On this page you will find games for which only recently the first computer programs are created. The authors of these games want to challenge you to write a competing program in order to start a new competition at the Olympiad.
If you want to contribute a new challenge, please send email to the
For more information, contact Michael Greenspan.
Hearts is a trick taking card game in which the object is to avoid winning tricks containing hearts; the queen of spades is even more to be avoided. The game first appeared at the end of the nineteenth century and is now popular in various forms in many countries.
See Hearts page at Card Games web page.
Hearts is a particularly challenging game because of the presence of more than a single opponent. This not only makes it more difficult to play, but also to evaluate the quality of a particular player. Thus, the computer olympiad will provide a critical environment for evaluating quality of play against a variety of opponents.
For information. contact
Challenger: Omar Syed
In an attempt to show that computers are not even close to matching the kind of real intelligence used by humans in playing strategy games, we have created a new game called Arimaa. Here is a simple game that can be played using the same board and pieces provided in a standard Chess set. However the rules of the game are very different and suddenly the computers are left way behind. So far behind that even the fastest computers will not be able to beat an average human player. The rules of Arimaa are actually simpler and more intuitive than Chess, but to a computer the game is a thousand times more complex. To the best of our knowledge Arimaa is the first game that was designed intentionally to be difficult for computers to play. See arimaa.com for information about Arimaa.
email:
Challenger: The students of Jonathan Schaeffer
Ataxx is a 2-player strategy game based on a 7x7 tiled grid. A player attempts to secure a greater number of tiles than his/her opponent by moving his/her playing pieces in a manner similar to checkers. One sample page on Ataxx (describing the rules and illustrating how the game is played) is at http://braindamage.org/ataxx/
email:
Challenger: Jeroen Donkers
Bao is a mancala game (like Awari) that is played in different variants in the eastern part of Africa. It is considered as one of the most complex variants of mancala. It is played on a 8x4 board with multi-loop moves and re-entering stones. You can view the rules and download a free demo-version of the game at my Bao Page.
I am ready to start the competition at the upcoming Olympiad. Will you accept the challenge?
email:
Challenger: Donald Green
OCTIŽ is a simple, yet deep game of strategy designed to give humans an
edge over computers. The basic premise of the game is that players
build their pieces as they play. On each turn, a player must decide
whether to move a piece, improve a piece, or add a new piece to the
board. This simple framework creates an extraordinary array of
strategic options and plays to "human" strengths: long-term planning
and heuristic reasoning. GAMES MAGAZINE named OCTI "Best Abstract
Strategy Game of the Year." For a description of the game and other
reviews, visit
www.octi-online.com.
OCTI AI Tournament
Competitions will be held for the following OCTI variants:
II. OCTI on a 9x9 board, playing to capture all three enemy bases
Each game will be played under a two-hour time limit for each player. Robot-designers need not be in attendance in order to compete. For the 9x9 games, basic rules apply (i.e., no wrap-around board, no super-prongs).
The OCTI tournament is sponsored by prof. Donald Green (Yale University). He offers $1000 to the winner of each OCTI tournament.
email:
TwixT is a two-player abstract board game, invented by Alex Randolph. A short introduction to the rules can be found here: www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/proprietary/twixt/twixt1.html. As for Go, it is hard to write a program for TwixT although the rules are quite simple. The number of possible moves is large and judging a board position is fairly difficult.
This is a call to write TwixT-programs for the Computer Olympiad 2004, I plan to finish my own TwixT-program by then. See www.johannes-schwagereit.de for information about my TwixT-program.
email: