
    saw or used it, and I noticed it wasn't in the AmigaWorld Games
    roundup a couple of months ago. Anybody know if they/it still exist?
    I don't even know for sure that it was a full GO implemenation.
    The ONLY other one I EVER heard of was for the I*M and was a couple
    of hundred dollars.
    
    I'll try AmiGo anyway.
    
    Colin
    
T.RTitleUserPersonal
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3300.1The Art of Go11SRUS::MARKWaltzing with BearsMon Jan 08 1990 14:335
	There's a commercial Go game for the amiga called "The Art of Go".  I
think this game is a port from the Mac.  It has a few nice options, like
numbering stones, or letting you review a previous game.  It plays fairly well,
and you can customise the way it plays.  They don't give a rating for it, and
I haven't been able to estimate it yet.
3300.2Who's is it?JGO::CHAPMANTue Jan 09 1990 02:564
    Never heard of that one. Can you tell me who publishes it?
     
    Colin
    
3300.311SRUS::MARKWaltzing with BearsWed Jan 10 1990 13:426
	"The Art of Go" is published by:
 
A-Squared Distributions Inc.
6114 La Salle Ave., Suite 326
Oakland, California 94611
(415) 339-0339
3300.4A reviewJGO::CHAPMANThu Jan 11 1990 03:1633
    I played a game of AmiGo last night. I'd recommend anybody intersested
    in the game try it. The result - playing at its highest level (7
    on a scale of 1 to 7), I beat it by over 100 points. Anybody who
    has never played the game and who is used to chess programs may
    think this sounds like it has pretty pathetic algorithms, but actually
    I was quite impressed. It has an option to view all the look aheads,
    and it is pretty thorough. In an opening corner, it caught me out.
    Predictably, it tends to play 'close' with little strategic play
    except in the opening, tends to play safe rather than attack, often
    disregards sante/gote (sp?), made at least one elementary mistake when 
    it could have finished off my small corner group, strugglng for
    eyes, by playing within, and it gave up a little soon in the ending.
    
    Some features are not implemented, ie.
    	-smaller boards
    	-take back moves
    	-load and save games (would be nice)
    	-no scoring (a pain - the game just says game over, you have
    			to count up yourself to see if you won or lost!
                                    
    The source code is there, so if I feel up to it I may look at adding
    scoring at least.
    
    Anybody feel like a real programming challenge. Improve the play
    algorithms.
    
    Apologies to those out there to whom GO is a complete mystery. If
    you are mystified enough to want to know more, buy a teach yourself
    book (the game only has 3 rules). Also read "The Glass Bead Game" by
    Herman Hesse, and you will be hooked.
    
    Colin