Checkers

This was my first one. Checkers. I thought it would be easy. It was not easy. Turns out writing an AI for checkers is a whole thing. The computer has to look ahead. Think about what you might do. Think about what it should do in response. Then think further. I used something called minimax with alpha-beta pruning. Fancy words. Simple idea: the computer skips moves it already knows are bad, so it can think deeper about the ones that might be good.

The part I'm most nervous about is the adaptive difficulty. I worked really hard on it. Here's how it works: the AI watches your games. Wins, losses, how you play. Then it quietly adjusts. Losing a lot? It eases up. Winning too much? It gets tougher. Five levels, from Beginner to Expert. But the adaptive mode is the default. I think it makes every game feel close. That was the goal. Close games are the best games.

I was picky about the rules. Really picky. This is proper American Checkers. Forced captures. That means if you can jump, you have to. No choice. Multi-jump chains. King promotions that end your turn right away. I played another checkers game online once that let you skip jumps. Ruined it for me. You could say it was a bad move. Anyway. I made sure mine got it right. There's also an undo button. And a hint button that shows what the AI would do. Because sometimes you just need a nudge.

Two-player mode is in there too. My daughter and I play this way. No accounts. No setup. Just two people taking turns on the same screen. She's ten. She set up a triple jump on me last week. I didn't see it coming. At all. I'm very proud. And a little scared.