Jarbles

Jarbles is an implementation of Abalone in Java. Source code is available under the terms of the GNU GPLv3: jarbles-0.7.tar.gz On a POSIX platform configure && make are enough to build classes and javadoc if suitable tools are installed.

This applet divides available space into three sections. The largest is the game board itself on the left. Clicking the start, end and target positions makes a move. The top right section is a move pane. A piece of the color which must make the next move is in the center. When something is selected on the board additional pieces will appear to indicate which directions are currently legal moves. Clicking one of these will make that move and might be more intuitive for some players. When one color wins the game, either by forcing six pieces off the board or running the opponent out of time, the center of the move pane will be empty and all other cells will show the winning color. Finally, on the bottom right is the score pane which shows all captured pieces as well as the current timers.

This program determines the sizes of everything from pieces to text dynamically so the applet can scale smoothly. The board is made as large as possible within the given dimensions so the applet is usable under almost any circumstances. (Of course, when made small enough it becomes difficult to visually distinguish different cells and eventually individual pixes will cover more than one cell.)

There are some additional features that are not yet accessible through this applet. For instance there is theme support, a simple computer controlled opponent and a standalone application which can be executed from the command line.