Computer Morabaraba

Computers are used extensively in chess to allow players to practice and improve. This is a desparate need in Morabaraba; despite lots of Googling, I wasn't able to find a computer opponent which met the following criteria:

• Quality play - you need a challenge to improve your game; beating up a sloppy computer opponent may be good for the ego, but it won't really help you develop.
• Support for the MSSA rules - while I fully appreciate that variants are quite common across Southern Africa, if we all move towards a common rule set, we'll be able to get more momentum behind the game. Besides, the MSSA has put tremendous effort into promoting Morabaraba, and holds regular tournaments, which means that a critical mass is already building.
• Free - I don't think many people would be in a position to pay for a Morabaraba program, and by charging money a huge slice of the target audience would be excluded.
• Easy-to-use - the program should be easy to install and play, not requiring a degree in computer science to operate.

I believe that AHEM (my Morabaraba program) now meets most of these criteria. Still, I hope that other programmers will build their own Morabaraba programs, so that we can harden our programs in battle, all the while providing ever-better computer-based resources to the human players.

In support of these aims, this section of the site provides the following resources:

• AHEM - Adam's Happy Electronic Morabaraba, the original and best Morabaraba program, freely available for Windows and Linux.
• Developer's Guide - an evolving document aimed at helping other developers get started with Morabaraba programs; AHEM is waiting, do your worst!
• FIMS - the Free Internet Morabaraba Server - a forthcoming server for plaing Morabaraba against other humans and computers over the Internet.
• Morabaraba Software - links to some of the other Morabaraba and related programs available.
• Notation - proposed standards for sharing moves, positions and games; in the same way that the PGN standards transformed computer chess, it is hoped that these standards will make for meaningful compatibility between Morabaraba programs.

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