Robocode
Robocode is a programming game, where the goal is to develop a robot battle tank to battle against other tanks in Java or .NET. The robot battles are running in real-time and on-screen.
A new varient Naval Robocode (#navalrobocode) is under development, which is a naval variant of Robocode, where the tanks have been replaced by ships with 2 cannons.
This Robocode variant has been developed by Thomas Hakkers and Jan-Egbert Hamming from Thales Netherland involved primarily with naval defence systems (sensors, radars and infrared systems).
WHAT IS ROBOCODE?
Robocode is a programming game where the goal is to code a robot battle tank to compete against other robots in a battle arena. So the name Robocode is a short for "Robot code". The player is the programmer of the robot, who will have no direct influence on the game. Instead, the player must write the AI of the robot telling it how to behave and react on events occurring in the battle arena. Battles are running in real-time and on-screen.
The motto of Robocode is: Build the best, destroy the rest!
Besides being a programming game, Robocode is used for learning how to program, primarily in the Java language, but other languages like C# and Scala are becoming popular as well.
Schools and universities are using Robocode as part of teaching how to program, but also for studying artificial intelligence (AI). The concept of Robocode is easy to understand, and a fun way to learn how to program.
Robocode offers complete development environment, and comes with its own installer, built-in robot editor and Java compiler. Robocode only pre-requires that a JVM (Java Virtual Machine) to exist already on the system where Robocode is going to be installed. Hence, everything a robot developer needs to get started is provided with the main Robocode distribution file (robocode-xxx-setup.jar). Robocode also supports developing robots using external IDEs like e.g. Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, NetBeans, Visual Studio etc., which supports the developer much better than the robot editor in Robocode.
The fact that Robocode runs on the Java platform makes it possible to run it on any operating system with Java pre-installed, meaning that it will be able to run on Windows, Linux, Mac OS, but also UNIX and variants of UNIX. Note that Java 6 or newer must be installed on the system before Robocode is able to run. See the System Requirements for more information.
Be aware that many users of Robocode (aka Robocoders) find Robocode to be very fun, but also very addictive. :-)
Robocode comes free of charge and is being developed as a spare-time project where no money is involved. The developers of Robocode are developing on Robocode because they think it is fun, and because they improve themselves as developers this way.
Robocode is an Open Source project, which means that all sources are open to everybody. In addition, Robocode is provided under the terms of EPL (Eclipse Public License).
HISTORY OF ROBOCODE
The Robocode game was originally started by Mathew A. Nelson as a personal endeavor in late 2000 and became a professional one when he brought it to IBM, in the form of an AlphaWorks download, in July 2001.
IBM was interested in Robocode, as they saw an opportunity to promote Robocode as a fun way to get started with learning how to program in Java. IBM wrote lots of articles about Robocode, e.g. like Rock 'em, sock 'em Robocode! from AlphaWorks / developerWorks at IBM, a series of articles like Secrets from the Robocode masters, and "Robocode Rumble / RoboLeague".
The inspiration for creating Robocode came from Robot Battle, a programming game written by Brad Schick in 1992, which should still be alive. Robot Battle was, in turn, inspired by RobotWar, an Apple II+ game from the early 1980s.
The articles from IBM and the Robocode community behind the RoboWiki made Robocode very popular as programming game, and for many years Robocode has been used for education and research at schools and universities all over the world.
In the beginning of 2005, Mathew convinced IBM to release Robocode as Open Source on SourceForge. At this point, the development of Robocode had somewhat stopped. The community around Robocode began to develop their own versions of Robocode with bug fixes and new features, e.g. the ‘Contributions for Open Source Robocode’ and later on the two projects, RobocodeNG and Robocode 2006, by Flemming N. Larsen.
Eventually, Flemming took over the Robocode project at SourceForge as administrator and developer in July 2006 to continue the original Robocode game. The RobocodeNG project was dropped, but Robocode 2006 was merged into the official Robocode version 1.1 containing lots of improvements. Since then, lots of new versions of Robocode have been released with more and more features and contributions from the community.
In May 2007, the RoboRumble client got built into Robocode. RoboRumble is widely used by the Robocode community for creating up-to-date robot ranking lists for the 1-to-1, Melee, Team, and Twin Dual competitions.
Since May 2010 a .NET plugin is provided for Robocode using a .NET / Java bridge, which makes it possible to develop robots for .NET beside developing robots in Java. This part was made by Pavel Savara, who is a major Robocode contributor.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
In order to run Robocode, Java 6 Standard Edition (SE) or a newer version of Java must be installed on your system. Both the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and the Java Developer Kit (JDK) can be used. Note that the JRE does not include the standard Java compiler (javac), but the JDK does. However, Robocode comes with a built-in compiler (ECJ). Hence, it is sufficient running Robocode on the JRE.
Also note that it is important that these environment variables have been set up prior to running Robocode:
JAVA_HOME must be setup to point at the home directory for Java (JDK or JRE). Windows example: JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_41 UNIX, Linux, Mac OS example: JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk1.6.0_41
PATH must include the path to the bin of the Java home directory (JAVA_HOME) that includes java.exe for starting the Java virtual Machine (JVM). Windows example: PATH=%PATH%;%JAVA_HOME% UNIX, Linux, Mac OS example: PATH=${PATH}:${JAVA_HOME}/bin
You can read more details from here: System Requirements
If you want to program robots in .NET or control Robocode from a .NET application, you need to install the Robocode .NET API plug-in on top of Robocode. The plug-in is installed by double-clicking the robocode.dotnet-xxx-setup.jar the same way as Robocode itself is installed.