Watson Games is a company that produces a range of traditional board games. You have been appointed as a software contractor to develop a computer game version of their most popular title Clue! a murder mystery game like the classic Cluedo. Watson Games have never commissioned such a system before and so do not have a formal requirements document to specify how the software should operate. They do, however, have over 50 years of experience developing and marketing board games and have put together a set of user requirements to describe, in their own terms, what they want the system to do. This document contains all their user requirements. It is possible these requirements might evolve as the project progresses, but the core themes of the requirements will not change. You should, however, design with flexibility in mind.
Watson Games is a company that produces a range of traditional board games. You have been appointed as a software contractor to develop a computer game version of their most popular title Clue! a murder mystery game like the classic Cluedo. Watson Games have never commissioned such a system before and so do not have a formal requirements document to specify how the software should operate. They do, however, have over 50 years of experience developing and marketing board games and have put together a set of user requirements to describe, in their own terms, what they want the system to do. This document contains all their user requirements. It is possible these requirements might evolve as the project progresses, but the core themes of the requirements will not change. You should, however, design with flexibility in mind. you will need to: • Develop an application following a form of the Agile development process. This will involve several phases of design, development, and testing. This may involve, as you see fit, determining sets of functional requirements, non-functional requirements, and domain requirements to determine more precisely what the software system should do. • Develop an appropriate software design, expressed using an appropriate combination of high- and low-level design techniques including, although not limited to, class diagrams, entity relationship diagrams, use case diagrams, sequence diagrams, state transition diagrams, activity diagrams, other UML or UML style/derived diagrams. • Write the software, using Java. The software will include a Graphical User Interface (GUI) component to help you monitor progress of the software simulation. The client: Watson Games Formed in 1963, Watson Games Ltd are the UK’s leading producer of quality board games. In 1986, they expanded upon the acquisition of Wadley’s after they ran into financial difficulties arising from the widely reported corporate espionage scandal “Mousetrap gate”. Watson Games design, produce and market high end board games designed to appeal to a wide range of ages. The shareholders for Watson Games feel that the company needs to expand its operations to embrace the digital era and so have decided to develop a computer version of their classic Clue! game. Clue! was originally designed for up to 6 players and has a reputation as a social experience. However, Watson also realize that it is often not possible in an ever-complex world to find 6 players to play the classic game. The head of game development, Quentin Raffles, has hit upon the idea that the computer version (the “simulation”) could include an option for the computer program to take the role of one or more of the players, offering an opportunity for a richer gaming experience for a smaller number of players. Quentin Raffles has provided the rules as they currently exist for classic Clue! 1) The game is for 2-6 players. The game is played by moving around a playing board that represents the ground floor of Archers Avenue. The object of the game is to solve, by means of elimination and deduction, the problem of the murder of Dr Phlox, the owner of the house, whose body has been found at the bottom of the stairs. The winner is the first person to identify in one accusation the murderer, the weapon used and the room in which the crime was committed. That information is stored on cards placed in the “murder envelope” and remains a mystery until a player makes the correct accusation. 2) The 6 persons in the house are represented by playing pieces: Col Mustard, Prof Plum, Rev Green, Mrs. Peacock, Miss Scarlett, and Mrs. White. The weapons are represented by small tokens. Any one of the weapons might have been the one used. The weapons are as follows: dagger, candlestick, revolver, rope, lead piping and spanner. 3) There are 6 cards representing the persons in the house. There are 6 cards representing the weapons. There are 9 cards representing the rooms shown on the playing board. In the physical version there are “detective notes cards” to enable players to record their investigations. 4) The game is setup as follows: The playing pieces are placed on the starting squares marked for them on the board. If less than 6 people play (including autonomous players), those playing pieces and their cards not represented should not be removed from the game. Spare pieces are placed in any room or rooms before the game starts whilst the cards remain in the pack and are subsequently dealt to players. Each of the weapons in placed in a different room. The envelope marked “murder cards” is placed on the spot marked X on the board, The room cards are shuffled. The top card is placed unseen into the murder envelope. The weapon cards are shuffled. The top card is placed unseen into the murder envelope. The person cards are shuffled. The top card is placed unseen into the murder envelope. All remaining cards are placed face downwards on the table. Each player shakes the dice, and the highest number is determined to be the dealer. The dealer shuffles the 18 remaining cards. The cards are dealt to players one at time clockwise around the table, including the dealer. Some players may receive more cards than others. This is not an issue. 5) Each player adopts the playing piece nearest to them and is that character for the rest of the game. 6) By tradition, Miss Scarlett goes first. The player shakes the dice and moves that number of squares along the passage to any room they like. Players take turns in a clockwise direction. 7) When a player reaches a room, they can call out a “suggestion” by calling into that room any other person and any weapon. For instance, if Miss Scarlett was in the lounge, she may call Rev Green and the spanner into that room. She would then suggest that the murder was committed “in the lounge by Rev Green using the spanner”. Spare playing pieces fall under equal suspicion and can called into rooms by players making suggestion. 8) When the suggestion is made, starting from the current player’s left, if they have one of the cards mentioned in the suggestion, then they must show one only of those cards to the current player (unseen by other players). If the player on the left is unable to show a card, then we move to the next player to the left until a player is able to show a card to the current player. Once that happens, or all players have been tried leading back to the current player, then the turn of the current player is ended. 9) Eventually, and by using the detective cards, players should be able to eliminate all but the true murderer, room and a weapon. 10) When a player thinks they know the 3 murder cards, then they can make an “accusation” directly after making their suggestion. When an accusation in made, the player examines, unseen by other players, the cards in the murder envelope. If the accusation is proven correct, the player wins the game. 11) A player can only make one accusation. If the accusation is incorrect, the murder cards are returned to the murder envelope. The player has no further turns in the game but remains as a player only to contradict suggestions made other players, with the cards they hold in their hand. 12) Skilled player may make bluff suggestion by including a person, weapon of room for which they hold the card. This can be used to determine the whereabouts of one card and to mislead other players. 13) Players may move their pieces anywhere on the board on the squares according to the number thrown on the dice. Players must move in straight lines only i.e., forwards and cross wise, but never diagonally. 14) Players may enter rooms by their doors only but cannot enter and leave a room in the same move Entering a room ends the move count. If a player throws a 6 and only needs 4 to enter a room, they may enter the room and ignore the 2 moves left over. 15) No two pieces may occupy the same square. A room however may be occupied by any number of pieces and weapons. A player may choose to remain stationary during any number of turns in play. 16) Secret passages enable players to move from certain rooms to those indicated on the board. This can be done on a player’s turn without throwing the dice and constitutes the move. 17) A player may make a suggestion only when their playing piece is in the room mentioned in the suggestion. 18) Playing pieces and weapons transferred to any room as a result of a suggestion are not returned to their original positions afterwards. Players must continue playing their pieces from their new locations. The game board : The classic game board is as shown below. It can easily be found online also. Although this is the classic, Watson Games think that the electronic version offers the possibility of board customization by the user. Other user requirements As Watson Games have no experience with software development, all they can do is to provide some general statements in respect of what they hope to achieve: The electronic version should be for desktop machines, and ideally should be playable on both Mac and PCs. If this is difficult, then PC development should be preferred. There are no plans for a mobile version at this stage. The game should be fun to play and have a colorful and intuitive interface that reflects the spirit and character of the original board game. With the provision of the autonomous player agent feature, it should be possible for a full experience game to be enjoyed by just a single human player. Core elements of the software system You will need to design and implement a number of key elements to make this simulation work. As well as all the necessary classes, code, interface GUI and other infrastructure elements, you will need to create: