Haunted Tiles

Haunted Tiles is an application to pit student-developed ai against each other in a fun game.

Rulezzz

General

1. Teams can have at max 4 team members
2. Teams must be made up of actively enrolled students from the same school
3. Teams must submit their code by November 13th 5:00pm MST

AI Scripts

1. Libraries are allowed, but you'll have to fully embed them in your script
2. Scripts that error result in a round loss
3. Scripts that take longer than 2 seconds to return result in a round loss
4. We reserve the right to disqualify any script if we suspect plagiarism or foul play

Tournament Rules

1. Inner School is seeded by registration order
2. Grand Finale is seeded by size of school of the winners
3. Every match is the best of 5 rounds
4. Different board configurations (maps) will be used throughout the competition

Winnings

1. Grand Prize - 1 Winner - $1000 Scholarship
2. 1st - Every School - $500 cash
3. 2nd - Every School - $250 cash
4. 3rd - Every School - $100 cash

Game Details

The game looks like this:

Here is the UI Annotated:

Description

The game starts with a 7 by 7 board of breaking tiles. On the board are two teams (home & away) each with 3 players represented by cute monsters. Every turn the monsters move one tile or remain on their current tile by jumping. Every time that a tile is stepped on (jumping is a step) by a monster that tile breaks more. Every tile can sustain three steps. That is on the 3rd step the tile will break and any number of monsters on that step will fall to their death. Monsters can also fall to their death if they walk off the board.

The objective to the game is to remain on the board longer than your opponent.

Game Rules

1. All monsters make 1 move per turn
2. A monster can move North, South, East, West or Jump in place
3. Tiles have a strength of 3. Every step or jump on a tile breaks it by 1
4. Monsters die by stepping on a tile with a strength of 1 or walking into an empty space

Board Configs (maps)

The default 7 x 7 board has every tile at full strength. There are different maps that you can test your AI on. For the competition we will be cycling through different maps throughout the competition.

How to win a round

A round is over when all three monsters on one team have fallen to their death. The team that has any number of monsters still alive wins the round.

Tie States

In the event that both teams lose their last monsters on the same turn the winner is determined by which team has broken the most tiles.

In the event that both teams broke the same number of tiles than that round is declared a tie and another round begins.

How to Win a Match

A match is comprised with an Odd number of rounds. The winner of the match is whoever has won the most rounds. For example if a match is comprised of 5 rounds then the team who wins 3 rounds wins the match.

Tie States

If a match ends with the rounds won between two teams tied then we will play singular rounds until a team wins one more. For example if at the end of 5 rounds the round count is 2-2-1. That is 2 wins for the home team, 2 wins for the away team, and 1 tie; then the winner of the next round will win the entire match.

If two teams tie all 5 rounds of a match or tie to the count of 10 rounds, then a coin toss will determine the winner of the match. For eample at the end of 5 rounds if the count is 0-0-5 then we will coin toss. If at the end of 5 rounds the count is 1-1-2 or 2-2-1 and we keep playing rounds to determine the winner and those rounds keep tying to the count of 1-1-8 or 2-2-6. Then the winner is determined by a coint toss.

To Compete

This section walks you through the necessary steps to compete in this coding competition. If you have any questions email us at hauntedtiles@tylertech.com

Step 1: Register

Register by visiting https://haunted-tiles.tylerdev.io/register and filling out the form.

Step 2: Code

If you are reading this than the competition has begun. Please read the game details thoroughly above.

Given the game details you will code an AI that will send instructions to your team on how each monster should move.

Prerequisites

Ensure your computer is ready by installing the following

latest stable version of node (LTS) here -> https://nodejs.org/en/

(Optional) Git here -> https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-Installing-Git

Getting the Code

You can clone the repo in two ways:

Using the command: git clone https://github.com/tyler-technologies-oss/codecomp-dropper.git

Or visiting https://github.com/tyler-technologies-oss/codecomp-dropper and clicking code -> download zip

Running the Code

After downloading or installing open the project in your favoriate IDE. We recommend the lightweight Visual Stuido Code. Check it out here -> https://code.visualstudio.com/download

At the top level directiory run

npm install

After initial installation you can run the app with

npm start

This will start the app on your local machine.

You can see the app running by visiting http://localhost:4200 in your favorite browser.

Developing your AI

Your AI will be written in Javascript, a common web technology.

The game engine is expecting a main function with two parameters, gameState and side. And it is expecting the function to return an array with three directions.

For example look at this main function:

function main(gameState, side) {
    return ['south', 'south', 'south'];
  }

Here are the interfaces of the data you receive. You can look at example scripts to build ideas on how you can leverage the data

export interface IGameState {
  boardSize: [number, number];
  tileStates: TileState[][];
  teamStates: TeamStates;
}

export enum TileState {
  Good = 3,
  Warning = 2,
  Danger = 1,
  Broken = 0,
}

export enum Side {
  Home = 'home',
  Away = 'away',
}

export enum MoveDirection {
  North = 'north',
  South = 'south',
  East = 'east',
  West = 'west',
  None = 'none',
}

export type TeamStates = Record<Side, ITeamMemberState[]>;

export interface ITeamMemberState {
  coord: Coord;
  isDead: boolean;
}

export type Coord = [number, number];

There are three ways you can develop your AI.

1. Using the included blank AI file
2. Using the realtime in app Code Editor Window
3. Adding a team config with you script

Using the included blank AI file We have mocked out a blank AI called development.ai.ts

You can find it along with example AIs in the following folder: src > app > game > ai

This AI appears in the dropdown config as "Development Team"

Using the realtime in app Code Editor Window

See the picture below, by clicking the button you will launch a window where you can code with syntax highlighting.

As long as you keep the app running this window will keep you code saved. You can run that code against other team configs and also download it to submit!

Adding a team config

By clicking the add button you can add a team config with a github script link or the script pasted in like a string.

This can be advantagous as you can write multiple scripts and test them against each other.

This also aligns with how submitted code will work.

I recommend that everyone add your final script as a team to make sure it will submit correctly through the submission form.

Testing your AI

We have included three different ways to test your AI up to your preference.

1. You can develop all your code in the development.ai.ts script and chose the "Development" Team Config to run against other test AIs.

2. You can directly code in the developer window and click run.

3. You can add a new team config using the Add Team box. (You will want to use this if you would like to test different AIs you've developed against each other)

NOTE: No matter how you test make sure you test your final AI with the Add Team Box. This will ensure successful submission of your code to the competition.

Step 3: Submission

STOP! Have you tested your script using the Add Team Box yet? This will make sure submission will work!

Once you are happy with your AI you can submit your code directly in your local app on the Submission tab.

Either paste your script directly in the submit box

Or submit a URL to the raw file that is publically hosted.

This is how you get the raw file, find the file and click:

Note: Make sure your team name matches the same team name you submitted on the Registration Form.

Step 4: Competition

The competition will be live streamed on TWITCH.TV. Follow us at https://www.twitch.tv/tylertechnologies

Tournament Format

This virtual coding competition will be a best of 5 single elimination tournament split across two stages

Stage 1: Inner School Competition

During this stage teams will be compete against other teams from their same school

Seeding will be based upon registration order. For example the first team to register will play the last team to register

Stage 2: The Grand Finale

(this format changed to round robin because of only 3 school participating)

The winner from each inner school competition will then compete against each other in the grand finale. Only the first place AI from each school makes it to this stage

This will be a round robin style match. Every school will compete against every other school in 5 rounds. Whoever has the most round wins at the end is our grand finale winner.

If there is tie in round wins the tied schools will go through 5 rounds again

Questions?

Email hauntedtiles@tylertech.com

GOOD LUCK