My Software Projects
Arimaa
Authors: Andrea Kilpatrick and Joyce Murton
Version: 0.1.1
Released: January 7th, 2010
Status: In Development
Downloads: Source – Jar File (Universal for Windows, Mac, and Linux) – Native Mac OS X App
Launch the game!Description: Play Arimaa against a friend locally on your computer.
History: When Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov in their epic “man vs. machine” battle, some people criticized Chess as a relatively poor battleground on which to judge the intelligence of the two opponents. Some have pointed to Go as a better example of the superiority of human ingenuity over the computer, but Omar Syed decided that Go shouldn’t stand alone and invented Arimaa to demonstrate the superiority of the human intellect over machine intelligence.
My friend Dan recently introduced me to the game, but he lives all the way back in Cleveland, with me here in Sunnyvale, California. So I decided, for fun, to begin writing a Play-by-Email client so that he and I could play the game with each other, despite being 2000 miles apart.
The current version of the game permits two players to go head to head at a single machine. However, there is no saving or loading at this time, as the intention is for this to be an alpha test of the UI and game logic, not a final product.
Multiplayer Online Set
Authors: Andrea Kilpatrick and Joyce Murton
Version: 0.1
Released: December 2008
Status: Development paused
Downloads: Source – Jar File (Universal for Windows and Mac) – Mac OS X
Description: Challenge yourself by playing the game of Set on your computer, using card graphics based on the original cards.
History: The main focus of this project is to develop a multiplayer version of set that replicates that experience of playing set with cards in your living room. The current released version, version 0.1, is fairly rudimentary in terms of UI and design, but it does let you play basic Set on your computer, by yourself. Version 0.2, which is almost complete at this point, adds networked multiplayer to the program.
Just so we’re clear, Set is a registered trademark of Set Enterprises, Inc. and is in no way affiliated with this personal project. They made this awesome game. I’m just trying to do them homage by implementing a computer version of it.
LJArchive reposter tool
Author: Joyce Murton
Version: 0.00000001A
Released: 6/30/2008
Status: No development
Downloads: Source
Description: Unpolished python script for reposting ljArchive XML files to any LJ account.
History: I love Livejournal. I’ve had an account with them since December of 2004. I love writing about all of my various life experiences, philosophical notions, and other interesting ideas that I come up with. In October of 2005, I decided to destroy my original livejournal and start a second one. But before I did that, I used the LJArchive tool to archive my entire livejournal.
Well, a few years passed, and I wanted to repost all of my old entries to my current LJ. But I wanted to be able to review each post before sending them along, to make modifications as necessary. I wrote this python script to solve this problem. To use it, you must export your LJ Archive to XML using the LJArchive export capabilities. Add your username/password to this script, then run it on your archive. It will import your entries and present each one to you prior to posting it to your current LJ. You will be able to edit user pics, modify subject and body, add keywords, and then repost the entry to your LJ with the original date and time for the posting. The UI is written using Tkinter to make it cross-platform compatible.
This script is being released under the MIT/X11 license. It’s not a finished product by any stretch of the imagination, as it was something I whipped up really quick to solve one problem, and then I never needed it again. You’re probably going to have to make significant edits to it to make it usable for yourself, but if you find it useful, please enjoy it! Do let me know if you find it interesting for yourself.
MancalaPro 2003: Tournament Edition
Authors: Joyce Murton and several others
Version: 1.0
Released: 2003
Status: No Development
Downloads: Source – Jar File (Universal for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux)
Description: Play mancala against a friend or against the computer. Store your scores to see how well you do against your friends.
History: A class project for our Design Patterns class back in college. I and a team of a few other individuals worked on implementing Mancala using a number of various design patterns to demonstrate that we understood the pattern and how to use it. I acted as a primary software architect, bringing most of the software together and focusing on how the various components interacted with one another.
The program itself has severe usability flaws, but it is definitely playable, if a little difficult to understand at times.
And yes, the title is whimsical.
MCheck
Author: Joyce Murton
Version: 1.0
Released: 2001
Status: No Development
Downloads: Windows
Description: A checkers interface that lets you change piece designs, save/load games, and send games over email to other players.
History: This was something I did for a Visual Basic class project a looooong time ago back in 2001. I actually really liked using the VB stuff to lay out the interface for this project, as I really enjoyed how easy it was to quickly knock a nice looking UI together. I really liked the way I put this one together, even if it was in VB. There’s a lot of extraneous fluff in there due to having requirements for the class, but it works and is playable, even if it isn’t very user friendly to do anything other than play a friend on your computer.
