Scrabble Board Game

A two-player implementation of the classic Scrabble word game built with JavaFX. This game allows players to compete against a computer opponent that uses an advanced algorithm to find the highest-scoring moves on the board.

The game will display the rules when launching the program but if needed see the general Scrabble rules

Author: Beckett Dunlavy
Class: UNM CS-351: Design of Large Programs
Spring 2025

Game Features

• Player always plays first
• Classic Scrabble gameplay with standard 15x15 board
• Computer opponent with highest scoring move-finding algorithm
• Support for blank tiles and all standard Scrabble rules
• Premium squares (double/triple letter/word scores)
• Score tracking
• Move validation against a dictionary (using sowpods.txt)
• Tile exchange and pass functionality
• Visual indication of tile values and board premiums
• Game rules popup for easy reference

Known Bugs

• No known bugs (March 12, 2025)

Future Features

• Play again feature
• multiple levels of computer players

Computer Player Algorithm

The computer player in this Scrabble implementation uses an advanced algorithm based on the approach described in "Scrabble: An Efficient Approach" from Carnegie Mellon University.

Key components of the algorithm include:

• A trie data structure for efficient dictionary lookups
• Cross-checks to determine valid letters for each square
• Anchor-based move generation that only examines promising squares
• Left and right word extensions to find all possible plays
• Special handling for blank tiles and premium squares
• Comprehensive scoring that accounts for all rules of Scrabble

This approach allows the computer player to find the highest-scoring moves

Running the Game

Scrabble Game (GUI)

To run the complete Scrabble game with the graphical interface:

java -jar scrabble.jar

Score Checker

To validate moves and calculate scores from board configurations:

java -jar scorechecker.jar <dictionary_file>

Example:

java -jar scorechecker.jar sowpods.txt < example_score_input.txt

The program reads pairs of board configurations from standard input, finds the played tiles, determines if the move is legal, and outputs the score.

Word Solver

To find the highest-scoring move for a given board and tray:

java -jar solver.jar <dictionary_file>

Example:

java -jar solver.jar sowpods.txt < example_input.txt

The program reads a board configuration and a tray of letters from standard input, then outputs the highest-scoring move possible.

Project Structure

.gitignore

Jar files

• scorechecker.jar

• solver.jar

• scrabble.jar

src/ Scrabble

• Contains Scrabble package with the source code for this project

docs

• Object design diagram
• Computer algorithm

dictionaries_and_examples

This folder contains example files for testing the programs. See the readme in this folder for more details.