Games::Checkers is a set of Perl classes implementing the Checkers game
play. 17 different national rule variants (and any custom mix of rules)
are supported on any arbitrary board sizes. A basic AI heuristics is
implemented using the Minimax algorithm. Replay of previously recorded
games is supported too.

This package is intended to provide complete infrastructure for interactive
and automatic playing and manipulating of Checkers games.

See doc/rules to read about the Checkers game rules.
See doc/variants to find the rule differences in all supported variants.
Alternatively see Games::Checkers man page after installing this package.
You can run perl scripts in bin/ directory without installing anything.

Currently supported checkers/draughts variants (AI and game replay):

	* russian
	* russian_give_away
	* russian_10x8 (spantsiretti)
	* international (polish)
	* english
	* english_give_away
	* italian
	* spanish
	* argentinian
	* portuguese
	* czech
	* german
	* thai
	* pool (american_pool)
	* brazilian
	* frisian
	* canadian
	* sri_lankian

Currently supported board sizes:

	* 4x4, 6x6, 8x10 (just for fun)
	* 8x8
	* 10x8
	* 10x10
	* 12x12
	* 14x14, 16x16 (not too practical)

Note that every variant configures its own board size, but it is made
possible to play using any variant rules on different board sizes too,
for example Russian Checkers on 12x12 board. Or even construct own
rule variants, like: Give-Away International Checkers on the 8x10 board
without the requirement to capture maximal amount of pieces.

Currently supported game file formats:

	* .pdn files (trying to detect a lot of broken notations too)
	* .pdn.gz|xz|bz2 files (automatically uncompressed on the fly)

Currently installed scripts:

	* pcheckers-auto-play
	* pcheckers-replay-games

In the future one script pcheckers may be installed that will include:

	* automatic AI game play (current script pcheckers-auto-play)
	* recorded game replay (current script pcheckers-replay-games)
	* interactive game play of 1 or 2 human players

If SDL perl modules are installed, then the SDL support is automatically
detected and activated that replaces the default terminal IO.

See also files INSTALL and TODO, and directory data/.

Author:
	Mikhael Goikhman <migo@freeshell.org>
Web site:
	http://migo.sixbit.org/software/pcheckers/
