Topic by qFox

Posted: 10/17/2008 5:33 PM

Post subject: Console Bot Contest

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qFox

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands

I guess this is the correct topic for this. I've started a Lua scripting contest. The goal is to produce a better self playing script for a given game than the other contestants. The first game will be Tennis (thanks theenglishman) and will run for three weeks as a test. This is to check if systems (at the site) work as intended and if rules are fine this way. Signup is obviously free and not restricted to the TAS community. See http://cbc.qfox.nl for more details! :)

qfox.nl

Posted: 10/17/2008 7:10 PM

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Randil

Skilled player (1826)

Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden

I'm having problems signing up on you homepage. It says that cbc.qfox.nl is using an invalid safety certificate, and that the certificate is only valid for pathsharing.com (I hope I translated everything right, I got the message in Swedish). Is there something wrong from my side?

My own page on this site.

Posted: 10/17/2008 11:45 PM

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qFox

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands

Nope. Sorry, that can be confusing. qfox.nl doesn't have a cert installed so it uses the one from pathsharing.com (one of my sites) instead. It's the same server though. Just ignore it... Like this: http://support.mozilla.com/nl/kb/Secure+Connection+Failed#Certificate_is_only_valid_for_i_site_name_i_

qfox.nl

Posted: 10/29/2008 7:40 PM

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DarkKobold

Skilled player (1651)

Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy

how many peeps have signed up? Is this contest still going on?

Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.

Posted: 10/29/2008 7:41 PM

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qFox

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands

There's three signups, no activity otherwise... yet... i hope.. :)

qfox.nl

Posted: 10/29/2008 8:39 PM

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ZeXr0

Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883

I think it would gather more peoples if it wasn't tenis. Tenis is pretty hard and it's pretty boring too. It might be better to choose a one player game first, and then get a multiplayer game. Because if you play multiplayer, you do know that people need to decide if there are on top or on the bottom ? Because it will be impossible to make them battle.

Posted: 10/29/2008 8:49 PM

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qFox

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands

Well this is just for testing anyways... An easy chance to get to be #1 ! ;)

qfox.nl

Posted: 10/29/2008 9:01 PM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (297)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Tennis seems very easy in my opinion.

Posted: 10/29/2008 10:24 PM

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DarkKobold

Skilled player (1651)

Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy

Has anyone grabbed all the memory addresses yet? I realize this is a competition, but it could be a friendly one :) I'm interested in competing, but I hate finding memory addresses.

Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.

Posted: 10/30/2008 8:36 AM

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qFox

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands

Yeah I've been thinking about adding some kind of database but I'm still not quite sure of the exact implementation of such a thing. I won't be coding it before next week anyways, but if anyone has any idea's on how to please do tell. So I mean some kind of memory address database for games. No wiki...

qfox.nl

Posted: 10/30/2008 3:44 PM

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ZeXr0

Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883

I know that DarkKobold is able to generate Super Mario Bros 1 custom level easily. It could be nice to generate random level, don't show them to anyone. And that would be the contest, the one that get more levels completed.

Posted: 10/30/2008 9:47 PM

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DeHackEd

Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Former player

Joined: 11/6/2004
Posts: 833

Well, there IS a wiki out there... Also, just for the hell of it, I whacked together a possible supervisor engine for use. I haven't tested it yet but it should allow two scripts to run isolated with time limits and are unable to interfere with each other or the emulator. Intended format of bot code:

-- Initialization goes here

while true do
-- processing goes here

    -- submit button press requests for this frame
    coroutine.yield{start=1, up=1, A=1}
end

Posted: 10/31/2008 6:51 AM

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Xkeeper

Banned User

Joined: 12/23/2004
Posts: 1850

Tennis honestly seems like a game that would work best brute forced. Hit A, hit A again after a growing delay. If the ball scores in this interval, go to next round and repeat, with the same idea applying for opponent's serves.

Perma-banned

Posted: 10/31/2008 6:54 AM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (297)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Xkeeper wrote:

Tennis honestly seems like a game that would work best brute forced. Hit A, hit A again after a growing delay. If the ball scores in this interval, go to next round and repeat, with the same idea applying for opponent's serves.

For entertaining games, I'd actually like to see the bot cooperate with the other player as long as possible rather than failing it at the first try every time.

Posted: 10/31/2008 6:57 AM

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Xkeeper

Banned User

Joined: 12/23/2004
Posts: 1850

Bisqwit wrote:

For entertaining games, I'd actually like to see the bot cooperate with the other player as long as possible rather than failing it at the first try every time.

I was actually mulling over the idea of a bot that instead aimed to continue the game as long as possible while writing this :) My post was mostly in refrence to the contest and its goals for this game (complete as fast as possible). I'm almost tempted to try writing a bot that unintelligently hits the ball back and forth just to see how difficult it is. The good thing is that I already have a nice idea of how to begin it.

Perma-banned

Posted: 11/3/2008 10:38 AM

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qFox

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands

There's less than a week to go! Tennis ends this friday. Xkeeper: the current interim build of fceux (2.0.4i) allows you to read the rom by rom.readbyte(). That way you can read a byte from the file (so the same address as your hex editor shows you). For today you'll have to compile that interim version yourself, tomorrow the default interim build link (http://fceux.com/zip) will probably contain this update. Please try to upload at least something guys, even if it's just a random button mashing script :)

qfox.nl

Posted: 11/3/2008 7:59 PM

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ZeXr0

Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883

I'll try to find the time to try something. I'm not really good at TASing, but maybe I'll be able to play Tennis a little. Let see what I can do.

Posted: 11/4/2008 8:20 AM
(Edited: 11/4/2008 12:55 PM)

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Dromiceius

Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332

I signed up. Can't promise I'll participate in any NES competitions, though- my experience with FCEUX has been less than awesome... Anyway, I had an idea for another contest that I think more people will take an interest in: a "cooperative bot" competition, for a beat-em-up. The goal would be to reach the end of the game; the bot that gets closest to defeating the last boss wins, with high score being the tiebreaker. The contestants don't know in advance which bots will be paired up with which, and in that way the challenge is intended as an example and/or application of the Prisoner's Dilemma. If you treat your partner as an enemy and cause him to die, you lose his assistance and may not get as far as you would have otherwise. Conversely, the other guy may try to metaphorically kick you down some stairs when you're not looking. What do you do? I can imagine lots of different approaches; myriad strategies and counter-strategies, like the war between spammers and the civilized world. It tickles my brain to think about it.

Posted: 11/4/2008 10:18 AM

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qFox

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands

I like that idea :) But I think we should start out with bomberman. It seems a lot of people are interested in it.

qfox.nl

Posted: 11/4/2008 12:39 PM
(Edited: 11/4/2008 8:49 PM)

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (297)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

http://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/bomberman.lst -- Here's a symbolic disassembly of the Bomberman ROM. I labelled some RAM & ROM addresses, though others are still unlabelled. Some descriptions of the RAM values can be found here. http://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/bomberman.ini It should be more than enough for one who creates a bot for this game, with information about the field layout, the enemies' locations and movement, information about the bombs placed by the player including the time until their detonation, and the player character's location. Note that Bomberman is a single-player game. :(

Posted: 11/4/2008 4:58 PM

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ZeXr0

Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883

Is the multiplayer version start on the SNES ?

Posted: 11/4/2008 11:02 PM

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4matsy

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 498

Well, Bomberman 2 for NES has 3-player multiplayer, but the SNES games are a whole lot better in that regard... :p

Posted: 11/5/2008 4:19 PM

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qFox

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands

With gens now also supporting Lua, maybe it's a good idea to run three parallel contests? One for each supporting console? Or will that be too much...? The timeframe would still be about 2 months.

qfox.nl

Posted: 11/5/2008 4:54 PM

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alden

Player (121)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

qFox wrote:

With gens now also supporting Lua

Wait, really? Did I miss something? :D I couldn't find anything on the forums about this...

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 11/6/2008 9:50 AM

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qFox

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands

I've heard it on IRC ;) Where's your submission Alden? Just one more day!

qfox.nl

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