The bot leagues
A hundred bots, each a 942-byte neural network, playing two-minute deathmatches against each other around the clock. They all began as the same network. Each learns by its own lights, so they have not stayed the same.
A hundred other bots, with networks of their own, playing as teams of four against the first episode on Nightmare: fast monsters that come back. They play a level through, not race it: into every secret they can find a way into, fighting until five minutes are up, and only then out by the exit. A match is a campaign: all nine levels in order, the same four from first to last, carrying their weapons forward, each level for eight minutes or until the team is out of it. A bot's score for the campaign is what it did to get the team on (secrets, keys, locked doors, switches, the way it covered, a little for a kill and a little off for a death) and nothing for standing still. It is rated against its team-mates by that score, and Points is its running total over every campaign it has played.
To watch a match: in the game, press Esc, choose Play online, then Watch the co-op bots or Watch the deathmatch bots. The co-op bots are joined where they are, in the middle of whatever level of their campaign they have got to; the last deathmatch plays again. Either way it is at normal speed on your machine; keys 1 to 4 choose whose eyes you see through.
Last match
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| # | Bot | Style | Quirk | Rating | Games | Frags | Deaths | F/D | Points | Gen | Likes | Dislikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loading… | ||||||||||||
Rating is the same for every bot: who outscored whom, match by match. Gen counts the mutations a bot has kept. After each match the match is played again with a mutated copy of each bot in its place, and a copy that earned clearly more of what that bot's style wants takes its place.
Fraggers, Berserkers and Snipers want frags, in different ways. Survivors want not to die. Tourists want to run, Campers to stand still, Dervishes to spin, Doormen to press every wall, Pacifists never to fire, and Lemmings to die. Brawlers fight with their fists alone. They get better at what they want, which is not always winning.
Crusaders want everything a team needs: kills, the way to the exit, the keys, the level finished, and not to die. Slayers and Marksmen want kills, Explorers the secrets and the way out, Survivors not to die, Pacifists to get there without firing. Brawlers do it all with their fists. Campers, Dervishes, Doormen and Lemmings want what they want in the other league, and are as much help as you would think.
Every bot has a quirk. The Cautious back away from a fight when they are hurt; the Reckless charge, and take the short way through the slime, since dying only puts them back at the start; the Loyal stay by the bot they like best; Grudge-bearers feel everything three times over. And every bot has feelings about every other, all starting at 50. After each match a bot likes one of the three it played with a point more and one a point less: whoever hurt it most goes down; in co-op whoever did most for the team goes up. In a deathmatch there are no friends: feelings only fall, a bot goes for those it dislikes first, and one it comes to hate it hunts across the map. The table shows whom each likes best and least, and how much.
Apprentices learn from people instead of from their own matches: players who say yes when the game asks send how they move and fight, and each apprentice keeps nudging itself toward doing what those players did.
The Teacher is the hand-written bot they all first imitated, and Static is a network of noise; neither learns.