A.I. Wars

The video game A.I. Wars comes in two flavors The Insect Mind (a Free download) and Armor Commander. Players of A.I. Wars compete by writing .AI code files which contain programmed instructions to be loaded into a robot like war machine called a Cybug or a Tank. Most players prefer the Cybug version. The Cybugs are placed into a battle simulator to compete with one another until a single Cybug survives or its team is victorious in team battles. The challenge for its players comes from writing a program in a language called CAICL (Cybug A.I. Command Language) Like LISP and MUMPS it is a language that can execute commands written into variables then executed within its own run-time environment. Players have to manage resources (ammunition and fuel) as well as manage the heat output of the Cybug's shields which degrades as the Cybug takes damage in battle.
A.I. Wars is written for Windows based PC's but a group of students in China have written an open source Java version. A.I. Wars was originally written by John A. Reder (a.k.a. Tactical Neuronics) using Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 in 1996. The first version had battle graphics that were 2D from a top-down perspective. Later versions by John included 3D graphics using Direct3D and were partly written in both Microsoft Visual Basic 6 and DarkBASIC.
The A.I. Wars executable has several command line parameters allowing players to develop external software engines that can configure and change its battle parameters. For example BattleShell integrates A.I. Wars into a world map that is played like where Cybugs do battle to take over patches of land. CAICLPro is an advanced CAICL editor. Other players have integrated it into VBA projects using Microsoft Excel, creating a artificial life environment for a genetic algorithm Thesis project which grew Cybugs into two distinct species of predator and prey.

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