QUBE - Updated

QUBE Game - Update

The focus of this update was to refine gameplay mechanics, significantly improve the AI for a greater challenge, and enhance the user interface and visual experience.

Key Updates & Enhancements

1. New Gameplay Mechanic: Relative Row Selection

The core gameplay mechanic for placing pieces has been overhauled for more intuitive and strategic 3D play.

• Previous System: Players would select a vertical column and then cycle through available slots along the Z-axis.
• New System: Players now click directly on a polygon face of the game cube. This action defines a playable row that extends in a direction relative to the clicked face (its local Z-axis). All temporary placement markers now appear along this selected row, allowing for more intuitive piece placement on any of the cube's three primary axes (X, Y, or Z).

2. Advanced AI: "Very Hard" Mode

A new "Very Hard" difficulty has been introduced, featuring a more sophisticated AI opponent. The AI's strategic capabilities now include:

• Fork Detection & Creation: The AI can now identify and execute a "fork" – a move that creates two potential winning lines of three at the same time. Since the opponent can only block one of these lines in a single turn, this move guarantees a win for the AI on its next turn.
• Proactive Blocking: The AI will analyze the player's moves to detect and block potential forks before the player can execute them.
• Strategic Hierarchy: The AI's decision-making process has been improved across all difficulties, prioritizing moves in the following order:
  1. Make a winning move.
  2. Block an opponent's winning move.
  3. Create a fork (Very Hard only).
  4. Block an opponent's fork (Very Hard only).
  5. Set up a threat (a line of two).
  6. Take control of central positions.
  7. Make a random available move as a fallback.

3. UI & User Experience (UX) Enhancements

Several improvements have been made to the game's interface and overall usability.

• In-Turn Action Buttons: When a player selects a row, "Confirm" and "Cancel" buttons now appear below the help text. These provide a clear, clickable alternative to the keyboard hotkeys for finalizing or canceling a move.
• Optimized Camera Distance: The game camera now defaults to the minimum allowed distance from the cube. This ensures the game board is as large and clear as possible on the screen from the start.
• Consistent Color Scheme: The UI elements in the setup menu (difficulty and series length dropdowns) now have a dark background, matching the game's overall neon-on-black aesthetic and removing the jarring white default background.

4. Visual & Material Adjustments

The appearance of in-game elements has been refined for better clarity.

• Preview Piece Rework: The temporary preview brick is no longer transparent, which prevented it from becoming invisible against certain backgrounds. It now has a slightly higher emissive value than placed pieces, causing it to glow subtly and clearly indicating its status as a temporary selection.
• >span class="ng-star-inserted">: The codebase has been refactored to remove redundant comments and improve clarity, while preserving the external grid visuals as requested.