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Here's an idea I've been toying with: I'd like to create a simulation with a plugin system for the AI. Your goal as a "player" is to write an AI that is able to score as high as possible within the simulations parameters. You can compare your score with others, exchange code and ideas and try to engage "harder" levels of the simulation, which basically comes down to a more complex world in which your AI has to function efficiently.

It takes an interesting part of game programming (AI) and allows to engage in it without all the boilerplate work of a *real* game project.

The whole idea can start very small but evolve into a mixture of game, coding challenge, and programming-tutorial.

When I started to research that idea I found that I wasn't the first to think into that direction:
http://robocode.sourceforge.net/ or
http://antme.codeplex.com/

Do you know other projects with a similar approach? What do you think of
a "programming-game"? Would you "play" it?

http://aichallenge.org/

You could possibly implement it with a system similar to Conway's Game of Life.

This kind of stuff is lots and lots of fun!

There are some great graphically driven programming games that may be worth checking out. The ones I have seen are focused on engineering and fixed tasks, rather than AI programming. But I think some good ideas could be taken from them.

Zachtronics Industries are the masters of small engineering/programming games:
http://www.zachtronicsindustries.com/

Lightbot, a neat game where you program a small robot:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/539621


Then there's always Core War. Create programs in the assembly language Redcode, put two competing programs a "core" and watch them eliminate each other. Not really AI, more like competitive dynamic assembly programming. We were running a small competition here on Tigsource in 2009:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=9432.0

This is the definitive game in the genre.

I'm also working on a programming game myself.

One interesting idea might be making a programming game that appeals to non-programming nerds. I tried one of them (some robot battle thing with minimal graphics) a while ago and didn't find it very fun because I don't find programming very fun.

MindRover is worth noting - it allows quite complex programming of robots (through a network of states, nodes, components like radars...) while still remaining accessible. There where racing and combat competitions for the robots, and some other as well. I remember the GUI was fun and simple.

Liosan

Thanks for all the tips! Looks like I got a bit to play before I start developing something on my own. ;)

The Ant-simulations are closest to the game ieas I've had in mind: Simple agents working together - some interesting challenges here especially regarding communication and specialization. The pheromones in AntMe are a nice approach to that...

I had a quick look ad Core Wars. Interesting concept but a little hard to get into. I understand most of the basic warriors I looked at but I can't imagine coming up with a new or interesting variation let alone make it work. Sounds like work.

LightBot 2.0 is pretty amazing. And I have SpaceChem somewhere on my Steam account, I just never got around playing it so far! @C.A.Sinclair: You should give those a try! They are pretty much addressing all audiences and all "programming" happens in a visual way.

Here's a twist: How about a game about debugging? I'm imagining a tower defense game where you can scrub through the whole level, instead of waiting for the monster waves to come. So you set some actions, then see the outcome almost instantly. Then you can scrub through and see what happened at any given time and tweak your strategy (ie. build order) accordingly.

That's a criminal offense. It's one of the best games ever made.

You could set your team's AI in Final Fantasy 12.

To cure allies if their health's below 40%, to use spells on enemies who're weak to it, when to use Ethers n so on.

Dragon Age Origins too, and one other RPG whose name escapes me ATM.

I, too, had this idea... this is further reinforcement of the fact that most of my cool ideas are probably being had by many other people all over the place.

I like the idea of being able to program my own spells or weapons. But, I have a kind of useless obsession with novelty, and so the idea of being able to constantly create some new weapon or spell is appealing to me. I'm sort of trying to get over that.

Well, that's not really a game about programming.

I've thought a bit of a promising scenario for a programming game. A checklist of features I'd like to have:

- Agents will take part in a simulation, their success is rated. Achieving a high rating is the goal of the game.
- The player programs an agent 'class' that will drive the behavior of his agents.
- Agents can reproduce. Agent instances that have means to cooperate and communicate.
- The simulation is complex but deterministic. The agents have a limitted view. To succeed they have to establish and improve a model of the world they inhabit.

An interesting (but maybe too ambitious) scenario that I'm currently considering is naval trading. The agent's would be ships. They have to explore the gameworld, discover ports and trade goods. The earned money could be reinvested in new ships or upgrades. It can be challenging on a micro-level (navigating the ship) and on an intermediate level (trading) and on a higher level (fleet structure). Rating is done on the fleet's accumulated wealth after a certain time has passed. The world could be procedurally generated. Weather and price development could be simulated too. So each playthrough would be different. Agents that adapt and find working strategies fast will succeed.

How does that sound?

Sounds like BattleCode :) Except the last part; in BattleCode it's "to succeed they have to shoot the other team". Agent classes are coded in Java.

Liosan

tv tropes has a good list (sorry for linking tv tropes):

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProgrammingGame

There was a PS1 mecha fighting game thing that I don't see on that list or mentioned in this thread, but I can't remember the name.

Sounds good to me. An economic programming game. I'd play it.

Another example for inspiration is a little MMO called Almasy Tactics. You can program the AI for your army individually using Lua right in your browser. Just trying to help with the possibilities.