Programming Assignment: Hangman Game
The aim of this project is to have you write a game-server and a player-client for a simple hangman game. You have to develop a game-server and a client (player) that establishes a connection with the game-server and plays a game of hangman. The client will be much more simple than the server. You are allowed to work with ONE partner on this assignment. You should write your code in C, and ensure it compiles with the Makefile you turn in, and passes all tests on Gradescope. If it works on your personal machine and not on Gradescope, you will not receive credit for the program. Make sure you read and follow closely the turn-in instructions at the end. If you have a partner, you must turn in a README file that indicates the name of both partners.
Server – Hangman Game Server
● The server should be able to manage 3 clients (players) at any given time.
● Each client will be playing their own separate game.
● The server should handle all administrative duties of each client’s game such as choosing
the word and keeping track of the score.
● The server will tell the client if the guess is correct or not and keep track of the number of
guesses the client has made.
● Loop listening for connections
o Whentheserverstarts,aconnectionhandlerstartslisteningforincominggame request connections from the client.
o Serverkeepslisteningduringandafterplay.
● On successful connection with a client the game-server should choose a game word and
wait for the packet sent from the client signaling the game should start.
● It should then respond using a game control packet (seen below), the client will add the
formatting and display the following to the player: o Forthegameword“hangman”
>>>_ _ _ _ _ _ _
>>>Incorrect Guesses:
● After a client guesses a letter the server replies back with the updated word, filling in
correct letters and supplying incorrect guesses.
o Ex.Clienthasguessed“n”.Serverrespondswith:
>>> _ _ n _ _ _ n
>>>Incorrect Guesses:
o Clientthenguesses“p”.Serverrespondswith:
>>> _ _ n _ _ _ n
>>>Incorrect Guesses: P
● When the game is over tell the client if they won or lost then terminate connection to that
o Gameendswhentheclientguesses6incorrectlettersorifallcorrectlettersfor
the word have been guessed.
● The server should read an input file called hangman_words.txt. This file should have
between zero and 15 words, one word per line. The server should choose a word from this file at random for each game.
o Thewordsmustrangeinsizefromaminimumlengthof3letterstoamaxlength of 8.
o Youmustchoosewordsofatleastthreedifferentlengths.
▪ Ex. 5 x 4-letter words, 5 x 5-letter words, 5 x 8-letter words
o Eachwordmusthaveanequalchanceofbeingchosenbyyourserverforanew game. Your server does not need to remember which words it has chosen previously.
● If a fourth client (player) tries to connect to the game-server, the server should send a “server-overloaded ” message then gracefully end the connection.
● After ending a game with a client the server should be able to accept a new connection from a clients until limit (3) is reached again and so on.
Client – Player
● Use server IP and Port to connect to a game server
● Once connected ask user if they are ready to start the game as follows:
>>> Ready to start game? (y/n):
● If the user says no terminate client otherwise send an empty message to the server
with msg length = 0. (more on this below) signaling game start.
● The server will then respond with its first game control packet which the client should
properly print out.
● The client will then ask the player for a guess exactly as follows:
>>>Letter to guess:
● Client then sends a guess to the server. Make sure that the user guess is formatted
correctly.
o Iftheuserguessessomethinginvalidlikeanumberormorethanoneletterplease
respond with an error then ask for input again as follows: >>>Letter to guess: 5
>>>Error! Please guess one letter.
>>>Letter to guess: aa
>>>Error! Please guess one letter.
>>>Letter to guess:
● Player keeps guessing letters while the server responds with updated game information.
● Continue until the game word is either correctly guessed or the guess limit is exceeded.
● Client should terminate when the game is over.
● Client should be able to accept lower or uppercase letters as a guess but must make sure
to convert to lowercase before sending to the server.
Server Message header
When sending messages to a client the server must use the following format. Msg flag Word length Num Incorrect Data
Msg flag (1 byte) is used when the server would like to send a string message to a client. If the server is sending a message to the client the Msg flag will be set to the length of the message otherwise Msg flag will be zero. If the message flag is set then there are no Word length or Num Incorrect fields the entire packet minus the message flag is message data. When a client receives a message from the server it should directly print it out. The client should print messages out in the order they are received.
-An example of a message could be “Game Over!”, “You Win!”, “You Lose :(“ If the message flag is zero then we have a normal game control packet.
Programming Help
Word length (1 byte) is the length of the word the user is trying to guess. The first n bytes in the data segment of the packet where n is the value of Word Length will be used to store the positions of the letters that have been guessed correctly so far.
Num Incorrect (1 byte) is the number of incorrect guesses a client has made. The incorrect guessed letters will be after the game word in the data segment.
Two example data packets can be seen below. In the example each box is one byte. This packet would be a game control packet with the game word being “green” and the user having guessed g, and e correctly. The user has guessed a, b, and c incorrectly.
Msg Word Num Data Data Data Data Data Data Data Data flag length Incorrect [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] 053g_ee_abc
This packet is an example of a message packet. When the client receives a message packet it should directly print out the contents.
Msg Data [1] Data [2] Data [3] Data [4] Data [5] Data [6] Data [7] Data [8] flag
8 “Y” “o” “u” ““ “W” “i” “n” “!”
Client Message Header
This defines the message the client will send to the server. Msg length Data
An example packet could be the following when a client is guessing “a”.
Msg length Data 1 “a”
Example Program flow
The following is an example game output from a client connecting to a game server at the address 0.0.0.0 and on port 8080. The server chose the game word “dog”.
>>> ./hangman_client 0.0.0.0 8080
>>> Ready to start game? (y/n): y
>>>Incorrect Guesses:
>>>Letter to guess: a >>>_ _ _
← Client asks if player is ready to start and sends empty
message (“0”) to server signaling game start
← Server responds with first game control packet
← Print new line after Incorrect Guesses for readability ← Client asks for input and user types “a”
← Server responds
Code Help
>>>Incorrect Guesses: a >>>
>>>Letter to guess: d >>>d _ _
>>>Incorrect Guesses: a >>>
>>>Letter to guess: g >>>d _ g
>>>Incorrect Guesses: a >>>
>>>Letter to guess: o >>>The word was d o g >>>You Win! >>>Game Over!
← Client asks for input and user types “d” ← Server responds
← Client asks for input and user types “g” ← Server responds
← Client asks for input and user types “o” ← Server responds
If the player instead guesses 6 incorrect letters and loses the game, replace “You Win!” with “You Lose.”
TURN-IN REQUIREMENTS
You will hand in the client and server programs along with the Makefile to compile them. Name the client file hangman_client.c and the server file hangman_server.c. Make sure to indicate both you and your partner’s name in Gradescope when submitting your code. Only ONE of
you needs to turn in the programming assignment.
Include a Makefile. The “make all” command should produce two executables named hangman_client and hangman_server.
Finally, turn in these files to the “Homework 5 Programming Assignment” Gradescope link. Be sure to test your code on Gradescope!
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