How it Works

[This a working document. There are probably many typos. Apologies.]

The interactive Snake competition is an AI programming challenge currently open only to Wits students or staff members. The task is simple: write a program to play a multiplayer version of the game Snake. The goal? Eat enough apples to become the longest snake on the board. But don't forget about the other players. You'll want to stop them doing the same thing. By any means necessary.

Creating a Java Agent

If you're writing your agent in Java, you're in luck. We've made it extremely easy to integrate your agent into the game server from your IDE. This gives you the ability to debug your code, and allows you to quickly iterate on designs.

First download the library from our downloads page. Then create a new Java project in your IDE of choice. Under the project's properties, find a setting for libraries, and add the JAR you just downloaded as a compile-time library. Still in the properties, find the option that specifies the arguments that are passed to the program's main method. Add the following entry to the arguments: -develop. Note that this must always be the first entry in the arguments. You can also add arguments as described by the Downloads page here. Here's a screenshot of what it would look like in NetBeans:

Now you're ready to create your agent. Simply have your class inherit from DevelopmentAgent. Your class must override the run() method, which is where you'll put your agent logic. To illustrate, here's a sample agent that makes random moves:

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.util.Random;
import za.ac.wits.snake.DevelopmentAgent;

public class MyAgent extends DevelopmentAgent {

    public static void main(String args[]) {
        MyAgent agent = new MyAgent();
        MyAgent.start(agent, args);
    }

    @Override
    public void run() {
        try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in))) {
            String initString = br.readLine();
            String[] temp = initString.split(" ");
            int nSnakes = Integer.parseInt(temp[0]);

            while (true) {
                String line = br.readLine();
                if (line.contains("Game Over")) {
                    break;
                }

                String apple1 = line;
                
                //do stuff with apples

                // read in obstacles and do something with them!
                int nObstacles = 3;
                for (int obstacle = 0; obstacle < nObstacles; obstacle++) {
                    String obs = br.readLine();
                    /// do something with obs
                }

                // read in zombies and do something with them!
                int nZombies = 3;
                for (int zombie = 0; zombie < nZombies; zombie++) {
                    String zom = br.readLine();
                    /// do something with zom
                }
            
                int mySnakeNum = Integer.parseInt(br.readLine());
                for (int i = 0; i < nSnakes; i++) {
                    String snakeLine = br.readLine();
                    if (i == mySnakeNum) {
                        //hey! That's me :)
                    }
                    //do stuff with other snakes
                }
                //finished reading, calculate move:
                int move = new Random().nextInt(4);
                System.out.println(move);
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Once you're ready to submit, simply build the JAR and upload it. There's no need to make any further changes!