plan.md

Overall plan for chess program:

Stage 1) Chessboard
Stage 2) Movement (per piece, check validity)
Stage 3) Evaluate game state
Stage 4) Turn-based game, with user input
Stage 5) Random AI (0-ply) Stage 6) Greedy AI (1-ply) Stage 7) Minimax AI (n-ply) Stage 8) Alpha-beta pruning (n-ply)

Stage 1)

1. Define a chessboard struct (i.e. 8x8 array)
2. Create a function to clear the board
3. Create a function to initialize the board with the starting position - what values to use for black and white's pieces (they must be distinguishable)? consider lower and uppercase letters, for black and white
4. Create a function to print the board - bonus: change the text color and background color
5. Create a function to copy values from one board to another
6. Test these functions!

Stage 2)

1. Which squares can be reached by a piece?
2. Is the king (of the playing side’s color) under check (before and after move)?
3. Which moves are valid for a player to make for a piece on the board?
4. Bonus: Castling
5. Bonus: En Passant
6. Bonus: Pawn promotion

Stage 3)

1. Determine if a player is under checkmate or stalemate
2. Assign a value to each piece
3. Calculate a value for a position (checkmate is infinite, stalemate is zero)
4. Bonus: 3-move repetition
5. Bonus: 50-move rule

Stage 4)

1. Main game loop with stubs for player turns
2. Asking player for move
3. AI generates random move
4. Prevent players from making invalid moves

Known bugs:

• need to check that human moves are among the list of potential moves