Game-Sternhalma

Sternhalma, the star halma of 1892 that most English speakers call Chinese
checkers: 121 holes in a six-pointed star, ten pieces a seat, and a race to
move all of them into the point opposite. A piece steps to a neighbouring
hole, or hops over one piece, anyone's, into the hole beyond it, and may go
on hopping as long as it likes. Nothing is taken. Two, three, four or six
can play.

This distribution is the game, an opponent for it, and a program to play it
in a terminal.

    use Game::Sternhalma;
    use Game::Sternhalma::Bot;

    my $game = Game::Sternhalma->new(seats => 3);
    my $flag = $game->play('c3-e7');
    die Game::Sternhalma->reason($flag) if defined $flag;
    print "$_->{text}\n" for $game->legal;
    $game->play(Game::Sternhalma::Bot->choose($game, rung => 2));

Or, from a shell:

    sternhalma
    sternhalma --seats 4 --people 2
    sternhalma --seats 6 --bots all

                        a  R
                      b  R   R
                    c  R   R  [R]
                  d  R   R   R   R
    e  .   .   .   .   .   .  (.)  .  (.)  .   .   .   .
      f  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
        g  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
          h  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
            i  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
          j  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
        k  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
      l  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
    m  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
                      n  B   B   B   B
                        o  B   B   B
                          p  B   B
                            q  B

In a terminal the cursor walks the pieces that can move, and the holes the
one under it can reach are lit. With one picked up, the cursor walks those
holes and the way there, hop by hop, is shown before the move is made. Each
piece is its seat's letter on its seat's colour, so the seats can be told
apart with colour and without it.

The game has no single rule book. Game::Sternhalma says which texts its
rules were taken from and which things this distribution had to choose: that
a piece left in your home cannot keep you out, that a seat with no move
passes, and that a game ends at a cap of moves, with the seats still racing
placed by how far they have left to go.

The engine is C, with no floating point in it. The opponent is bounded by the
number of positions it may look at and never by the clock, so it makes the
same move on every machine.


INSTALLATION

A C compiler is needed. To install this module, run the following commands:

	perl Makefile.PL
	make
	make test
	make install

It requires Object::Proto::Sugar, Game::Terminal::Kit, and perl 5.14 or
later. Term::ReadKey is recommended: with it the terminal program is played
with the arrow keys, and without it by typing.


SUPPORT AND DOCUMENTATION

After installing, you can find documentation for this module with the
perldoc command.

    perldoc Game::Sternhalma
    perldoc sternhalma

You can also look for information at:

    RT, CPAN's request tracker (report bugs here)
        https://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Game-Sternhalma

    Search CPAN
        https://metacpan.org/release/Game-Sternhalma


LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

This software is Copyright (c) 2026 by LNATION <email@lnation.org>.

This is free software, licensed under:

  The Artistic License 2.0 (GPL Compatible)