Requirement Document

Galaxy Sleuth

Course: CS 425

Date: September 25, 2001

Team: Andromeda

Team Lead: Dorothy Cheung

Contact: pik@unr.nevada.edu

Team Members:

Jason Dodd

William Nelson

Andrew Rodgers

Will Woolsey

Beifang Yi

List of sections

• Requirements questions
• Supported activities
• HCI
• Solved problems list
• Information sources list
• Checks and Balances
• Security and fault-tolerance requirements
• Information Capacity and Growth
• Project time frame
• Prioritization of requirements
• Ethical concerns

Requirements questions

1. Is the player only allowed to use the planet that he/she is on to form the hypothesis? What if the player lands on one of the four planets having a wormhole connection wishes to land directly to another planet, which planet should the hypothesis based on?
2. Can the player make a hypothesis as he/she enters the planet? Or does he/she wait for the next turn?
3. Can more than one suspect be on the same planet at the same time?
4. Does a planet represent a “square”?  Can the player move in and out of a planet during the same turn?
5. What would happen to the evidences if a player bails out during the game? Shouldn’t there be a time limit for each turn?
6. Is there a limit on the number of times a player can visit the same planet?
7. The player has landed on the planet without a wormhole in a previous turn.  Now he/she would like to move out of the planet, but the other player is blocking the entry point. What happens? Does the player continue to make another hypothesis or does the player loses a turn?

Supported activities

Supports a client/server structure, in which the client supports a player’s perspective of the game and the server coordinates and manages the game.

The server:

• Supports the game.

o Communicates with clients.

• Selects a random murder scenario consisting of a perpetrator, a murder weapon, and a planet where the murder takes place. Selection is made when the first player initiates a game.
• Distributes remaining evidence about the murder to each player. The evidence consists of a perpetrator excluding the actual perpetrator, a murder weapon excluding the actual murder weapon, and a planet excluding the actual planet in which the murder takes place.

o Murderers and their colored token:

§ Tina Time-traveler (red token), Same space-voyager (blue token), Moan moon walker (yellow token), George galaxy-wanderer (green token), Uhura universalist (purple token), Steve star - gazer (white token)

o Weapons:

§ Phaser, Hyper rope, Laser sword, Biological agent, Flame thrower, Radio-active

o Planets:

• Cathitar, Earth, Evilon, Linuda, Neudel, Pheadrun,

Ping, Psu, Verlute

• The order of distribution is the order of player sign-on.

• Monitors the game.

o Unoccupied or occupied planets, and who occupies it.

o Selected tokens in the game.

• Communicates a murder hypothesis posted from a player to the other players in the order of the starting sequence.
• A hypothesis consists of a murderer, a planet, and a weapon.
• Informs all players that the hypothesis is or is not refuted, but does not reveal any information on which piece of the hypothesis is refuted except to the player who posted the hypothesis.
• Communicates a murder hypothesis announced to all players.

• Informs all players about the correctness of the hypothesis made.

• Begins a game when there are between three to six players as specified by the first player who initiates the game.
• Places each token at one of the corner entrances on the game board.
• Keeps a record for every player.

o Location

o Status: a winner, a loser or neither

• Ends a game if a correct murder hypothesis is announced or the number of players is reduced to two or less.
• Prevents more players from joining the game if there are six players already.
• Keeps track of a player’s turn according to the rules of the game.

(The rules are further defined in the Checks and Balances section in this document.)

• Each turn consists of a spin on the spinner followed by the movement of the player’s token.
• Once a player enters a planet his/her movement on the board is completed for that turn. Passage through a wormhole is considered to be one turn.
• Allows the player to make a hypothesis when he/she enters the atmosphere during the same turn.

• Allows the first player to initiate a game to decide on the game parameters.

• Time limit or Wait for a specified number of players between three and six inclusive.

• Reveals the evidence processed by the player who loses the game to all remaining players.
• Monitors the time limit on each turn.
• Each player will have a small amount of time to move and then a longer time for a hypothesis. Otherwise they forfeit that turn.
• Controls the evidence of the player who bails out during the game.
• Deals with communication problems
• Delays a hypothesis or a disproof submission.
• Communicates with client through a special command/message.

The client:

• Associates with a home page.
• Supports the game.
• Interfaces: a board game, a window that keeps track of evidence gathered, and

other screens.

o Communicates with the server.

• Depending on the response from the server, it allows a player to start a game if none has initiated; otherwise, it allows a player to join the game if there are less than six players.

• Displays a special window that helps each player to keep track of the evidence shown and the hypothesis outcomes.
• Updates the situation of the game.

• Who is taking the turn, where is the player moving to

• Includes a help option that informs the player about the game if he/she prefers.
• Allows a player to post a hypothesis on who the murderer is, where does the murder takes place, and what weapon is used.
• Allows a player to post a hypothesis and/or to announce a hypothesis during a turn.

• Allows the player who loses the game to continue to refute the hypothesis posted by other players, but does not allow him/her to continue to make any moves on the board or to pose/announce any hypothesis.
• Sends a request to the server to begin or end a game.
• Deals with communication problems
• Informs the players.
• Communicates with server through a special command/message.

HCI

An Illustration of the game board

Solved problems list

Needed a hobby.

Information sources list

The only information is game play related, which resides on the server. There should not be any performance bottleneck, because only one user takes a turn or refutes evidence at a time.

Checks and Balances

Prohibits an erroneous respond to a murder hypothesis. In other words, it should prevent a player from refuting a hypothesis if he/she does not have any evidence for. It also should prevent a player from refusing to refute a hypothesis that he/she can refute. However, if the player has more than one piece of evidence that can be used to refute the hypothesis, he/she can reveal one of them to the inquiring player.

Performs integrity tests according to the rules of the game specified in the project overview.

• A player must enter the planet’s atmosphere at one of the predefined entry points, and depending on the planet, it might have between one and three entry points.
• A player does not have to enter a planet in an exact number of moves.
• A player cannot revisit the same planet within a single turn.
• A player is allowed to announce a hypothesis on any planet that he/she is on.
• A player is not allowed to post a hypothesis on a different planet than the one he/she is currently on.
• If the player lands on an entry point, he/she needs to take another turn to get into the planet.
• It takes a turn for a player to move from one planet into another planet through a wormhole.
• A player is allowed to pose a hypothesis as soon as he/she enters a planet’s atmosphere.
• A player cannot move into a cell occupied by the token of another player. However, he/she is allowed to enter an occupied planet.
• A player must not move to the same cell twice during a turn.
• A player loses his/her turn if the entry points of the planet that he/she is on are blocked.
• There is no restriction on the number of times a player can visit the same planet.

Security and fault-tolerance requirements

1. There is no logon so there needs not to be encryption or things of that nature. You cannot enter a game after it has begun as it is locked.

2. Simple error checking to ensure all rules are abided by is implemented. Therefore, no one can move out of turn nor make illegal moves or hypotheses.

3. If the game goes down, no entertainment until it is up again.

Information Capacity and Growth

It would be nice to have the ability to play more than one game at a time. That way, users do not have to wait for a game to end before they can join. However, we are not going to support this feature. So there will only be three to six users on at a time.

Project time frame

This project is to be completed by the end of the Fall 2001 school semester.

Prioritization of requirements

Must have:

Start / join a game

Spinner selects a number between one thru six, may not be animated.

Player’s piece moves on the board

Player’s piece enters a planet

Game play changes to next player.

Player can use a wormhole at the beginning of the turn

Posing a hypothesis

Announcing a hypothesis

Refuting evidence

Let the player know if the posed hypothesis was refuted and by what

Let the other players know that the hypothesis was refuted

Let every player know if the hypothesis was not refuted

Winning the game due to a correct announcement.

Sitting out of a game due to an incorrect announcement.

Evidence list interface so user can check off evidence.

Simple refute system, so game can refute evidence if a player leaves.

Nice to have:

AI

Animated spinner.

Animation on a player landing on a planet.

Game sounds, such as effects and taunts between the players.

Ability to have more than one game in existence at one time.

A chat window for the players to communicate (however this could promote cheating).

Ethical concerns:

1. The game would basically remember nothing from game to game about the players who played. There is no database of players or compilation of attributes that could be accessible. There is no logon it is simply a quick connect to the game where they choose a handle for themselves and no other info is required. When six players join, or time runs out, the game begins.

2. There would be no method to cheat in the game, such as viewing others cards.

3. This game in no way endorses nor "makes light" the actions of criminals, particularly those convicted of murder.