People enter the coding world in a differently than when I was growing up. The internet increased our reach and many first-steps are in building business, productivity, & lifestyle applications.

I grew up coding games. My peer group was made up of many who built "casual games" with only a small handful building applications. Today's new class of coders has that inverted.

Building games taught me a lot. There were the same basics you need in a business app - front end and back end, work. But you also got to do lots of other stuff: Game mechanics, game physics (movement, acceleration, friction, gravity), collision detection

The best part was building the in-game AI. That's where magic happens - and not just magic. So much learning. Translating a game strategy into code hard. And ultimately, it makes you a stronger coder.

code / collision is an attempt to expose application developers to the world of game development, while lowering the bar so you can focus on the interesting part.

The game dynamics are handled. Object collision is handled. You build the strategy.

How does it work?

code / collision is an ever-expanding library of games that work on the same set of principles:

• 2 teams
• Can be simultaneous or turn-based
• The game mechanics are handled
• You determine what your team's strategy is for the desired game
• You write the code for that strategy:
• You are given the game-state in the parameters
• You return 2 things: Angle you want to move, and overall Power.
• Your code is called periodically, once per player on your team

How do I code my strategy?

code / collision was built in vanilla JS. As long as you know some basic JavasScript, you can write a strategy:

class mySoccerStrategy extends SoccerStrategy
{
	static strategy = CodeCollision.Register(this); //REQUIRED; DO NOT REMOVE
	
	execute //Return Power (0-100), and Angle (0 is forward, 90 is up, -90 is down, 180 is backwards)
	({
		id, //Represents which player this strategy is for  (Values: -1, 0, 1)
		position, // { x, y }
		field, // { width, height }
		teamMates, // [ {angle, distance, x, y, ball:{angle,distance} } ]
		otherTeam, // [ {angle, distance, x, y, ball:{angle,distance} } ]
		ball, // {angle, distance, x, y}
		ownGoal, //{ topPost{angle, distance, x, y},  bottomPost{angle, distance, x, y} }
		otherGoal //{ topPost{angle, distance, x, y},  bottomPost{angle, distance, x, y} }
		ownScore, //0, 1, 2, or 3 (game over)
		otherScore //0, 1, 2, or 3 (game over)
	})
	{
		if (id==0) { //this player will always go at the ball, with a random power-level
			return { angle: ball.angle, power:Math.random()*100 };
		}

		//this player will go for the ball if the ball is infront of the player,
		//otherwise they'll move straight back
		return { angle: Math.abs(ball.angle<90)? ball.angle : 180, power:Math.random()*100 };
	};
}

How do I compete?

Right now, the idea is anyone to host their own "events." That is:

1. Get a bunch of coders together,
2. Pick one of the game types,
3. Give yourselves an agreed-upon coding time: 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week.
4. Host a competition where each strategy is pitted against the other! (code / collision will manage the round-robin and leader-board)

How do I get started?

1. Grab the code / collision repo.
2. Launch codecollision.html in the top level directory.
3. Select one of the games from the drop-down list.
4. Hit Edit to use the built-in Ace Editor to build your strategy.
5. You can test your strategy in real-time by hitting Run.
6. When you are happy with your strategy hit Export to save your strategy as a .JS file.
7. You can then load your strategy and others on the game screen by clicking Load.
8. Select which strategies you want to have compete and hit Start.

Check out a demo

Release Notes

[2021-12-19] - After a few tournaments, I decided to add a new game: Basically 'soccer' only with different player masses. Participants can choose their team-makeup.

[2021-11-11] - code / collision is in pre-release. There's some definite code-cleanup that can be done, but in the interest of proving the concept, I'm making this available to a limited audience to help identify any issues, and where we can hopefully run an actual event together.