Let me start off by saying I'm sorry it's been a while, I had flu! Who gets flu in April!?

The Project

Last week, before being stricken with disease, I went to the first meeting for a new project from IBM Emerging Technologies.

We call this project the AI bot-game. We're currently ironing out details and specifics, but I can tell you now that the end game is to have an online platform that allows people to write a bot in any language you want, and have it fight other bots online!

These "bots" will fight in some kind of arena (we're thinking 2d grid, top-down view) and won't stop til there's only one left!

We're currently architecting the actual game logic.

How can you use any language?

We plan on creating an API of sorts using IBM Message Queue (MQ), and then letting all the players create bindings for the API.

The goal of this is to let people learn, master and compete with various programming languages. Just imagine beating Jeff from the other cubical in a contest of C!

Social aspects

We plan on having a "basic bot" template available in various languages and to allow players to upload their own bots and code snippets for, let's say a sensor module that gives you larger view/draw distance etc.

All of these would be available in the Bot Marketplace! Your one-stop for open resources for this game!

But that's not all we have for you socially.. We're also planning on setting up leagues and groups in the long run. Imagine having a showdown, your department vs Websphere in a battle of C++. Take it one stop further, imagine company vs company: Google vs Microsoft, no holds barred!

The possibilities are endless, and we're almost ready to start building this fantastic idea.

I'll be back soon with another post, and we should enough progress for another post on this project by the end of the month.. Maybe even a project name!