A programming game is a computer game where the player has no direct influence on the course of the game. Instead, a computer program or script is written in some domain-specific programming language in order to control the actions of the characters (usually robots, tanks or bacteria, which seek to destroy each other). Most programming games can be considered environments of digital organisms, related to artificial life simulations.
A few programming games of note include AI Wars, Core War, and RoboWar.
There are different tournaments and leagues for the programming games where the characters can compete with each other. Usually a script is optimized for a special strategy.
Programming games may be derived from almost any other type of game. For example, the World Computer Chess Championship consists of matches between programs written for the abstract strategy game of chess. Also, some non-computer games borrow elements of programming games; in the board game RoboRally, players arrange cards to "program" their pieces with a sequence of moves, causing moves to be made without the knowledge of one's opponents' preceding moves.
Famous quotes containing the words programming and/or game:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“Wild Bill was indulging in his favorite pastime of a friendly game of cards in the old No. 10 saloon. For the second time in his career, he was sitting with his back to an open door. Jack McCall walked in, shot him through the back of the head, and rushed from the place, only to be captured shortly afterward. Wild Bill’s dead hand held aces and eights, and from that time on this has been known in the West as “the dead man’s hand.””
—State of South Dakota, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)