A Bibliography of Programming Games

The Programming Games Bibliography is an attempt to compile a complete list of articles / papers on the subject. A Programming Game is played by writing programs to compete against each other, typically by attempting to disable opponents in the memory of a virtual computer or by controlling simulated battle robots.

Please help complete the list by leaving a comment if you remember an article not listed, even if you can only recall vague details. :-)

Bibliography

• Vyssotsky, Victor A. Darwin: A Game of Survival and (Hopefully) Evolution.
  New Jersey: Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1961.
• ℵ₀ "Computer Recreations: Darwin."
  Software: Practice and Experience 2 (Jan-Mar 1972): 93-96.
• Nelson, Theodor H. "Survival of the Fittest."
  Computer Lib / Dream Machines. Self-published, 1974. 49.
• Nelson, Theodor H. "Survival of the Fittest."
  The CoEvolution Quarterly (Summer 1975): 141.
• Taylor Rollo, Mary "Robot War: Strategy for Learning."
  Softtalk (Jan 1981): 18-20.
• Voskuil, Jon "Robotwar."
  SoftSide (Sep 1981): 92-93.
• Lubar, David "Robotwar."
  Creative Computing (Oct 1981): 68-69.
• White, Harry "Robot War."
  The Space Gamer 45 (Nov 1981): 4.
• Edmunds, William "Robotwar: A Wargame for All Programmers."
  Computer Gaming World (Nov-Dec 1981): 13-16,33.
• "Computer Gaming World's Robotwar Tournament."
  Computer Gaming World (Nov-Dec 1981): 17.
• Feigel, Curtis "Robotwar."
  BYTE (Dec 1981): 24-34.
• Hunter, David "Olympic Metals: The RobotWar Tournaments."
  Softline (Jul 1982): 28-30.
• "Robotwar: Tournament Results."
  Computer Gaming World (Mar-Apr 1983): 30-31.
• Hoffman, Paul S. "Robots Maneuver Humans Into Programming."
  The Rainbow (Apr 1983): 140-142.
• Calle, Carlos "Robot Battle."
  HOT CoCo (Sep 1983): 53-54.
• "We Have a Draw! Robotwar Tournament Results."
  Computer Gaming World (Apr 1984): 36.
• Dewdney, A. K. "Computer Recreations: In a game called core war hostile programs engage in a battle of bits."
  Scientific American (May 1984): 14–22.
• "4th Annual Robotwar Tournament."
  Computer Gaming World (Jan 1985): 9.
• Dewdney, A. K. "Computer Recreations: A Core War bestiary of viruses, worms and other threats to computer memories."
  Scientific American (Mar 1985): 14-23.
• "Nobody Wins 4th Annual CGW Robotwar Tournament."
  Computer Gaming World (Jun-Jul 1985): 9.
• Cottrell, Jon "Core Wars."
  Your Computer (Sep 1985): 72–74.
• Martínez Lara, Sergio "Batcode, una auténtica batalla dentro de tu ordenador."
  MICROHOBBY 70 (18-24 Mar 1986): 22-23.
• Martínez Lara, Sergio "Batcode, una auténtica batalla dentro de tu ordenador (II)."
  MICROHOBBY 71 (25 Mar - 1 Apr 1986): 28-30.
• Martínez Lara, Sergio "Batcode (III)."
  MICROHOBBY 73 (8-14 Apr 1986): 28-29.
• Martínez Lara, Sergio "Batcode, una batalla dentro de tu ordenador (y IV)."
  MICROHOBBY 74 (15-21 Apr 1986): 28-29.
• Eliraz, Ziv "Core Wars."
  Dragon User (Sep 1986): 16-21.
• Dewdney, A. K. "Computer Recreations: A program called MICE nibbles its way to victory at the first Core War tournament."
  Scientific American (Jan 1987): 14-20.
• Edgar, Gerald A. "Darwin: A survival game for programmers."
  Computer Language (Apr 1987): 79-86.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Core Wars."
  MCmicrocomputer 67 (Oct 1987): 118-120.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Redcode e Mars."
  MCmicrocomputer 68 (Nov 1987): 138-142.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Strategia e tattica."
  MCmicrocomputer 69 (Dec 1987): 142-146.
• Fisch, Henrik and Joachim Graf. "Kampfprogramme: Schlacht im Computer."
  Happy Computer (Dez 1987): 26-32,117-125.
• de Weger, Mark "Battle of the RAM."
  The Micro User (Jan 1988): 42-43.
• Wörrlein, Hartmut and Henrik Fisch. "Das Kampfprogram für den C64."
  Happy Computer (Jan 1988): 51,66-67.
• de Weger, Mark "The program strikes back."
  The Micro User (Feb 1988): 52-54.
• Fisch, Henrik "Die Schlacht im Computer (Teil 2)."
  Happy Computer (Feb 1988): 131-133.
• White, Ron "Pulse Train: Spawning a Computer “Virus”."
  80 Micro (Mar 1988): 16-18.
• "25th Anniversary of Computer Games Weekend."
  The Computer Museum Report 22 (Spring 1988): 1-2.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Il torneo di Boston."
  MCmicrocomputer 76 (Jul-Aug 1988): 88-91.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Il torneo italiano."
  MCmicrocomputer 77 (Sep 1988): 128-132.
• Spork, Maz "Slaget om Siliciummet."
  DataTid (Sep 1988): 92-94.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Fiat Lux."
  MCmicrocomputer 79 (Nov 1988): 142-144.
• Tausend, Thomas "Kampf in der RAM-Arena."
  ATARI magazin (Jan 1989): 38-39.
• Dewdney, A. K. "Computer Recreations: Of worms, viruses and Core War."
  Scientific American (Mar 1989): 110-113.
• Simeoni, Fabio "La Guerra dei Nuclei."
  Commodore Computer Club (May 1989): 20-23.
• Spira, Jeff and William R. Buckley. "Core Wars."
  Commodore Magazine (May 1989): 60-61.
• Gualdi, Marco "RedCode."
  MCmicrocomputer 88 (Set 1989): 276-278.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "CW: il secondo Torneo Italiano."
  MCmicrocomputer 92 (Jan 1990): 128-131.
• "Final Omega Tournament Results."
  Computer Gaming World 70 (Apr 1990): 38.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Crobots."
  MCmicrocomputer 97 (Jun 1990): 159-162.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Il Primo Torneo di Crobots di MC-Link."
  MCmicrocomputer 108 (Jun 1991): 148-150.
• Zientara, Wojciech "Wojny rdzeniowe."
  Moje Atari (Lip-Sie 1990): 6-8.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Il Primo Torneo di Crobots di MCmicrocomputer."
  MCmicrocomputer 115 (Feb 1992): 156-160.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Il Secondo Torneo di CRobots di MCmicrocomputer."
  MCmicrocomputer 124 (Dec 1992): 248-253.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Il Terzo Torneo di CRobots di MCmicrocomputer."
  MCmicrocomputer 135 (Dec 1993): 262-267.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Il Quarto Torneo di CRobots di MCmicrocomputer."
  MCmicrocomputer 146 (Dec 1994): 270-274.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Il Quinto Torneo di CRobots di MCmicrocomputer."
  MCmicrocomputer 157 (Dec 1995): 264-268.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Il Sesto Torneo di CRobots di MCmicrocomputer."
  MCmicrocomputer 168 (Dec 1996): 302-307.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "Il Settimo Torneo di CRobots di MCmicrocomputer."
  MCmicrocomputer 179 (Dec 1997): 218-222.
• Giustozzi, Corrado "L'Ottavo Torneo di CRobots di MCmicrocomputer."
  MCmicrocomputer 190 (Dec 1998): 144-147.

Darwin: Celebrating 50 Years of Programming Games

Darwin was the earliest programming game, invented by Victor Vyssotsky in August 1961. The idea of the game was to write a program to out-replicate and disable all opponents.

Each program had a number of protected locations and interacted via three functions:

• PROBE - return the start, end and owner of a memory block
• CLAIM - reserve memory
• KILL - disable a program

If a protected location was PROBEd the current program lost control. A CLAIM or KILL could only be used on a location which had previously been PROBEd.

Douglas McIlroy coded Darwin on Bell Labs' IBM 7090 and the game slowly progressed until an unbeatable program emerged, designed by Robert Morris.

Robert's program used an adaptive search. If the program PROBEd an opponent and lost control it would avoid reusing the same offset. A successful offset would be stored then used for future PROBEs and to initialise new copies of itself. Robert's program adapted to become a specialist killer.

In 1972 ℵ₀ (Aleph-Null) published the rules of Darwin in Software Practice and Experience, inspiring a number of new implementations. In 1987 Gerald Edgar published his 8080 version to accompany an article in Computer Language.

Unfortunately Darwin faced a major problem. Programs were written in machine language and could only compete against others written for the same computer. When A. K. Dewdney introduced Core War in 1984 he addressed the limitation by defining the MARS virtual computer and Redcode, a simplified assembly language.

Although Darwin has been consigned to the history book, I'll never grow tired of reading about it! Do you remember playing Darwin? If so, I'd love to hear the details.

References

• ℵ₀ "Computer Recreations: Darwin"
  Software: Practice and Experience 2 (Jan-Mar 1972): 93-96.
• Dewdney, A. K. "In a game called core war hostile programs engage in a battle of bits" Scientific American 250 (May 1984): 14–22.
• Edgar, Gerald A. "Darwin: A survival game for programmers."
  Computer Language (Apr 1987): 79-86.
• Levy, Steven Artificial Life: The Quest for a New Creation.
  New York: Pantheon Books, 1992. 317-319.
• Vyssotsky, Victor A. Darwin: A Game of Survival and (Hopefully) Evolution.
  New Jersey: Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1961.

See Also

• Darwin, a Game of Survival of the Fittest among Programs (PDF)
• Darwin on corewar.co.uk
• The Programming Games Wiki
• A Brief History of Programming Games
• Core War - The King of Programming Games

Celebrating 30 Years of Color Robot Battle

Color Robot Battle is one of the earliest commercial programming games, published 30 years ago for the TRS-80 Color Computer by The Image Producers.

The game is played by writing programs to control a robot's movement, sensors and weapons. Programs are written in a hybrid of the BASIC / Logo programming languages. Two robots enter an arena with the survivor being declared the winner.

I asked the designer and programmer of Color Robot Battle what inspired the game:

“Well, the Apple II program did along with the feeling I could do it better. All of these were initially inspired by Core Wars, I believe. I did want to make the language complete enough to have quite a bit of control and flexibility over the robots.”

-- Glenn Sogge

“The robot controlling programming language was based on BASIC. Prior to working on CRB, I'd written a simple BASIC interpreter for the PDP-11, so it was a natural choice.”

-- Del Ogren

Color Robot Battle is a fantastic example of compact code. The game, compiler and full screen editor are all written in 6809 assembly language and somehow manage to fit on a 4K ROM.

Although the language of CRB only takes a few minutes to learn, a whole range of strategies are possible. There are four types of command available:

• movement: followed by a number. Movement commands are F(orwards), B(ackwards), L(eft), R(ight), H(alt), T(urn), D(irection).
• conditional: detect what the robot is facing. =(true) or #(false) followed by R(obot), W(all), M(issile), L(aser), S(omething - any direction), ?(random).
• flow control: C(all) or G(oto) a label. Labels are defined at the beginning of a line and terminated by a >.
• attack: XL to fire the laser or XM to fire a missile.

The program starts at the label START>. Multiple commands on one line are separated by a colon :. If a condition fails the rest of the line is skipped.

Here's a simple example that manages to win a few battles:

*SIGMA               ; robot name
START>               ; start here
F5                   ; move forward 5
=W:T1                ; if facing a wall, turn 45°                
=?:T1                ; randomly turn 45°
=R:XL                ; if facing a robot, fire laser
GSTART               ; repeat from start

Thanks to the simplicity of the language, CRB makes the perfect introduction to programming games. So, does anyone fancy a tournament? ;-)

• Color Robot Battle on the Programming Games Wiki
• Color Robot Battle: Adventures in Programming
• Tandy/TRS-80 Color Computer Robot Battle

Interactive Fiction: 4K Adventure

I've always been a fan of text adventures - exploring a fantasy world, drawing a map and solving a few puzzles along the way. A couple of my early favourites were The Hobbit and Heroes of Khan. When I discovered shareware I spent hours puzzling over Humbug, Curses and t-zero. Even now I'm still working through The Lost Treasures of Infocom :-)

So when I needed a project to exercise my new 8086 assembly skills a text adventure seemed the natural choice. I decided to cram as much as possible into a 4K program - verb-noun parser, text decompression and a snowy forest to explore.

After 35 hours coding I'd created 4K Adventure complete with dwarves, mischievous elves and stolen magic. It managed to work despite the spaghetti code and a couple of dubious algorithms!

Impressed that I'd actually completed a project I immediately started work on a sequel and a simple operating system...  I still haven't completed either. Maybe one day ;-)

• 4K Adventure is available to download from The Interactive Fiction Archive and runs perfectly using DOSBox.

A History of Programming Games 1961-1989

In a programming game players write a program to complete a specific task, usually to wipe out all opponents. The contest takes place between either programs in the memory of a virtual computer or robots in an arena.

Darwin

In August 1961, Douglas McIlroy, Robert Morris and Victor Vyssotsky invented Darwin and the programming game genre. Programs written using IBM 7090 machine code competed to destroy all opponents and be the most prolific replicator. An Umpire provided three functions to probe memory for an opponent, to claim memory or kill an opponent.

RobotWar

RobotWar was written in the 1970s by Silas Warner for the PLATO computer system and published commercially for the Apple II by MUSE Software in 1981. Programs written in a proprietary high level language control robots which battle to eliminate all opponents in a virtual arena. In the early 1980s a society was formed and an annual tournament organised by Computer Gaming World.

Color Robot Battle

The Image Producers released Color Robot Battle in 1981 for the TRS-80 Color Computer. The game was played by writing programs in a simple hybrid of BASIC and Logo to control a battle robot. Programs faced each other in a one-on-one battle with the last robot standing being declared winner.

Core War

Alexander Dewdney described Core War in the May 1984 issue of Scientific American, introducing programming games to a wide audience for the first time. Core War became popular overnight. A society was formed, a newsletter published and regular tournaments held. Core War is played between assembly languages programs in the memory of a virtual computer. Each program attempts to eradicate all opponents. Core War can be played by email at KOTH.org or KOTH@SAL.

DROID

Inspired by RobotWar, DROID was developed at Reichhold Chemicals as a teaching aid in December 1984. Programs to control robots are written in the D-code assembly language and attempt to exterminate all adversaries in the virtual arena. DROID can be played by Telnet on the Empire HPe3000 server.

CROBOTS

Tom Poindexter published CROBOTS as shareware in December 1985 after being inspired by RobotWar. A subset of C is used to control battle robots. As usual, the aim of the game is to destroy all opponents in a virtual arena. A king of the hill tournament is organised by Maurizio Camangi.

P-Robots

In 1988 David Malmberg released P-Robots, a robot battle game based on a subset of the Pascal programming language and inspired by CROBOTS. Later versions introduced a variety of optional extras for robots, teams and obstacles.

OMEGA

OMEGA is a programming game written by Stuart Marks and published by Origin Systems in 1989. The object of the game is to program a tank to defeat a series of increasingly more powerful enemies. Each opponent defeated unlocks a higher security clearance and increased budget.

Unfortunately there's very little information about some of these games online. Do you remember playing any of the above? Which is your favourite programming game and why?

RobotWar and the Army of Clones

Back in 1981 Silas Warner created a game for MUSE Software which would go on to spawn an entire army of clones. Silas is probably better know as the author of the legendary Castle Wolfenstein. However it was RobotWar which went on to inspire a whole new genre.

Silas developed RobotWar for the PLATO computer system and later ported it to the Apple II for release by MUSE. The game is set at a time in the distant future when war has been declared hazardous to human health. Wars still rage, but the combatants are robots programmed to battle to the death.

RobotWar is played by writing the control program for one of these battle robots. The program controls the movement, radar and gun of the robot. Here's one of the example robots:

;     ROBOT  'SCANNER'
; SEND RADAR PULSE AND FIRE IF AN
; ENEMY IS SPOTTED

SCAN
AIM + 7 TO AIM

CHECK
AIM TO RADAR
IF RADAR > 0 GOTO SCAN
0 - RADAR TO SHOT
GOTO CHECK

Scanner is a simple stationary warrior. The first instruction (at scan) turns the gun 7° clockwise. The next instruction (at check) lines up the radar with the gun. The radar returns a positive number if it detects nothing, otherwise it returns minus the distance to the opponent.

The next line jumps back to scan if the radar returns positive. Otherwise a shell is fired by the penultimate instruction and the next line jumps back to check.

RobotWar earned a strong following in the early 1980's. Computer Gaming World organised annual tournaments and a group of enthusiasts formed the Postal RobotWar Club of America.

RobotWar has inspired a huge number of clones, I'll just mention a select few here:

• CROBOTS by Tom Poindexter (1985) uses a subset of C
• P-Robots by David Malmberg (1988) uses a Pascal subset
• AT-Robots by Ed T Toten (1992) uses assembly language
• Robocode by Mathew Nelson (2001) uses Java

Robocode is currently the most active. More information is available on the RoboWiki.

Please let me know if you think I've missed an important robot programming game or one of historical note. Also I'd love to hear from you if you have any memories of the above.