
TheAIGames – Develop your coding skills by competing in various AI competitions - ceyhan
http://theaigames.com/
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kevinmchugh
Still need to take a closer look, but this looks very cool! I kind of wish I
could see more without signing up. All the attract text is kind of empty of
content. I'd especially like to see the API or even how long it takes to get
started per competition.

Does anyone have a name for this genre of game? "Programming game" is pretty
useless as a search term. I'd like to find a community for this, since I built
two of them and have no idea where to find players or get feedback.

for reference, though these are probably far too niche games to really get
lots of play: Bang!: [https://github.com/KevinMcHugh/mustached-
nemesis](https://github.com/KevinMcHugh/mustached-nemesis) The Resistance:
[https://github.com/KevinMcHugh/secret-
nemesis](https://github.com/KevinMcHugh/secret-nemesis)

~~~
HolyHaddock
I've wondered about building an AI tournament for Avalon before, as my feel
from playing and discussing it is that success in the game is strictly
dominated by social strategy.

It would be interesting to test out different bot strategies - I'll take a
look later. :)

~~~
kevinmchugh
That's exactly why i built this. The groups I've played resistance with all
build up their own rituals or micro optimizations and I'm not sure whether
they're effective or not. For instance, I know certain players who will always
vote against the first proposed mission team, in order to force more selection
and discussion. Do they win more as resistance? If so, does it hurt their spy
win percentage?

I intended to let the bots chatter in certain rigid ways, such as making
accusations, but life has kept me busy or working on other side-projects, so
it's a little unfinished.

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nrjames
The Hello World Open was super fun a few years ago; code the AI for a slot
car. Their site says they'll hold it again this year:

[http://helloworldopen.com/](http://helloworldopen.com/)

~~~
jschulenklopper
Yes, although it might be a different challenge than coding the AI for a slot
car. "The challenge for 2016 is yet to be revealed."

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proc0
This like codingame i suppose? So many competitions/puzzle sites out there.
I'm definitely liking the AI trend lately, and the game one.

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krasi0
If you like these kinds of game AI competitions and are looking for a more
serious challenge, you should have a look at [0] (Starcraft Broodwar
leaderboard and yearly tournaments). Most mainstream programming languages are
supported out of the box (C++, Java, Python, etc.) and there is an active
community around the process of bot development. IRC channel: [1]

Besides, talks are that this is the next problem the Google Deepmind team is
going to tackle.

[0] [http://sscaitournament.com/](http://sscaitournament.com/)

[1]
[http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=BWAPI](http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=BWAPI)

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stefs
i recently tried to implement a monte carlo ai for four in a row, so i thought
i'll give this a try.

downloaded the java starter bot and reuploaded it again without much
modification. failed.

first, there's a null pointer exception as soon as you try to use the "field"
object in the unmodified starter bot. if fixed this.

but now i get:

    
    
        Error dump
        Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM warning: No monotonic clock was available - timed services may be adversely affected if the time-of-day clock changes
        Error: Could not find or load main class BotStarter
        
        Input dump
        Output dump
        Running testcase /opt/aigames/etc/tests_fourinarow/test_fourinarow.txt...
        Testing Bot with setup input...
        ... finished testcase in 0.170000001788 seconds
        Test failed: no output
    
    

that's it. nothing else.

so a) without having a method of painless local testing before uploading, it
gets very tedious and b) the error message "Error: Could not find or load main
class BotStarter" doesn't help me much in this case because i do have a class
BotStarter with the method main - it's pretty much the starter bot right now.

edit: looks like for local testing i can download the engine source and run it
locally.

edit 2:

    
    
        javac -d classes @sources.txt
        ...
        java -cp bin com.theaigames.fourinarow.FourInARow ...
    

looks like this wasn't tested on windows.

edit 3:

got it to run locally. output is:

    
    
        stopping...
    
        Done.
    

even in dev mode. i have no idea if it worked, what i did, which bot won, etc.

i'm giving up.

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kvark
Sorry, but these contests seem pretty blank to me. Still missing the old good
IBM RoboCode. That one was dynamic and fun.

~~~
Frenchgeek
This?

[http://robocode.sourceforge.net/](http://robocode.sourceforge.net/)

~~~
kvark
Yes! oh, these memories... I may still have the sources of my bots around.
Nasty algorithms with zone based tactics, opponent learning with neural nets,
stochastic movement patterns, wheeesh.

~~~
ceyhan
We are still busy with new games, tron, kriegspiel and ludo are the next ones
coming. Will ask the developers to look on robocode also. Thanks for the tip!
:) If you have other nice games for AI, please let us know.

~~~
literumble
I'm the maintainer of LiteRumble [1], which is the official continual rankings
of all Robocode bots. The Robocode install includes a client, which (offline)
runs the battles that then get uploaded to the LiteRumble server, similar to
SETI/Folding@home.

If you need anything on the Literumble which would help with an integration,
don't hesitate the let me know. Discussion about developement of all Robocode
related things happens on the RoboWiki [2].

1\. [http://literumble.appspot.com](http://literumble.appspot.com) 2\.
[http://robowiki.net](http://robowiki.net)

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nstart
Incredible!!! Thanks for sharing. Will try this out soon hopefully :D

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demircancelebi
Hi OP. I was thinking the exact same thing recently. Is this yours?

~~~
ceyhan
Hi Demircan, Can you explain more with what you mean with " I was thinking the
exact same thing recently"

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eggy
Look like fun. I assume Erlang is supported, since they list Elixir? I second
the vote for CUDA support!

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cabalamat
What is the motivation for the company/organisation behind this website?

~~~
ceyhan
Primary motivation is to create a comunity wehere programmers can develop
their coding skills in a fun and engaging way. We also make it possible for
university's to easily host an AI competition privatly for educatinal purposes
e.g. pub.theaigames.com. You can check www.riddles.io for more info.

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LordKano
I have always loved these kinds of games.

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lnrdgmz
Seems like all the links are hard-coded to use http. Any chance you can get
the site to work properly over https?

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svarrall
Are you considering Swift support?

~~~
ceyhan
It's a good question, I will ask the developers to support and come back to
you with the answer.

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ncx
Sorry, i haven't looked at the website yet, so what I may be asking might be
pretty vague and far from reality.

Is the bots api available over http (get/post/whatever)? If no, will it be
possible to have one? It will allow a whole lot of programming languages to be
used. Just authenticate your bot using some token generated by the website,
and then run the bot on your own pc or some server. It will allow us to play
with the website with our favourite programming language even if you guys
don't officialy support it.

For eg. currently my favourite programming language is Red. It is still in
alpha, and is relatively unknown to people, so I don't think that there are
any chances to get it supported on the website. But api over http would allow
me to play with it as well.

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JoostSA
All communication is done through standard IO between your bot and the server.
Opening sockets in your bot is currently not allowed, as this could lead to
unfair advantages for players with faster computers.

We're always looking to add more programming languages, so if you come up with
a starterbot in Red, we will consider adding support for the language.

~~~
ncx
Okay...

Right now I am busy, after some time I will work on it...

Where do I contact you if the starterbot is done?

BTW where do I find the starterbots for other languages?

Edit: nvm, found them...

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LogicFailsMe
Why??? No... CUDA???

