• just found this brilliant blog post
  • http://blog.gamesolver.org/
  • looks quite thorough so I'll take a look at what I can implement here
• i'll also need to move my todos from main.kt to here

• get all Java files converted to Kotlin

• then, implement simple functionality against a human player (ConnectFourGameMode.TWO_PLAYER)

• and after that, against a random robot

• we're not done yet - implement Minimax!

• clean up printing of board

• add unit testing for minimax

• and after all that, make a test helper: board.readFromAscii(...)

• fix player 1 & 2 win condition bug

• and finally, alpha beta pruning

• improve scoring function for minimax

• fix numbering for the integer drop column lol

• Column Ordering (put good moves first in the alpha/beta search!)

• profile the program - I probably need to cache the bitboard

  • fix bit manipulation code
  • nope, we don't have a bit board

• Store board state as Long and not grid array

  • fix canDropInColumn to use a bitboard

• include & enforce a style guide

• read the blog above & start implementing

  • one anti-pattern i introduced is having multiple score mechanisms for grading...

misc

• TODO change drop piece to not accept "colors" remove the concept of colors and just drop Player Pieces "colors" can be determined at render time with a mapping PlayerToColor