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Tic-Tac-Toe Messenger Bot

This is an adaptation of the classic Tic-Tac-Toe game for the Facebook Messenger platform. This adaptation allows a user enjoy the game playing against an AI bot on the messenger platform.

The core logic of the game is provided from Mechanicles CLI implementation.

Dependencies

System

Tic-Tac-Toe Messenger Bot is built with the Ruby programming language (version 2.4.1). Chances are you already have Ruby. You can run which ruby to confirm it's installation.

Also check for and confirm the installation of gem and bundler on your machine. These will allow you install other libraries ( gems ) required.

Facebook

A fair understanding of the mechanics of the Bot for Messenger platform is required. You'll need a Facebook App, a Facebook Page.

Cloudinary

Images of the state of the game board after each turn is generated and saved to Cloudinary from where it's delivered to Facebook. For this app, you'll need a cloudinary account.

Database setup

This implementation leverages a postgres db to persist state and game sessions for users. The database maintains a single table games which keeps track of the gameplay for each user. Yes, you can user any other db of your choice; all you need do is swap out pg here for your choice db.

Configuration

You'll need to set the following env variables need by the app:

VERIFY_TOKEN # Your Messenger Webhook verification token
ACCESS_TOKEN # Your Access token for you Facebook page
CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME # Your cloudinary account name
CLOUDINARY_API_KEY # Your cloudinary account api key
CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET # Your cloudinary account api secret
DATABASE_URL # Your database url

Running the application

First clone this repo. Then from your terminal (or command prompt) navigate to the folder where you have cloned fb-tic-tac-toe ( cd path/to/fb-tic-tac-toe/ ).

  • Run bundle install to install all Plans dependencies.
  • Run rake db:setup to setup the database
  • Run rackup to start the app

You are now good to go. Proceed with webhook verification and then test out the game on your Facebook page.

Note: you might need to setup ngrok to tunnel requests if you are running it locally.

I added in a start.sh file which you can modify to make startup easier especially regarding exporting the required env variables. You can you use it like so:

  • Update start.sh with your env variables and start up command
export VERIFY_TOKEN=[YOUR FB WEBHOOK VERFIFICATION TOKEN]
export ACCESS_TOKEN=[YOUR FB PAGE ACCESS TOKEN]
export CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME=[YOUR COULDINARY ACCOUNT NAME]
export CLOUDINARY_API_KEY=[YOUR CLOUDINARY API KEY]
export CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET=[YOUR CLOUDINARY API SECRET]
export DATABASE_URL=[YOUR DATABASE CONNECTION URL]

rake db:setup
rackup
  • make the script executable
> chmod +x start.sh
  1. execute the script
> ./start.sh

Todo

This implementation can benefit from a lot of very easy to add upgrades such as:

  • users having multiple game sessions
  • users playing against their friends
  • users undoing their move
  • overall bot UX improvements

... etc

Feel free to take a crack at any of them, I'll love to see what you come up with.