semáforo
educational game with online multiplayer
source code: https://github.com/joaoesteves10/lab2-Semaforo
Context
Board game (3x4) where two players (human or BOT) place green, yellow and red pieces, inspired by traffic-light colours, trying to be the first to line up three pieces of the same colour; green pieces can be swapped for yellow ones and vice versa. Built in two phases for the Programming Lab course: the first asked for a console version, the second already expected a graphical interface. In the second phase, the work went further than required, adding online multiplayer through a WebSocket (asyncio) server, with matchmaking either by game code or from a list of open games, on top of the Pygame interface with Stardew Valley-inspired art and bilingual (PT/EN) text.
Technical challenges
- online multiplayer, beyond the brief — the second phase only asked for a graphical interface; the WebSocket-based online mode was an extra on top of that
- matchmaking — join a game via a shared code, or pick one from a list of open games managed by the server
- game rules engine — validating piece substitutions (green ↔ yellow) and three-in-a-row detection, against a human or BOT opponent
- state sync and anti-cheat — the server never trusts the move it receives: it recomputes it on its own copy of the gameData using the same logicaSemaforo.py rules, and only accepts it if it matches what the client calculated, rejecting illegal moves
- save and resume — storing the full game state so a match can be resumed later
Screenshots
graphical interface
console version (features not implemented in the GUI)
