On Monday, Dec. 3rd, the RedLynx offices in Helsinki were transformed into a colleseum of snake battle.

We had the top five programmers of the Master of Mato 2012 programming challenge semi-finals all set to pit their snakes in a battle-royale death-match, we also provided drinks and snacks to all participants.

There were some some technical problems during the tournament, but in the end we got around to witness a battle worthy of the title "finals". Two of the AI's were fighting evenly, making it a toss-up as to who would win after each seperate round. After the scheduled rounds, we had a tie for the first place with bots 'matofaka' and 'BitBlast'.

To break the tie, and to crown our Snake-scripting winner, we pitted these bots against each other, two matofaka's snakes versus two from the BitBlast's camp. The snake to take the first place would be declared winner. 

After a grueling day of fighting, and multiple close calls, matofaka won the match with a staggering one food difference.

Afterwards we had a small party at the office, played Trials Evolution, pool, enjoyed drinks, and the company of the participants. This party ended a bit after midnight, so I'm pretty sure everyone had a decent time.

Antti, some of you may know him as ANBA (there's still an XBL avatar prop!), sat down and told Edge what he believes to be the ten most important things to do when creating a game, these are a sample from Antti's 10 Commandments of Game Design.

Reward the player

When a player get’s something done, and done well, give them something. It’s a digital medium, so giving stuff is easy! A medal is good. A beeping sound and a green light when you pass a checkpoint is good. An explosion, fireworks and total mayhem of music and visuals when you get a Platinum medal is good. Whatever it is – honours, storyline progression, glory – just give them rewards.

 

 

 

Challenge the player

Here it is. Wits, skills, questions about the situation: let the player unwrap it by using the game mechanics that you have given him.

 

 

For the full list please head over to the EDGE article.

 

To talk about this article with other Trials-riders, head on over to the RedLynx Forum! 

The Master of Mato competition is heating up!

70 people registered for our Head-to-Head-to-Head-to-Head snake game and now the top 5 competitors are invited to the finals event, which will be held at the Helsinki-based RedLynx offices, on Monday December 3rd.

Competitors had two weeks to code an AI for a four-player snake game, and the contestants gave positive feedback about the experience. They enjoyed the semi-finals in a sports-like fashion, and were also happy to have a chance to apply their skills towards something other than work.

The main forum for the competition has been a Freenode-hosted IRC channel, and the channel has been active throughout the competition. During the initial phase our servers hosted over one thousand matches as the participants worked on getting the most out of their AI snakes.

The Master of Mato will receive a tablet of his or her choice! Currently DrunkenMaster is in the lead with a score of 86 points, which is 7 more than the nearest rival, WeGoSpaceNow.

Details:

• The game area is a square grid of size 50x50. Four worms work simultaneously in the field.

• There are 10 food items distributed around the field at all times.

• When a worm eats a food item (by moving to the same square as the food), the size of the worm is increased by three units, and a new food is created in a random position.


• A worm may perish during the game by colliding against the edges of the area, or against other worms or itself. There are no other obstacles in the area.


• All contestants begin the game as size 5 worms.


• The contestants have a fixed amount of time each turn to tell the server which direction their worm should move that turn. You may send up to three instructions during the same turn, the last one to arrive to the server before the turn ends is used to guide your worm. The time available each turn will be 200ms.


• The game ends when only one worm is alive, or when any worm reaches 1000 points.

Please check out these links for the Semi-final Results (where you can watch every match that has been run so far) and for the Full Contest Information.

Be sure to check back after Dec. 3rd when we will share the details from the Finals.

That's right, Riders.

Cannibal Shogun brings you more True Fans, the winners from last episode's DLC building competition and a whole new challenge for the holiday season. Check it to wreck it, let's begin!

Got feedback? Let us know on the RedLynx Forum!