ascii soccer


                                    __
                                  /^  ^\
                                 | *| * |
                             __  |      |   __
                             \ \ |  \/  |  / /
                              \ \ \____/  / /
                               \ \__||__ / /
                                \         /
                                 \  GT   /
                                  \     |
                                   \    |     ====
                                   /    \    / /
                                  /  /\  \  / /
                      _____      /  /  \  \/ /
                     / \_/ \    /  /    \___/
                    |\_/ \_/|   \ \
                    |/ \_/ \|    \ \       
                     \_/_\_/     _\ \
                                ====/

Overview

This program is a tool for investigating how groups of simple agents interact while playing a soccer-like game. You can develop your own team strategies and test them against others. Two teams of players attempt to push a ball across the other team's goal. The game can be viewed on your screen using ascii-animation. Get the distribution here:

asciisoccer.zip

For a synopsis of what's new in version 2.0, see the NEW file.

Compatibility

This is AS IS unsupported software. It has been tested, and runs on Solaris, Mac OS X, and RedHat Linux. To unpack the source code you will need zip To compile you will need make, gcc, csh, and the curses and termcap libraries.

Quickstart

Get the distribution (above). After you've unzipped asciisoccer.zip, type

        ./cleanteams
        ./contest example wall

This will set up a soccer match between the "example" team and the "wall" team, by compiling and linking teams in the directories teams/example and teams/wall. If it does not compile, you probably don't have all the software you need to compile it. See "compatibility" above. Don't be too concerned about "warnings" but "errors" are bad! After the compilation is complete the teams will automatically start a game. The first team to 7 points wins. To run another game, type "./soccer"

This is what a game looks like:

ASCII=Soccer=v2.0====(q)uit====(s)lower====(f)aster=============================
|                                                                              |
|                                          <                                   |
|                                                                              |
|                                         <                                    |
|                                >                                             |
|                                                                              |
|                                     O                                        |
|                                 >                                            |
|                                                                              |
|                                 >       <                                    |
|                                                                              |
|                                                                              |
|                                                                              |
|                                                                              |
|                                                                              |
|                                 >                                            |
|                                                                              |
|                                         <                                    |
|                                                                              |
|                                                                              |
|                                                                              |
================================================================================
Krazy Kickers        1                              W'all Kick Yer Butt  5

Rules

The teams consist of four players. Each team member is provided with sensors that tell it about the immediately adjoining 8 cells and a compass heading towards the ball, and their location on the field. Players can push the ball by trying to move to the cell it occupies, but they cannot move over one another or outside the boundaries. Players may also kick the ball if they are immediately next to it. A kicked ball travels 10 cells at 8 times the speed of a player. When kicking the ball, the player also moves into the cell were the ball was previously.

A point is scored when the ball is pushed or kicked across a goal line. The game continues until the first team scores 7 points.

Occasionally, the ball gets "stuck" between two competitors. In that case the ball is automatically "nudged" up or down, so play can resume.

Designing Your Own Team

Take a look at teams/example/main.c as a start. There are several things to keep in mind as you write your code:

You MUST have the following functions: player1(), player2(), player3(), player4() and team_name(), initialize_point(), won_point(), lost_point(), initialize_game(), game_over(). Just use the example team as a shell and this will happen for you.
Always assume you are the East Team: you start on the east side and you want to push the ball to the west. The program will automatically reverse things for you when you start on the other side.

The player() functions represent each player's strategy, the team_name function is used to print your team's name on the screen.

You will notice a macro called UN(). This is used to ensure that function and variable names are not duplicated between team's .c files. For instance, for the east team, UN(team_name)() will become EASTteam_name(). This is necessary for the automatic compiling and linking of arbitrary teams for tournaments. It also allows the same team to play itself. Be sure to use the macro around all functions and global variables in your main.c file.

The players are actually functions player1() through player4(). Each function is passed 4 parameters. The incoming parameters are the robot's sensory information:

local_area[] : Reveals what's nearby. Indexed by N,NE,E,SE,S, etc. so that, for example, local_area[S] tells you what is in the cell to the south of the robot. Possible values include: BOUNDARY, OPPONENT, TEAMMATE, BALL and EMPTY.
ball_direction : Compass heading to the ball: N, S, E, W, NE, etc.
x, y : The robot's location. y varies from 1 to 22, x varies from 1 to 78. +x is east, +y is south. 0 and 79 are goal lines, so your players will never occupy those locations.

Each player function should return an integer indicating either a direction to move (N, NE, E, S, etc) or KICK to kick the ball.

Troubleshooting

How do I make this work on Windows? Use cygwin.
How do I make this work on Mac OS X? Install the developer tools. You can find them on your original install disk.
I get compile errors that complain about "curses": You probably don't have the ncurses libary installed. Be sure you also have the termcap library as well.

How the Compiling and Linking Works

(You don't have to read this)

Compiling and linking is rather hairy mostly because we can link together any two arbitrary teams, and they can play on either side of the field. Fortunately, if you just copy everything from the teams/example directory to a new directory, and develop your team there, you shouldn't have to worry about this too much.

The default makefile assumes your team is coded in main.c . main.c is compiled into either west.o or east.o depending on whether your team will take the east or west side of the field. The symbols WEST_TEAM and EAST_TEAM are defined/not defined according to which side you're on.

The makefile also compiles common.c which is presumed to include functions and globals that do not have unique names and that might be shared if your team was playing itself. Even if you don't use common.c, don't remove it! the contest script and makefiles aren't smart enough not to use it. I found I needed this to make it easier to use some c++ classes I use for my learning team.

Finally, the .o files are grouped into libraries: libeast.a libwest.a and libcommon.a . The contest script copies the appropriate libraries up to the top directory, then links soccer.o with them to generate the final executable.

You can take advantage of this library approach now to design more complex teams composed of several separately compiled modules - but you don't have to! Just make sure your makefile correctly generates libeast.a libwest.a and libcommon.a .

Advanced Techniques

There are some additional hooks for learning, etc. which you may choose to use. You will notice at the bottom of example.c there are several additional functions with no body. These functions are automatically called at various points in the game, as follows:

initialize_game() Called once per game before play begins.
game_over() Called once per game at the end of the game.
initialize_point() Called once per point before play begins.
lost_point() Called if your team loses a point.
won_point() Called if your team wins a point.

You may find these functions handy for initialization and learning strategies.

Command-line Arguments

The soccer executable offers a few command-line arguments you may want to use:

-d Don't display the game on the screen.
-s seed Use seed as the random seed for the game. time() is used otherwise.
-p points Play to points instead of the default 7.

Bugs, Gripes, Complaints

I don't promise ANYTHING, but I am very glad to see your teams and hear about bugs. Especially if you have fixed them!!!!

tucker.balch@mac.com