Build An Adversary In A Few Easy Lessons

This tutorial will teach you to build a computer game AI using "adversary search". I will show you how to build a computer opponent for a simple "mini" chess game in a series of small steps. In doing this, we will see how these players can be built for other chess-like games. Along the way, you will learn some computer science, some software engineering, and some coding skills. Instead of an exam, your mark will be based on the program you build. There will be a tournament, for fun and for a tiny prize, at the end of the course.

Lessons

1. Rules of Mini-Chess
2. Build a Mini-Chess Board
3. Build a Mini-Chess Move Generator
4. Build a Mini-Chess Mover
5. HW 1: Build a Mini-Chess Random Player
6. Build a Mini-Chess State Evaluator
7. Build a Depth-Limited Negamax Search
8. Do Iterative Deepening Timed Search
9. HW 2: Build a Mini-Chess Player
10. Add Alpha-Beta Pruning to the Search
11. Order the Moves for Alpha-Beta
12. Do Do-Undo
13. Some Improvements
14. Validate Your Program