Dama

Here are instructions on how to run the game locally and play it through terminal.

Background

Dama (also known as Turkish Draughts) is a variant of draughts that is played in Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries. In this information age, this 5000+ year old game is losing popularity. You can find a video by Al Jazeera English discussing this here.

As group members of Middle Eastern background, this game carries cultural significance to us, and our implementation of the game is an effort to keep it alive.

Rules of the Game

• The game starts off with an 8x8 board with 16 pieces lined up on two rows for each color with the last row empty on each side.
• White starts the game.
• The pieces start off as Men pieces that can move forward, left, and right one square. The pieces cannot move backward or diagonally.
• If pieces of the other player are directly infront of or to either side of the player, the player must jump and capture the other piece.
• If there are multiple jumps available, the player can choose one.
• When a piece reaches the last row, it upgrades to a Lady (Dama) piece and can move any number of squares forward, sideways, but not backward or diagonally.
• There is no distinction between capturing a Lady piece and a Man piece; they each count as one piece.
• The game ends when one player can make no more moves or has no more remaining pieces (all their pieces have been captured), in which case the other player wins