The game is played on a 2D grid given to you at the start of the game. The grid is made up of walls and empty
spaces. Each player controls a team of minions that can move along the grid.
The Map
The grid is generated randomly, and can vary in height and width.
Each cell of the map is either:
- A wall (represented by a pound character: #)
- An empty space (represented by a dot character: .)
Maps are always symmetrical across the central vertical axis. Minions cannot go pass the border of the map or go
through walls. They can only pass through empty cells. Empty cells may contain coins. Minions can collect coins
as they move over cells that contain coins. Collecting coins increases the score of the player.
The Minions
Each player starts with the same number of minions, up to 5 each.
Your minions cannot see through walls. On each turn you have vision on all of the enemy minions and coins
that can be connected by a continuous straight line to any one of your minions.
At each turn, you are given information regarding your own alive minions, the opponent's visible minions and all the
visible coins. For each minion, you are given its identifier, its coordinates and its health. For each coins,
you are given its coordinates.
Minions can receive the following commands (a minion can only receive one command per turn):
-
MOVE: Give the minion a target position. The minion will find a shortest route to that position
and make the first move along the way. The minion will not take into account the presence of other minions when choosing a route.
-
WAIT: Do nothing.
Minions can also receive special commands which enables it to perform a powerup which can deal damage to the opponent
minions. Refer to the the power up section.
See the Game Protocol section for more information on sending commands to your minion. Note that, minions
never collide and multiple minions can exist in the same cell.
Flag and Flag Base
Each player's flag resides at the flag-base in the beginning of the game. A player's minions can only carry
opponent's flag. Note that each player's minions cannot carry their own flag. A flag can be carried by
only one minion at a time. Once a minion obtains a flag, it cannot let it go until it is dead. Following
the flag-carrying-minion's death, the flag remains at that cell where the minion died until some other minion
picks it up.
Game end
There are 3 types of power ups that a minion can use.
-
FIRE: A minion that uses fire will ignite every cell in its vision with fire. That is, the whole
row and the whole column up until the nearest wall will be ignited. Any opponent minion caught in this fire
will take damage.
-
FREEZE: A minion that uses freeze will freeze every cell in its vision with ice. That is,
the whole row and the whole column up until the nearest wall will be frozen. Any opponent minion caught in
this ice will be frozen (stuck) in its position for timeout amount of time.
-
MINE: A minion that uses mine can plant a bomb at a certain cell of the grid. Any opponent
minion that walks over that cell will trigger the bomb to explode. Once a bomb explodes, the opponent minion
takes damage.
Each power up requires a certain score. Refer to protocol section on how to use power up command.
Game end
Game can end on any of the following 3 conditions:
-
One of the player's minions captures opponent's flag and returns to its own flag-base.
-
All the minions of a player are killed.
-
The game doesn't end on any of the two conditions above for more than 200 rounds. In that case, the
player with the highest score wins and the game is forcefully ended.