Between 11–18 December 2020, over 400 developers across 20 countries competed in the first-ever AI Sports challenge for a chance to win $10,000 AUD in prizes and giveaways. But there could only be one winner: after an intense week of coding, scrimming and live-streamed finale games, we announced our AI Sports grand champions of 2020. Keep reading to learn more about the challenge, meta game, and winning team!
The AI Sports Challenge is a competitive programming and AI tournament organised by Coder One for developers of all levels with an interest in artificial intelligence. Participants are tasked with creating a bot that can autonomously compete in an AI game — played entirely by other bots.
For the first-ever 2020 season, the challenge featured our original multiplayer AI game ‘Dungeons and Data Structures’.
Dungeons and Data Structures is a bomberman-inspired 2P game. To win, players must either score the most points or be the last bot standing at the end of the game. Players can score points either by collecting treasure chests, or by destroying wooden crates and ore blocks using bombs. But players must be careful — each player only has 3 Health Points and when you run out, it’s game over!
If you’re interested in checking out the game yourself, you can create your very own bot to play Dungeons and Data Structures over at our Repo here.
From 42 final team submissions down to 4… here are the semi-finalists that qualified for the live-streamed finale broadcast after an intense week of coding and strategizing:
Floth
Country: Australia
Bot Bio: The fastest ~Sloth~ (The Three toes Assassin!)
Team Solo Bot (Bot name: FAIKER)
Country: Australia
Bot Bio: Lee Sang-hyeok (Korean: 이상혁; born May 7, 1996), better known by his in-game name FAIKER (Korean: 페이커), is a South Korean professional Dungeon and Data Structures player. Formerly known as GoJeonPa on the Korean server, he was picked up by Team Solo Bot in 2013 and has played as the team’s bot laner since. He is widely considered to be the best Dungeon and Data Structures player of all time.
Jigglybluff (Bot name: Ozzy Mozzy)
Country: USA, Singapore
Bot Bio:
TL;DR
“RUNNNNNNN BEFORE IT’S TOO LATEEEE”
Donkie
Country: Malaysia
Bot Bio: It’s Donkie, not Donkey.
What do Super Smash Bros and Dungeons and Data Structures have in common?
For our live-streamed finale, we were joined by shoutcasters @Grizz_Grozzman and @RevmanTSL off the back of their experience casting regional and national Super Smash Bros Ultimate tournaments.
Semi-final Game 1: Jigglybluff versus Floth
With an undefeated record during play-offs, Floth was the clear crowd-favourite to take the tournament. Tables were turned however, when it was unveiled that Jigglybluff was out for blood.
Despite some strong early-game point farming by Floth, Jigglybluff’s calculated ability to outmanoeuvre and pigeonhole its opponents into taking bomb damage proved superior. Jigglybluff took home the first game of the broadcast 2–0.
Semi-final Game 2: Donkie versus Team Solo Bot
What happens when you pit a risk-taking bot against one that likes to play safe?
Well we found out the answer in Game 2: with TSM against Donkie. TSM was a particularly strong bot that had managed to sweep its opponents 3–0 during play-offs. In its first match of the semi-finals however, TSM got off to an unfortunate start.
TSM’s risk-taking nature didn’t pan out well in the end as it self-destructed its way to Donkie’s 2–0 victory.
It all ends here… The Finals: Jigglybluff vs. Donkie
The Finale game went off to an explosive start with Jigglybluff doing as Jigglybluff does… going for the kill.
While Donkie tried to put up a fight, Jigglybluff’s ability to find the balance between early-game farming and capitalizing on kill opportunities ultimately allowed it to sweep the competition.
Congratulations to Jigglybluff — the 2020 AI Sports Champion!
Thank you and congratulations to everyone who participated in the AI Sports Challenge 2020! 👏👏👏