Nodewar

Nodewar is a programming game for the browser

[version 0.1.1-alpha, April 2013]

Nodewar is in development

Nodewar is not yet in beta, but as of today, you can join the alpha. Expect bugs and imperfect gaming.

The Ood pursing The Void

Announcement 4/11/2013: 10 bitcoins for the best alpha programmer.

In the interest of rallying a few alpha players, while our game is still in the invention stages, we're offering a bounty of 10BTC to whoever can write the best species during the month of April. By "best species" we mean the one entry that has the highest ranking on the alpha ladder.

Here's the fine print, which is pretty reasonable:

• Whoever is at the top of the alpha ladder (highest chess-style ranking) on April 30th at 11:59pm New York time wins.
• For convenience, put your bitcoin wallet address in your Nodewar comments.
• If you don't use bitcoins yet, we'll figure it all out when you win.
• You can submit as many species and mutations as you want, as long as they're all under one account. All that matters is your best submission.
• Users who sign up multiple accounts will be disqualified.
• If you submit an "open source" bot, you are officially allowing others to view and use your code. So create a private species if you think you have a contender.
• We'll try not to change the game during the contest other than to fix bugs. But, since Nodewar is in alpha, it's possible there are game loopholes or bugs that once exposed or utilized will deteriorate the game quality. These may require changes to the game during the contest. If something is uncovered towards the final stages of the contest, we reserve the right to extend the contest date by a few days to give everyone a fair chance to update their bots. We also reserve the right to *not* extend the game despite changes.
• Neither we nor anyone we have met in real life is eligible. Sorry! You can make entries, but if you win, the bitcoins will go to 2nd place.
• If something catastrophic happens, we reserve the right to end the game early. We'll still pay the winner.
• If you find bugs, exploits, whatever, please let us know ASAP.
• By entering, you agree we're not liable for paying you if our scoring, game, or methodology for choosing the winner is buggy or questionable, or seems to contradict something we said here or at a later date. In other words, you understand that legally speaking, the 10BTC is a gift to the wallet of our choice and not tied to your labor or anything we've said here.
• For the unlikely case something very bad happens to bitcoins between now and then (say ours are stolen AND the price explodes, or the bitcoin network gets rocked), we reserve the right to pay $2,000USD instead.

Joining & Playing

Link is in the top right corner. Once you join, the game will be explained. (If you want to take a sneak peak at the game rules, look here.)

Who Are We?

We're Max Krohn and Chris Coyne, co-founders of OkCupid and SparkNotes. We recently just left OkCupid (2013) and are messing around in our free time. Nodewar is one of a few hobby projects for us.

Hey there,

You're logged in and can navigate with the tabs that just appeared at the top. If you're brand new here, please start with the Welcome tab, which explains the game.

Recent News

• April 10, 2013 - 10BTC contest announcement!
• April 1, 2013 - Chess-style rankings are up
• April 1, 2013 - We've changed to 3 moons, and they're much larger. And queens are now 1/8th the density of drones, making them quicker. This should all make a battle more strategic.
• March 19, 2013 - There's now an alpha ladder!. Feel free to enter your creations there.
• March 8, 2013 - console.log (a.k.a. ai.log) is now working so you can log directly from your species' code, instead of just returning a log parameter in your ship's instructions. Technically, this is firing a message from your team's web worker thread and the battle inside your window, but it should be seamless. The arguments are JSONified before relay, so an attempt to pack circular data will cause an error and your ship will die a (plasma) fiery space death.
• March 6, 2013 - please send all feedback, bugs, suggestions, etc., to chris@chriscoyne.com. We'll embed some kind of uservoice type thing here soon.
• March 6, 2013 - creating, saving, editing, and loading species now working. Deleting species, changing settings for a species, browsing your species, etc., still not done.

Announcement 4/11/2013: 10 bitcoins for the best alpha programmer.

In the interest of rallying a few alpha players, while our game is still in the invention stages, we're offering a bounty of 10BTC to whoever can write the best species during the month of April. By "best species" we mean the one entry that has the highest ranking on the alpha ladder.

Here's the fine print, which is pretty reasonable:

• Whoever is at the top of the alpha ladder (highest chess-style ranking) on April 30th at 11:59pm New York time wins.
• For convenience, put your bitcoin wallet address in your Nodewar comments.
• If you don't use bitcoins yet, we'll figure it all out when you win.
• You can submit as many species and mutations as you want, as long as they're all under one account. All that matters is your best submission.
• Users who sign up multiple accounts will be disqualified.
• If you submit an "open source" bot, you are officially allowing others to view and use your code. So create a private species if you think you have a contender.
• We'll try not to change the game during the contest other than to fix bugs. But, since Nodewar is in alpha, it's possible there are game loopholes or bugs that once exposed or utilized will deteriorate the game quality. These may require changes to the game during the contest. If something is uncovered towards the final stages of the contest, we reserve the right to extend the contest date by a few days to give everyone a fair chance to update their bots. We also reserve the right to *not* extend the game despite changes.
• Neither we nor anyone we have met in real life is eligible. Sorry! You can make entries, but if you win, the bitcoins will go to 2nd place.
• If something catastrophic happens, we reserve the right to end the game early. We'll still pay the winner.
• If you find bugs, exploits, whatever, please let us know ASAP.
• By entering, you agree we're not liable for paying you if our scoring, game, or methodology for choosing the winner is buggy or questionable, or seems to contradict something we said here or at a later date. In other words, you understand that legally speaking, the 10BTC is a gift to the wallet of our choice and not tied to your labor or anything we've said here.
• For the unlikely case something very bad happens to bitcoins between now and then (say ours are stolen AND the price explodes, or the bitcoin network gets rocked), we reserve the right to pay $2,000USD instead.