Looney Tunes Race – Planet X 🛰️

CSCI 310 – Introduction to Operations, Fall 2025
Final Project – Option 1 (Multithreaded Race Game)
Group 8

Overview

This project is a multithreaded race game written in C using POSIX threads (pthreads).
Four Looney Tunes characters race on a grid-based board to be the first to carry a golden carrot/flag (C) to the Mountain (F) on Planet X.

Runners (each in their own thread):

• Bugs Bunny (B)
• Taz Devil (D)
• Tweety (T)
• Marvin the Martian (M)

All runners share the same board and game state, which is protected with a pthread_mutex so the threads don’t corrupt each other’s data.

---

Game Rules & Mechanics

1. Basic Race Rules

• Each character moves randomly around the board in its own thread.
• There are two golden carrots/flags (C) on the board.
• A runner must:
  1. Step on a C to pick it up.
  2. Then reach the Mountain (F) while carrying the carrot/flag.
• When a runner is carrying a carrot/flag, they are shown as e.g. B(C).
• The race ends immediately when any runner reaches F while carrying a carrot/flag.

2. Movement Constraints

• Only empty squares or special squares (C, F) can be stepped on.
• No two non-Marvin runners are allowed to stand on the same spot.
• No one is allowed to step on F unless they are already carrying a carrot/flag.

---

Special Marvin Mechanics

3. Time Machine – Moving Mountain

• Marvin can activate the space-time machine after a certain number of full cycles.
• When the machine activates, the Mountain (F) moves to a new random empty position on the board.
• This makes the race more chaotic and changes the target location.

4. Shooting & Stealing

• Marvin is the only character allowed to step onto a square occupied by another runner.
• If Marvin lands on another runner:
  • That runner is eliminated from the race.
  • If the runner was carrying a carrot/flag, Marvin steals it.
• Other runners are not allowed to step on each other.

---

Compilation

You will need:

• A C compiler (e.g. gcc)
• POSIX threads support (-pthread)

Compile with:

gcc -pthread race_game.c -o race_game