Ants Vs. SomeBees

Ants vs. Somebees

The bees are coming!
Create a better soldier
With inherit-ants.

Introduction

For full credit:

  • Submit with Phase 1 complete by Wednesday 11/06 (worth 1 pt).
  • Submit with Phase 1 and Phase 2 complete by Wednesday 11/13 (worth 1 pt).
  • Submit with all phases complete by Wednesday 11/20.

Solve the problems in order, since some later problems depend on earlier problems.

The entire project can be completed with a partner.

You can get 1 bonus point by submitting the entire project by Tuesday 11/19.

In this project, you will create a tower defense game called Ants Vs. SomeBees. As the ant queen, you populate your colony with the bravest ants you can muster. Your ants must protect their queen from the evil bees that invade your territory. Irritate the bees enough by throwing leaves at them, and they will be vanquished. Fail to pester the airborne intruders adequately, and your queen will succumb to the bees' wrath. This game is inspired by PopCap Games' Plants Vs. Zombies.

This project uses an object-oriented programming paradigm, focusing on material from Chapter 2.5 of Composing Programs. The project also involves understanding, extending, and testing a large program.

Download starter files

The ants.zip archive contains several files, but all of your changes will be made to ants.py.

  • ants.py: The game logic of Ants Vs. SomeBees
  • ants_plans.py: The details of each difficulty level
  • ucb.py: Utility functions for CS 61A
  • gui.py: A graphical user interface (GUI) for Ants Vs. SomeBees.
  • ok: The autograder
  • proj3.ok: The ok configuration file
  • tests: A directory of tests used by ok
  • libs: A directory of libraries used by gui.py
  • static: A directory of images and files used by gui.py
  • templates: A directory of HTML templates used by gui.py

Logistics

The project is worth 25 points. 23 points are for correctness, 1 point for submitting Phase 1 by the first checkpoint date Wednesday 11/06, and 1 point for submitting Phase 1 and Phase 2 by the second checkpoint date Wednesday 11/13.

You can get 1 EC point for submitting the entire project by Tuesday 11/19.

You will turn in the following files:

  • ants.py

You do not need to modify or turn in any other files to complete the project. To submit the project, submit the required files to the appropriate Gradescope assignment.

You may not use artificial intelligence tools to help you with this project or reference solutions found on the internet.

For the functions that we ask you to complete, there may be some initial code that we provide. If you would rather not use that code, feel free to delete it and start from scratch. You may also add new function definitions as you see fit.

However, please do not modify any other functions or edit any files not listed above. Doing so may result in your code failing our autograder tests. Also, please do not change any function signatures (names, argument order, or number of arguments).

Throughout this project, you should be testing the correctness of your code. It is good practice to test often, so that it is easy to isolate any problems. However, you should not be testing too often, to allow yourself time to think through problems.

We have provided an autograder called ok to help you with testing your code and tracking your progress. The first time you run the autograder, you will be asked to log in with your Ok account using your web browser. Please do so. Each time you run ok, it will back up your work and progress on our servers.

The primary purpose of ok is to test your implementations.

If you want to test your code interactively, you can run

 python3 ok -q [question number] -i 
with the appropriate question number (e.g. 01) inserted. This will run the tests for that question until the first one you failed, then give you a chance to test the functions you wrote interactively.

You can also use the debugging print feature in OK by writing

 print("DEBUG:", x) 
which will produce an output in your terminal without causing OK tests to fail with extra output.

The Game

A game of Ants Vs. SomeBees consists of a series of turns. In each turn, new bees may enter the ant colony. Then, new ants are placed to defend their colony. Finally, all insects (ants, then bees) take individual actions. Bees either try to move toward the end of the tunnel or sting ants in their way. Ants perform a different action depending on their type, such as collecting more food or throwing leaves at the bees. The game ends either when a bee reaches the end of the tunnel (ants lose), the bees destroy a QueenAnt if it exists (ants lose), or the entire bee fleet has been vanquished (ants win).

Core concepts

The Colony. This is where the game takes place. The colony consists of several Places that are chained together to form tunnels through which the bees travel. The colony also has some quantity of food which can be expended in order to place an ant in a tunnel.

Places. A place links to another place to form a tunnel. The player can put a single ant into each place. However, there can be many bees in a single place.

The Hive. This is the place where bees originate. Bees exit the beehive to enter the ant colony.

Ants. The player places an ant into the colony by selecting from the available ant types at the top of the screen. Each type of ant takes a different action and requires a different amount of colony food to place. The two most basic ant types are the HarvesterAnt, which adds one food to the colony during each turn, and the ThrowerAnt, which throws a leaf at a bee each turn. You will be implementing many more!

Bees. Each turn, a bee either advances to the next place in the tunnel if no ant is in its way, or it stings the ant in its way. Bees win when at least one bee reaches the end of a tunnel. In addition to the orange bees, there are yellow wasps that do double damage and a green boss bee that is quite difficult to vanquish.

Core classes

The concepts described above each have a corresponding class that encapsulates the logic for that concept. Here is a summary of the main classes involved in this game:

  • GameState: Represents the colony and some state information about the game, including how much food is available, how much time has elapsed, where the AntHomeBase is, and all the Places in the game.
  • Place: Represents a single place that holds insects. At most one Ant can be in a single place, but there can be many Bees in a single place. Place objects have an exit to the left and an entrance to the right, which are also places. Bees travel through a tunnel by moving to a Place's exit.
  • Hive: Represents the place where Bees start out (on the right of the tunnel).
  • AntHomeBase: Represents the place Ants are defending (on the left of the tunnel). If Bees get here, they win :(
  • Insect: A base class for Ant and Bee. Each insect has a health attribute representing its remaining health and a place attribute representing the Place where it is currently located. Each turn, every active Insect in the game performs its action.
  • Ant: Represents ants. Each Ant subclass has special attributes or a special action that distinguish it from other Ant types. For example, a HarvesterAnt gets food for the colony and a ThrowerAnt attacks Bees. Each ant type also has a food_cost attribute that indicates how much it costs to deploy one unit of that type of ant.
  • Bee: Represents bees. Each turn, a bee either moves to the exit of its current Place if the Place is not blocked by an ant, or stings the ant occupying its same Place.

Game Layout

Below is a visualization of a GameState.

To help visualize how all the classes fit together, here is a diagram of all of the classes and their inheritance relationships.

Getting Started Videos

These videos may provide some helpful direction for tackling the coding problems on the project.

To see these videos, you should be logged into your berkeley.edu email.

YouTube link

Phase 1: Basic gameplay

In the first phase you will complete the implementation that will allow for basic gameplay with the two basic Ants: the HarvesterAnt and the ThrowerAnt.

Problem 0 (0 pt)

Answer a set of conceptual questions after you have read the entire ants.py file by running this ok command:

python3 ok -q 00 -u

If you get stuck while answering these questions, you can try reading through ants.py again or asking questions on Ed.

A note on unlocking tests: If you'd like to review the unlocking questions after you have completed the unlocking test, you can navigate to (within the ants folder), the tests folder. For example, after unlocking Problem 0, you can review the unlocking test at tests/00.py.

Problem 1 (1 pt)

Part A: Currently, there is no cost for placing any type of Ant, and so there is no challenge to the game. The base class Ant has a food_cost of zero. Override this class attribute for HarvesterAnt and ThrowerAnt according to the "Food Cost" column in the table below.

Class Food Cost Initial Health

HarvesterAnt
2 1

ThrowerAnt
3 1

Part B: Now that placing an Ant costs food, we need to be able to gather more food! To fix this issue, implement the HarvesterAnt class. A HarvesterAnt is a type of Ant that adds one food to the gamestate.food total as its action.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 01 -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 01

Problem 2 (1 pt)

In this problem, you'll complete Place.__init__ by adding code that tracks entrances. Right now, a Place keeps track only of its exit. We would like a Place to keep track of its entrance as well. A Place needs to track only one entrance. Tracking entrances will be useful when an Ant needs to see what Bees are in front of it in the tunnel.

However, simply passing an entrance to a Place constructor will be problematic; we would need to have both the exit and the entrance before creating a Place! (It's a chicken or the egg problem.) To get around this problem, we will keep track of entrances in the following way instead. Place.__init__ should use this logic:

  • A newly created Place always starts with its entrance as None.
  • If the Place has an exit, then the exit's entrance is set to that Place.

Hint: Remember that when the __init__ method is called, the first parameter, self, is bound to the newly created object

Hint: Try drawing out two Places next to each other if things get confusing. In the GUI, a place's entrance is to its right while the exit is to its left.

Hint: Remember that Places are not stored in a list, so you can't index into anything to access them. This means that you can't do something like colony[index + 1] to access an adjacent Place. How can you move from one place to another?

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 02 -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 02

Problem 3 (2 pt)

In order for a ThrowerAnt to throw a leaf, it must know which bee to hit. The provided implementation of the nearest_bee method in the ThrowerAnt class only allows them to hit bees in the same Place. Your job is to fix it so that a ThrowerAnt will throw_at the nearest bee in front of it that is not still in the Hive. This includes bees that are in the same Place as a ThrowerAnt

Hint: All Places have an is_hive attribute which is True when that place is the Hive.

Change nearest_bee so that it returns a random Bee from the nearest place that contains bees. Your implementation should follow this logic:

  • Start from the current Place of the ThrowerAnt.
  • For each place, return a random bee if there is any, and if not, inspect the place in front of it (stored as the current place's entrance).
  • If there is no bee to attack, return None.

Hint: The random_bee function provided in ants.py returns a random bee from a list of bees or None if the list is empty.

Hint: As a reminder, if there are no bees present at a Place, then the bees attribute of that Place instance will be an empty list.

Hint: Having trouble visualizing the test cases? Try drawing them out on paper! The sample diagram provided in Game Layout shows the first test case for this problem.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 03 -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 03

Playing the game

After implementing nearest_bee, a ThrowerAnt should be able to throw_at a Bee in front of it that is not still in the Hive.

Now you're ready to try what you've built. To start a graphical game, run:

python3 gui.py

After you start the graphical version, the game is (usually) available at http://127.0.0.1:31415/.

The game has several options that you will use throughout the project, which you can view with python3 gui.py --help.

usage: gui.py [-h] [-d DIFFICULTY] [-w] [--food FOOD]

Play Ants vs. SomeBees

optional arguments:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -d DIFFICULTY  sets difficulty of game (test/easy/normal/hard/extra-hard)
  -w, --water    loads a full layout with water
  --food FOOD    number of food to start with when testing

You can refresh the webpage to restart the game, but if you changed your code, you need to terminate gui.py and run it again. To terminate gui.py, you can hit Ctrl + C on the terminal.

You cannot have multiple tabs of this same Ants GUI open simultaneously or they will all error.

Checkpoint Submission

Check to make sure that you completed all the problems in Phase 1:

python3 ok --score

Then, submit ants.py to the Ants Checkpoint 1 assignment on Gradescope before the checkpoint 1 deadline.

When you run ok commands, you'll still see that some tests are locked because you haven't completed the whole project yet. You'll get full credit for the checkpoint if you complete all the problems up to this point.

Congratulations! You have finished Phase 1 of this project!

Phase 2: More Ants!

Now that you've implemented basic gameplay with two types of Ants, let's add some flavor to the ways ants can attack bees. In this problem and on, you'll be implementing several different Ants with different attack strategies.

After you implement each Ant subclass in these sections, you'll need to set its implemented class attribute to True so that that type of ant will show up in the GUI. Feel free to try out the game with each new ant to test the functionality!

With all following ants from now on, try python3 gui.py to play against a full swarm of bees in a multi-tunnel layout and try -d hard or -d extra-hard if you want a real challenge! If the bees are too numerous to vanquish, you might need to create some new ants.

Problem 4 (2 pt)

A ThrowerAnt is a powerful threat to the bees, but it has a high food cost. In this problem, you'll implement two subclasses of ThrowerAnt that are less costly but have constraints on the distance they can throw:

  • The LongThrower can only throw_at a Bee that is found after following at least 5 entrance transitions. It cannot hit Bees that are in the same Place as it or the first 4 Places in front of it. If there are two Bees, one too close to the LongThrower and the other within its range, the LongThrower should only throw at the farther Bee, which is within its range, instead of trying to hit the closer Bee.
  • The ShortThrower can only throw_at a Bee that is found after following at most 3 entrance transitions. It cannot throw at any bees further than 3 Places in front of it.

Neither of these specialized throwers can throw_at a Bee that is exactly 4 Places away.

Class Food Cost Initial Health

ShortThrower
2 1

LongThrower
2 1

To implement these new throwing ants, your ShortThrower and LongThrower classes should inherit the nearest_bee method from the base ThrowerAnt class. The logic of choosing which bee a thrower ant will attack is the same, except the ShortThrower and LongThrower ants where their range is limited by a lower and upper bound, respectively.

To do this, modify the nearest_bee method to reference lower_bound and upper_bound attributes, and only return a bee if it is within range.

Make sure to give these lower_bound and upper_bound attributes appropriate values in the ThrowerAnt class so that the behavior of ThrowerAnt is unchanged. Then, implement the subclasses LongThrower and ShortThrower with appropriately constrained ranges.

You should not need to repeat any code between ThrowerAnt, ShortThrower, and LongThrower.

Hint: float('inf') returns an infinite positive value represented as a float that can be compared with other numbers.

Hint: lower_bound and upper_bound should mark an inclusive range.

Important: Make sure your class attributes are called upper_bound and lower_bound The tests directly reference these attribute names, and will error if you use another name for these attributes.

Don't forget to set the implemented class attribute of LongThrower and ShortThrower to True.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 04 -u

After writing code, test your implementation (rerun the tests for 03 to make sure they still work):

python3 ok -q 03
python3 ok -q 04

👩🏽‍💻👨🏿‍💻 Pair programming? Remember to alternate between driver and navigator roles. The driver controls the keyboard; the navigator watches, asks questions, and suggests ideas.

Problem 5 (3 pt)

Implement the FireAnt, which does damage when it receives damage. Specifically, if it is damaged by amount health units, it does a damage of amount to all bees in its place (this is called reflected damage). If it dies, it does an additional amount of damage, as specified by its damage attribute, which has a default value of 3 as defined in the FireAnt class.

To implement this, override Insect's reduce_health method. Your overriden method should call the reduce_health method inherited from the superclass (Ant) which inherits from it's superclass Insect to reduce the current FireAnt instance's health. Calling the inherited reduce_health method on a FireAnt instance reduces the insect's health by the given amount and removes the insect from its place if its health reaches zero or lower.

Hint: Do not call self.reduce_health, or you'll end up stuck in a recursive loop. (Can you see why?)

However, your method needs to also include the reflective damage logic:

  • Determine the reflective damage amount: start with the amount inflicted on the ant, and then add damage if the ant's health has dropped to or below 0.
  • For each bee in the place, damage them with the total amount by calling the appropriate reduce_health method for each bee.

Important: Remember that when any Ant loses all its health, it is removed from its place, so pay careful attention to the order of your logic in reduce_health.

Class Food Cost Initial Health

FireAnt
5 3

Important: Damaging a bee may cause it to be removed from its place; when an insect dies, it is removed from its current place. If you iterate over a list, but change the contents of that list at the same time, you may not visit all the elements. This can be prevented by making a copy of the list. You can either use a list slice, or use the built-in list function to make sure the original list is not affected.

>>> s = [1,2,3,4]
>>> s[:]
[1, 2, 3, 4]
>>> list(s)
[1, 2, 3, 4]
>>> (s[:] is not s) and (list(s) is not s)
True

Once you've finished implementing the FireAnt, give it a class attribute implemented with the value True.

Note: Even though you are overriding the superclass's reduce_health function (Ant.reduce_health), you can still use this method in your implementation by calling it.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 05 -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 05

You can also test your program by playing a game or two! A FireAnt should destroy all co-located Bees when it is stung. To start a game with ten food (for easy testing):

python3 gui.py --food 10

Problem 6 (1 pt)

We are going to add some protection to our glorious home base by implementing the WallAnt, an ant that does nothing each turn. A WallAnt is useful because it has a large health value.

Class Food Cost Initial Health

WallAnt
4 4

Unlike with previous ants, we have not provided you with a class statement. Implement the WallAnt class from scratch. Give it a class attribute name with the value 'Wall' (so that the graphics work) and a class attribute implemented with the value True (so that you can use it in a game).

Hint: Make sure you implement the __init__ method too so the WallAnt starts off with the appropriate amount of health!

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 06 -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 06

Problem 7 (3 pt)

Implement the HungryAnt, which will select a random Bee from its place and deal damage to the Bee equal to the Bee's health, eating it whole. After eating a Bee, a HungryAnt must spend 3 turns chewing before being able to eat again. While the HungryAnt is chewing, it is not able to eat (deal damage to) any Bees. If there is no bee in its place available to eat, the HungryAnt will do nothing.

We have not provided you with a class header. Implement the HungryAnt class from scratch. Give it a class attribute name with the value 'Hungry' (so that the graphics work) and a class attribute implemented with the value True (so that you can use it in a game).

Hint: When a Bee is eaten, its health should be reduced by its health.

Class Food Cost Initial Health

HungryAnt
4 1

Give HungryAnt a chew_cooldown class attribute that stores the number of turns that it will take a HungryAnt to chew (set to 3). Also, give each HungryAnt an instance attribute cooldown that counts the number of turns it has left to chew, initialized to 0, since it hasn't eaten anything at the beginning. You can also think of cooldown as the number of turns until a HungryAnt can eat another Bee.

Implement the action method of the HungryAnt: First, check if it is chewing; if so, decrement its cooldown. Otherwise, eat a random Bee in its place by reducing the Bee's health to 0. Make sure to set the cooldown when a Bee is eaten!

Hint: Other than the action method, make sure you implement the __init__ method too in order to define any instance variables and make sure that HungryAnt starts off with the appropriate amount of health!

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 07 -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 07

👩🏽‍💻👨🏿‍💻 Pair programming? This would be a good time to switch roles. Switching roles makes sure that you both benefit from the learning experience of being in each role.

Problem 8 (3 pt)

Right now, our ants are quite frail. We'd like to provide a way to help them last longer against the onslaught of the bees. Enter the BodyguardAnt.

Class Food Cost Initial Health

BodyguardAnt
4 2

To more easily implement the BodyguardAnt, we will break up this problem into 3 subparts. In each part, we will making changes in either the ContainerAnt class, Ant class, or BodyguardAnt class.

Note: We have separated out Question 8 into three different subparts. We recommend going through the unlocking test for each subpart before writing any code for it. You will be tested through each subpart and each subpart is worth one point (for a total of three for the whole question).

Problem 8a

First, we will define and work in a ContainerAnt parent class that we will later use for our BodyguardAnt.

A BodyguardAnt differs from a normal ant because it is a ContainerAnt; it can contain another ant and protect it, all in one Place. When a Bee stings the ant in a Place where one ant contains another, only the container is damaged. The ant inside the container can still perform its original action. If the container perishes, the contained ant still remains in the place (and can then be damaged).

Each ContainerAnt has an instance attribute ant_contained that stores the ant it contains. This ant, ant_contained, initially starts off as None to indicate that there is no ant being stored yet. Implement the store_ant method so that it sets the ContainerAnt's ant_contained instance attribute to the ant argument passed in. Then implement the ContainerAnt's action method. This method will ensure that if our ContainerAnt currently contains an ant, ant_contained's action is performed.

In addition, to ensure that a container and its contained ant can both occupy a place at the same time (a maximum of two ants per place), but only if exactly one is a container, we can create an can_contain method.

There is already an Ant.can_contain method, but it always returns False. Override the method can_contain in ContainerAnt so that it takes an ant other as an argument and returns True if:

  • This ContainerAnt does not already contain another ant.
  • The other ant is not a container.

Hint: You may find the is_container attribute that each Ant has useful for checking if a specific Ant is a container.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 08a -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 08a

Problem 8b

Next, we will be working in the Ant class.

Modify Ant.add_to to allow a container and its contained ant to occupy the same place according to the following rules:

  • If the ant originally occupying a place can contain the ant being added, then both ants occupy the place and original ant contains the ant being added.
  • If the ant being added can contain the ant originally in the space, then both ants occupy the place and the (container) ant being added contains the original ant.
  • If neither Ant can contain the other, raise the same AssertionError as before (the one already present in the starter code).
  • Important: If there are two ants in a specific Place, the ant attribute of the Place instance should refer to the container ant, and the container ant should contain the non-container ant.

Hint: You should also take advantage of the can_contain method you wrote and avoid repeating code.

Note: If you're getting an "unreachable code" warning for Ant.add_to via the VSCode Pylance extension, it's fine to ignore this specific warning, as the code is actually run (the warning in this case is inaccurate).

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 08b -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 08b

Problem 8c

Finally, we can work on implementing our BodyguardAnt class.

Add a BodyguardAnt.__init__ that sets the initial amount of health for the Bodyguard ant. We do not need to create an action method here since the BodyguardAnt class inherits it from the ContainerAnt class. Also note that the BodyguardAnt does not do any damage.

Once you've finished implementing the BodyguardAnt, give it a class attribute implemented with the value True.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 08c -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 08c

Problem 9 (2 pt)

The BodyguardAnt provides great defense, but they say the best defense is a good offense. The TankAnt is a ContainerAnt that protects an ant in its place and also deals 1 damage to all bees in its place each turn. Like any ContainerAnt, a TankAnt allows the ant that it contains to perform its action each turn.

Class Food Cost Initial Health

TankAnt
6 2

We have not provided you with a class header. Implement the TankAnt class from scratch. Give it a class attribute name with the value 'Tank' (so that the graphics work) and a class attribute implemented with the value True (so that you can use it in a game).

You should not need to modify any code outside of the TankAnt class. If you find yourself needing to make changes elsewhere, look for a way to write your code for the previous question such that it applies not just to BodyguardAnt and TankAnt objects, but to container ants in general.

Hint: The only methods you need to override from TankAnt's parent class are __init__ and action.

Hint: Like with FireAnt, it is possible that damaging a bee will cause it to be removed from its place.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 09 -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 09

Checkpoint Submission

Check to make sure that you completed all the problems in Phase 1 and Phase 2:

python3 ok --score

Then, submit ants.py to the Ants Checkpoint 2 assignment on Gradescope before the checkpoint 2 deadline.

When you run ok commands, you'll still see that some tests are locked because you haven't completed the whole project yet. You'll get full credit for the checkpoint if you complete all the problems up to this point.

Congratulations! You have finished Phase 1 and Phase 2 of this project!

Phase 3: Water and Might

In the final phase, you're going to add one last kick to the game by introducing a new type of place and new ants that are able to occupy this place. One of these ants is the most important ant of them all: the queen of the colony!

Problem 10 (1 pt)

Let's add water to the colony! Currently there are only two types of places, the Hive and a basic Place. To make things more interesting, we're going to create a new type of Place called Water.

Only an insect that is waterproof can be placed in Water. In order to determine whether an Insect is waterproof, add a new class attribute to the Insect class named is_waterproof that is set to False. Since bees can fly, their is_waterproof attribute is True, overriding the inherited value.

Now, implement the add_insect method for Water. First, add the insect to the place regardless of whether it is waterproof. Then, if the insect is not waterproof, reduce the insect's health to 0. Do not repeat code from elsewhere in the program. Instead, use methods that have already been defined.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 10 -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 10

Once you've finished this problem, play a game that includes water. To access the wet_layout, which includes water, add the --water option (or -w for short) when you start the game.

python3 gui.py --water

👩🏽‍💻👨🏿‍💻 Pair programming? Remember to alternate between driver and navigator roles. The driver controls the keyboard; the navigator watches, asks questions, and suggests ideas.

Problem 11 (2 pt)

Currently there are no ants that can be placed on Water. Implement the ScubaThrower, which is a subclass of ThrowerAnt that is more costly and waterproof, but otherwise identical to its base class. A ScubaThrower should not lose its health when placed in Water.

Class Food Cost Initial Health

ScubaThrower
6 1

We have not provided you with a class header. Implement the ScubaThrower class from scratch. Give it a class attribute name with the value 'Scuba' (so that the graphics work) and remember to set the class attribute implemented with the value True (so that you can use it in a game).

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 11 -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 11

Problem 12 (2 pt)

Finally, implement the QueenAnt. A queen is a ThrowerAnt that inspires her fellow ants through her bravery. In addition to the standard ThrowerAnt action, a QueenAnt doubles the damage of all the ants behind her each time she performs an action. However, once an ant's damage has been doubled, it cannot be doubled again. Try to think of a way to keep track of whether an ant's damage has already been doubled (Hint: Use an instance attribute!)

Note: The reflected damage of a FireAnt should not be doubled, only the extra damage it deals when its health is reduced to 0.

Class Food Cost Initial Health

QueenAnt
7 1

However, with great power comes great responsibility. If a queen ever has its health reduced to 0, the ants lose. You will need to override Insect.reduce_health in QueenAnt and call ants_lose() in that case in order to signal to the simulator that the game is over. (The ants also still lose if any bee reaches the end of a tunnel.)

Hint: For doubling the damage of all ants behind her, you may fill out the double method defined in the Ant class, then call it from the QueenAnt class.

Hint: When doubling the ants' damage, keep in mind that there can be more than one ant in a Place, like in the case of container ants storing another.

Hint: Remember that QueenAnt's reduce_health method adds the additional task of calling ants_lose to the superclass's reduce_health method. How can we make sure we still do everything from the superclass's method without repeating code?

Hint: You can find each Place in a tunnel behind a QueenAnt by starting at the queen's place.exit and then repeatedly moving back to the previous place's exit. The exit of a Place at the end of a tunnel is None.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q 12 -u

Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:

python3 ok -q 12

Project submission

Run ok on all problems to make sure all tests are unlocked and pass:

python3 ok

You can also check your score on each part of the project:

python3 ok --score

Once you are satisfied, submit this assignment by uploading ants.py to the Ants assignment on Gradescope. For a refresher on how to do this, refer to Lab 00.

You can add a partner to your Gradescope submission by clicking on + Add Group Member under your name on the right hand side of your submission. Only one partner needs to submit to Gradescope.

You are now done with the project! If you haven't yet, you should try playing the game!

python3 gui.py [-h] [-d DIFFICULTY] [-w] [--food FOOD]

Extra Challenges (Optional)

Note: These problems are optional and are not worth any points.

During Office Hours and Project Parties, the staff will prioritize helping students with required questions. We will not be offering help with this question unless the queue is empty.

Implement two final thrower ants that do zero damage, but instead apply a temporary effect on the action method of a Bee instance that they throw_at. This "status" lasts for a certain number of turns, after which it ceases to take effect.

Problem EC 1 (0 pt)

We will be implementing a new ant, SlowThrower, which inherits from ThrowerAnt.

SlowThrower throws sticky syrup at a bee, slowing it for 5 turns. When a bee is slowed, it does its regular Bee action when gamestate.time is even, and takes no action (does not move or sting) otherwise. If a bee is hit by syrup while it is already slowed, it is slowed for 5 turns starting from the most recent time it is hit by syrup. That is, if a bee is hit by syrup, takes 2 turns, and is hit by syrup again, it will now be slowed for 5 turns after the second time it is hit by syrup. So it will have been slowed for 7 turns total (not 10!).

Class Food Cost Initial Health

SlowThrower
6 1

In order to complete the implementations of this SlowThrower, you will need to set its class attributes appropriately and implement the throw_at method in SlowThrower.

Important Restriction: You may not modify any code outside the SlowThrower class for this problem. That means you may not modify the Bee.action method directly. Our tests will check for this.

Hint: Take a look at SlowThrower's parent class, ThrowerAnt. ThrowerAnt's action method calls throw_at, which is what you should be overriding in SlowThrower. What is passed into the target parameter in SlowThrower's throw_at function and why? What is target.action referring to?

Implementation Hint: Assign target.action to a new function that conditionally calls Bee.action. You can create and use an instance attribute to track how many more turns the bee will be slowed. Once the slowing effect is over, Bee.action should be called every turn again.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q EC1 -u

You can run some provided tests, but they are not exhaustive:

python3 ok -q EC1

Make sure to test your code! Your code should be able to apply multiple statuses on a target; each new status applies to the current (possibly previously affected) action method of the bee.

Problem EC 2 (0 pt)

You must implement Problem EC 1 (SlowThrower) correctly in order to pass the tests for this problem. We will be implementing a new ant, ScaryThrower, which inherits from ThrowerAnt.

ScaryThrower intimidates a nearby bee, causing it to back away instead of advancing. Here are some rules to keep in mind:

  1. If the bee is already right next to the Hive and cannot go back further, it should not move. To check if a bee is next to the Hive, you might find the is_hive instance attribute of Place useful.
  2. Bees remain scared until they have tried to back away twice. So, the back away effect lasts two turns.
  3. Bees cannot try to back away if they are slowed and gamestate.time is odd. This would be a turn they're frozen by SlowThrower!
  4. Once a bee has been scared once, it can't be scared ever again.
Class Food Cost Initial Health

ScaryThrower
6 1

In order to complete the implementation of this ScaryThrower, you will need to set its class attributes appropriately and implement the scare method in Bee, which applies the scared status on a particular bee. You may also have to edit some other methods of Bee such as action.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q EC2 -u

python3 ok -q EC2

Make sure to test your code! Your code should be able to apply multiple statuses on a target; each new status applies to the current (possibly previously affected) action method of the bee.

Problem EC 3 (0 pt)

Implement the NinjaAnt, which damages all Bees that pass by, but can never be stung.

Class Food Cost Initial Health

NinjaAnt
5 1

A NinjaAnt does not block the path of a Bee that flies by. To implement this behavior, first modify the Ant class to include a new class attribute blocks_path that is set to True, then override the value of blocks_path to False in the NinjaAnt class.

Second, modify the Bee's method blocked to return False if either there is no Ant in the Bee's place or if there is an Ant, but its blocks_path attribute is False. Now Bees will just fly past NinjaAnts.

Finally, we want to make the NinjaAnt damage all Bees that fly past. Implement the action method in NinjaAnt to reduce the health of all Bees in the same place as the NinjaAnt by its damage attribute. Similar to the FireAnt, you must iterate over a potentially changing list of bees.

Hint: Having trouble visualizing the test cases? Try drawing them out on paper! See the example in Game Layout for help.

Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:

python3 ok -q EC3 -u

python3 ok -q EC3

For a challenge, try to win a game using only HarvesterAnt and NinjaAnt.

Problem EC 4 (0 pt)

We've been developing this ant for a long time in secret. It's so dangerous that we had to lock it in the super hidden underground vault, but we finally think it is ready to test out on the field. In this problem, you'll be implementing the final ant -- LaserAnt, a ThrowerAnt with a twist.

Class Food Cost Initial Health

LaserAnt
10 1

The LaserAnt shoots out a powerful laser, damaging all that dare to stand in its path. Both Bees and Ants, of all types, are at risk of being damaged by LaserAnt. When a LaserAnt takes its action, it will damage all Insects in its place (excluding itself, but including its container if it has one) and the Places in front of it, excluding the Hive.

If that were it, LaserAnt would be too powerful for us to contain. The LaserAnt has a base damage of 2. But, LaserAnt's laser comes with some quirks. The laser is weakened by 0.25 each place it travels away from LaserAnt's place. Additionally, LaserAnt has limited battery. Each time LaserAnt actually damages an Insect, its laser's total damage goes down by 0.0625 (1/16). This reduction is immediate so if there are two Bees in front of LaserAnt and on the same tile, it will do less damage to the second Bee. If LaserAnt's damage becomes negative due to these restrictions, it simply does 0 damage instead.

The exact order in which things are damaged within a turn does not matter.

In order to complete the implementation of this ultimate ant, read through the LaserAnt class, set the class attributes appropriately, and implement the following two functions:

  1. insects_in_front is an instance method, called by the action method, that returns a dictionary where each key is an Insect and each corresponding value is the distance (in places) that that Insect is away from LaserAnt. The dictionary should include all Insects on the same place or in front of the LaserAnt, excluding LaserAnt itself.
  2. calculate_damage is an instance method that takes in distance, the distance that an insect is away from the LaserAnt instance. It returns the damage that the LaserAnt instance should afflict based on:

    • The distance away from the LaserAnt instance that an Insect is.
    • The number of Insects that this LaserAnt has already damaged, stored in the insects_shot instance attribute.

In addition to implementing the methods above, you may need to modify, add, or use class or instance attributes in the LaserAnt class as needed.

Important: If an insect's health is unaffected, its health should remain as a whole number (integer), as it was when the insect was initially created.

Note: There are no unlocking tests for this question.

python3 ok -q EC4

Acknowledgments: Tom Magrino and Eric Tzeng developed this project with John DeNero. Many others have contributed to the project as well!

The artwork was drawn by Alana Tran, Andrew Huang, Emilee Chen, Jessie Salas, Jingyi Li, Katherine Xu, Meena Vempaty, Michelle Chang, and Ryan Davis.