Far out at sea there is a war raging.
Two captains with nothing to lose… except for their battle fleets.
Fighting over the simple title - Ruler of the high seas!
One will be victorious, while the other will sleep with the fishes.
This is the sixth instalment of South Africa's ultimate annual A.I. coding competition, the Entelect Challenge. After five successful years, we've once again put our spin on another classic game and we invite programmers, developers and coding enthusiasts of any skill level to put their abilities to the test for their share of over R200k in treasure.
To compete in the challenge, you will need to write an A.I. bot (program) that will outwit and outlast your opponent. The game has been chosen and the rules have been defined. May you have fair winds and following seas!
This year's challenge is based on the classic 1967 board game, Battleships. Our variation borrows heavily from the NES version of the game introduced in 1993. Two players will be going head to head, armed with a fleet of battleships, each with their own way of taking down the enemy. Their goal - to sink the other's fleet and live to sail another day! Trying to figure out their opponent's placing strategy, each player must explore the vast unknowns of the grid at sea by shooting everywhere and anywhere. In the end, the surviving player will be victorious!
Over R200k in treasure will be up for grabs! This year we have even more ways to win. Prize money will be awarded to the top eight performing bots as well as various other milestones along the way. Everyone must battle it out through the various battles (events) taking place. The finalists will be announced after the Battle of Cape Lopez in September, then they will battle for the top spot on stage at the rAge expo, October 2017.
In the upcoming weeks the Player Portal will be made available, and entrants will need to register on the portal to submit their entries. The Player Portal is a centralized location where contestants can submit and test their bots, join clans and view battle results.
Until then, subscribe to receive updates on all things Entelect Challenge by
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For guidance, help, answers or a bit of friendly banter, head on over to the Entelect Challenge community forum or send an email to challenge@entelect.co.za.
There will be various battles and each one will give you a chance to win a golden ticket. A golden ticket is your entrance into the finals at Rage (Golden tickets aren't transferable). Bots will play against each other in various tournament formats throughout these events. We kicked off the competition in April 2017.
Before every battle we will have a "call to arms" event. These hackathon-style events will give you the opportunity to get expert advice on your bot, as well as community involvement or assistance. We will also be handing out Jetbrains licences as spot prizes at these events.
For more detail related to the map generation, player rules, game engine rules etc., click the various sections below. Please make sure you study the sections below very closely as any deviation from, or misunderstanding of the specifications will result in the disqualification of your entry. If you are uncertain of anything, please use the community forum to ask a question, or send an email to challenge@entelect.co.za.
A player can only pass through one command during a round.
During the first phase a player has to place their ships.
After a successful phase 1, a player can pass through one of the following commands
Do Nothing - nothing will happen
Fire Shot - Fires a shot at the given location
Fire Double Shot - Fires two shots given a center location
Fire Corner Shot - Fires four shots given a center location
Fire Cross Shot Diagonal - Fires five shots given a center location
Fire Cross Shot Horizontal - Fires five shots given a center location
Fire Seeker Missile - Finds the nearst ship with an eclidian distance of 2 units or less away, given a center location
After each round energy is added to the player depending on the size of the map.
Small Map = 2 Energy per round
Medium Map = 3 Energy per round
Large Map = 4 Energy per round
Each ship has two weapons, a single shot weapon and a special weapon, unique to that ship, each weapon requires energy to use, the unique weapon can only be used if the ship is not destroyed and the player has enough energy.
Single Shot - All ships - Requires 1 energy to use
Double Shot - Destroyer - Requires 8 rounds worth of energy to use
Corner Shot - Carrier - Requires 10 rounds worth of energy to use
Cross Shot Diagonal - Battleship - Requires 12 rounds worth of energy to use
Cross Shot Horizontal - Cruiser - Requires 14 rounds worth of energy to use
Seeker Missile - Submarine - Requires 10 rounds worth of energy to use
A shot will damage a ship if it hits, else it will just hit the water and do nothing.
A player earns points for each successful shot landed and for completely destroying an enemy's ship.
A player is victorious if he destroy's all of the enemy's ships first, in the case of a tie the winner will be the player who landed the first shot successfully, if it is still a tie it will be the player who had the least amount of first phase failed commands.
The map will be square sized based on the given size rules. Please note that each player has their own map and this is the size of the player's map and not the entire game map.
7 x 7 if small is selected
10 x 10 if medium is selected
14 x 14 if large is selected
Each player will only see where they hit and missed on their opponent's map.
The ship sizes are as follows:
Carrier - 5 blocks
Battleship - 4 blocks
Submarine - 3 blocks
Cruiser - 3 blocks
Destroyer - 2 blocks
Players can either be console players or bots. Both follow the same game engine rules.
Players will only be able submit one command per round. The game engine will reject any additional commands sent by the player.
Phase 1 will be a maximum of 5 rounds long, if a player is unable to place their ships during these 5 turns they will be destroyed and the opposing player will win.
During the first phase a player can only pass through the PlaceShipCommand, if another Command is sent through or the player fails to place their ships, their FailedFirstPhaseCommands counter will be incremented, if this reaches 5 they will be killed off.
After the first phase is done, each player can send through one of the following commands.
Do Nothing - This will skip their turn, after 20 DoNothing Commands the player will be killed off to protect the game engine from faulty bots.
Fire Shot Command - This will fire a shot at the enemy's map, if the shot is successful and hits an opposing ship, the player will be awarded points, if the shot destroys an enemy ship, they will be awarded additional points for sinking the ship.
Fire Double Shot Command - This will fire two shots at the enemy's map given a center point and a direction, the direction will determine whether the shots are horizontal or vertical. The Shots will be one block to the west and east or the north and south of the center point. (3 x 3 cells)
Fire Corner Shot Command - This will fire four shots at the enemy's map, given a center point the shots will be one block to the north-west, north-east, south-east and south-west of the center point. (3 x 3 cells)
Fire Cross Shot Diagonal Command - This will fire five shots givn a center point, with four being the same as the corner shot and inclusive of the center point. (3 x 3 cells)
Fire Cross Shot Horizontal Command - This will fire five shots, same as the CrossShotDiagonal, but in a horizontal and vertical cross. (3 x 3 cells)
Fire Seeker Missile Command - This will fire a missile at target area, finding the nearest ship cell with an eclidian distance of 2 units or less away from the center point given , if there is no ship the center point given will be the target of the missile. (5 x 5 cells)
Bot players will have the following additional rules
Bot processes will be forcefully terminated after 4 seconds
Bots will not be allowed to exceed a total execution time of 2 seconds
Bots processes might be run with elevated processor priority. (For this reason the game has to be run with administrator privileges)
Calibrations will be done at the start of a game to determine additional processor time. So if the calibration bot takes 200ms to read the files and make a move decision then your bot will be allowed an additional 200ms to complete.
Malfunctioning bots or bots that exceed their time limit will send back a do nothing command.
Bot players that post more than 20 do nothing commands in a row will be assumed broken and will automatically be killed.
Players must ensure that the bot process exits gracefully within the allotted time (Rule 5-B).
All bot logic processing must be done within the source code submitted for your bot. You may not use network calls such as web services to aid in your bots decision making. No child processes will be allowed and should it be discovered you will be disqualified.
The nickname used on the bot meta file is used in the map.txt file, for this reason you will only be allowed alphanumeric characters as your nickname, and no special characters such as Carriage Return, Line Feed and New Line will not be allowed.
Entelect reserves the right to change/update these rules at any point during the competition.
The following rules describe how the game engine will run and process the game
The game is split up into 2 phases:
Phase 1: the placing of the ships phase. During this phase, each player has 5 chances to place their ships on the map. If a player is not successful they will receive an increase to their failed first phase counter, if this reaches 5 they will be killed off.
Phase 2: firing shots at the opponent's map. During this phase each player takes a shot at the opposing player's map in hope of hitting a ship and destroying all of the enemy's ships first.
After each round of phase 2, each player will receive energy depending on the size of the map.
Small Map = 2 Energy per round
Medium Map = 3 Energy per round
Large Map = 4 Energy per round
The game contains the following entities:
Empty space
Player Ship
An empty space can be occupied by a ship.
A space occupied by a ship that is hit will be marked as hit (The player who landed the shot will have their shots landed counter increased).
A space not occupied by a ship that is fired at will be marked as missed (The player who missed the shot will have their shots fired counter increased, regardless if it is a hit or a miss).
The game engine will process rounds in the following order:
Process Player Commands (Depending on the phase)
Add Energy to players, given the size of the map
Kill off Players (A player will be killed if all of his ships are destroyed)
If all of a player's ships are destroyed they will be eliminated and the opposing player will be the winner.
If both players are killed at the same time, the following will be used to determine a winner:
Player who still has ships remaining.
Player with the most points.
Player who landed a shot first.
Player who had the least amount of failed place ship commands.
Players will be awarded points during the game based on the following:
For each successful shot you will be awarded 10 points.
For destroying an enemy ship you will be awarded 30 points.
For killing the enemy player you will be awarded an additional 100 points.
Please take note of the following important terms and conditions. If you have any questions, please direct them to challenge@entelect.co.za.
The challenge is only open to individuals residing in the Republic of South Africa.
Entrants must have a valid South African bank account.
Entry must be executable on the Windows Server 2012 operating system.
An entry may not be:
Copied (plagiarised);
Retrieved from other websites;
The work of any other individual other than the participant.
Although consultation with your peers is encouraged, team-based entries are not allowed and will be disqualified.
The semi-finals and finals will take place LIVE at rAge expo in Johannesburg in October 2017. More info on rAge expo can be found at
http://www.rageexpo.co.za/Finalists will receive free passes to the rAge expo in Johannesburg and will be expected to attend.
Any entry which exhibits behaviour that is deemed unfair, or violates the spirit of good sportsmanship will be immediately disqualified. This includes making any moves which are considered invalid according to the technical specifications laid out for the competition, memory scanning or intentional corruption of the game state.
An attempt to disrupt or alter the normal operation of the Entelect Challenge software or the Entelect servers will result in the immediate involvement of law enforcement officials.
The competition is not open to employees of Entelect Software or their immediate families.
The closing date of the challenge is 15th of September 2017. No further entries will be accepted after this time.
By entering the competition, the winner agrees to follow all rules and requirements as outlined by Entelect Software.
The prize is not transferable.
Entelect Software will not disclose any of the participants' personal information.
By submitting code under your name, you are asserting that you did this work unaided. Entelect Software reserves the right to verify by technical assessment or interview to confirm that an applicant did create and implement the solution. Failure to comply can result on immediate disqualification. The ruling will be final.
Entelect Software reserves the right to amend these rules at any time.
Entelect Software or any of its subsidiaries cannot be held responsible for any loss or damage caused as a result of participation in the Entelect Challenge.
Entelect Software reserve the right to use the name & image of entrants for press purposes relating to the Entelect Challenge.
The challenge winner will make themselves available for press opportunities relating to the Entelect Challenge under conditions which are agreeable by both parties.
The judges' decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
NAG Magazine, South Africa's authority on current trends in computer, console, online and mobile gaming and technology-related entertainment, has partnered with Entelect Software to bring you a competition that could change your life.
The 100K Challenge is simple - in theory. Candidates have to write an artificially intelligent program that has the ability to play against an opponent in the game of light-bikes, as seen in the film Tron. Those willing to test their abilities will have to ensure, however, that they design the most effective and intelligent opponent. NAG Magazine and Entelect Software will then host a tournament with all of the successful entrants, with scheduled play-offs, playing each program against the other in an online environment. These sure-to-be captivating games will be available for viewing online, where the successes and failures can be monitored throughout. An interactive and adrenaline-inducing process, the question is which program will be left standing at the end, giving the maker a cash injection and reputation that he or she can only dream of.
Entelect Software, a fast-growing company, has a reputation as being the 'best-of-breed' software house in the country with teams and projects in all of South Africa's biggest players in finance, healthy, insurance, military, entertainment and more. CEO of Entelect Software, Charles Pritchard says, "This competition is for anyone who has a keen interest in software development and is willing to sink their teeth into this creative challenge. We want to see just what these innovative minds are capable of."
"This competition not only promises to be thrilling, but could change someone's life. The fact that Entelect Software are investing in the local sector like this is a huge opportunity." Says Michael James, Editor, NAG Magazine. NAG Magazine also hosts rAge (Really Awesome Game Expo) each year where the 2012 rAge will see the final of the competition taking place.
The finals of the ground-breaking 100K Challenge took place at Africa's largest technology and video gaming exhibition, rAge at the Coco-Cola Dome in Johannesburg. James says, "By combining our really AWESOME expo with such a fantastic competition, we aim to bring the industry something they haven’t seen before."
The 2013 Entelect R100K Challenge saw hopefuls battle it out with the Nintendo cult classic "Battle City" style game. The technical bar was raised for the challenge in 2013 which provided the opportunity for each entry to play off two tanks against their opponents. Strategies involved destroying the enemy base, or destroying the enemies.
2012 saw the launch of the inaugural Entelect 100K Challenge - and 2013 saw the lift-off of the annual contest pitting like mined individuals against one another in a blazing battle to win. Entelect Software and NAG Magazine - South Africa's authority on current trends in computer, console, online and mobile gaming and technology-related entertainment - presented an opportunity for contestants to change their life. The competition saw a thrilling play-off event on 16 September where the finalists were selected to head off to rAge (Really Awesome Gaming Expo) for an adrenaline filled final at the awesome event in October!
Candidates had to write an artificially intelligent program that can play against an opponent in the cult Nintendo classic, Battle City. Innovation, effectiveness and intelligence are all that were required. "We had to change things up a bit this year. Last year was quite a familiar A.I. problem for coders to deal with (Tron Lightcycles). This year we decided to take things down 8-bit memory lane and do something fun in the form of Battle City. The core problem that coders will have to solve this year is similar, but with a few more quirks and a lot more opportunity for unique strategy. As we saw with last year's challenge, the finalists were all individuals who went to great lengths for that extra 10% intelligence. We hope this year to see an even wider array of clever strategies as the tanks fight it out for superiority on the battlefield." - Tim Kroon, Entelect Software.
"This is a high-energy, adrenaline-infused opportunity that not only has a huge winning incentive but is a lot of fun. This is for every red-blooded individual who enjoys a bit of competition and could picture themselves securing the prestige of developing the winning code -a great career starter. We are thrilled to be able to host the finals at rAge, which further adds to the excitement of the Entelect 100K Challenge," says Michael James, Editor, NAG Magazine. The competition was eventually won by 27 year old Pierre Pretorius after many near shaves in an exciting competition.
The R100K Challenge finals concluded to a packed-house at rAge in October last year. With R165 000 worth of cash prizes at stake, the audience watched in anticipation as once again Pierre Pretorius defeated the competition and took home the grand prize of R100 000 in the advanced pool. In pool B, the victor was Lindsay Hans from Cape Town who took home a cool cash prize of R50 000. Runner ups did not leave empty handed as they went home with vouchers for takealot.co.za and a Raspberry Pi.
2014 saw new, creative and interesting work come to the fore in the competition, including a variety of entries submitted to the Gooey Awards. The Gooey awards calls for developers and designers to attempt creating a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for the R100K Challenge game. Any technology and tools can be utilized, as long as they were web-browser or Windows compatible. "We had a variety of entries for the Gooey Award this year, ranging from skin-and-bones user-interfaces to fantastically sophisticated 3D entries with music, sound effects, special visual effects and dynamic camera movements," says Kroon.
"From the tournament side, we had a range of contestants - from school-goers to senior citizens," continues Kroon. "This is fantastic and reinforces the fact that the competition really does appeal to a broad audience."
With a lot more attention being placed on Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and Machine Learning in computer sciences, comes increasing interest with the advent of big data, cloud computing and of course - video games. "The skills required to have a successful entry in the R100K Challenge are however broader than just that of A.I.," says Kroon. "Close attention to detail needs to be paid to both technical specifications and performance. There are a host of challenges involved in the competition and a successful contestant is someone who pays attention to all the categories of their entry and not only A.I. strategy."
"The PacMan concept for this year’s challenge has been received exceptionally well. We have already been in talks about concepts for the game for next year's challenge that will push contestants to utilise a wider variety or hybrid or artificial intelligence algorithms. We encourage all potential coders, developers and those who have an interest in gaming to enter next year's challenge." concludes Kroon.
The inaugural Gooey Award went spectacularly well, with some really talented and impressive individuals submitting GUI's that blew our expectations apart. It ended up in a close battle between Werner Stoop and Christiaan Visser, with the final victory going to Christiaan for his excellent attention to detail, "feel" and an amazing overall impression. Have a look at the video below for a glimpse at the winning GUI as well as a word from Christiaan.
2015 was another successful year for the Entelect R100K Challenge with an overwhelming amount of entries submitted. "Entries have increased exponentially each year" says Tim Kroon, General Manager of Resourcing at Entelect. The 2015 Entelect R100k Challenge returned with a new official product sponsor, Sony Mobile. "We are really excited for what this year's challenge will bring, and this is set to be our biggest R100K Challenge yet. We are sure that our carefully selected 2015 Space Invaders theme will inspire innovative and creative ideas from all entrants," says Kroon.
The Entelect R100k Challenge series has gained increasing popularity since the original launch in 2012. This year the entrants were tasked to write an A.I. player - or bot - to test their skills against opponents on the classical arcade game, Space Invaders. "Each entrant's bot will need to be designed specifically to outsmart and outplay all other opponents, and only the most intelligent, effective and innovative bots will survive and make it into the semi-finals," explains Kroon.
"From the tournament side, we had a range of contestants - from school-goers to senior citizens," continues Kroon. "This is fantastic and reinforces the fact that the competition really does appeal to a broad audience."
Entrants were categorised into novice and advanced skill pools, A and B respectively, and a separate category for GUI (Graphical User Interface) was also made available. A particular focus was placed on targeting students for the Challenge to tap into the range of A.I. skills among this network. "We invite all students to take part, and test their theoretic knowledge on a practical platform - not only is this a great opportunity to enjoy a challenging gaming experience and network with some of the best South Africa has to offer in the field, but you could be the next winner!"
For the fourth consecutive year, the R100K Challenge finals took place at the rAge Expo is October of 2015. A massive R165 000 in cash prizes was up for grabs, and reigning champion, Pierre Pretorius, held on to his title for the third year in a row, winning the grand prize of R100 000 in the advanced group. Jack Wright was victorious over his opponents in the novice group winning the R50 000 cash prize. The R15 000 Gooey Award recipient was Eric Louw for his innovative GUI entry - his amazing GUI can be viewed in the videos below.
"We are also incredibly proud to partner once again with leading publication, NAG, who continues to provide fantastic support and visibility for our R100K Challenge," says Kroon. "In addition, we are pleased to announce that Sony Mobile have come on board as this year’s product sponsor for the Entelect R100K Challenge and will be providing a host of fantastic prizes from their latest Xperia range.
The Space Invaders theme for this year's challenge was received exceptionally, with entrants praising it for the challenging them in resource management and path finding abilities. "One could say that merely experiencing this level of competition was enough to push me to new heights," says one of the entrants on the Entelect R100k Challenge Forums. "It gave me an opportunity to really learn new stuff that I otherwise would probably have not been exposed to," says another entrant.
The theme of the 2016 challenge centred around the classic 1980's strategy maze-based game, Bomberman - with a twist. Multiple players will be abandoned in a maze arena, armed with bombs, wit and the desire to be the best. Their goal - to outlast their opponents to be the last one standing. Taking advantage of various power-ups, players must explore the dark corners of the maze to accumulate points by bombing everything and everyone in their path.
For those who were more interested in building a GUI than entering the A.I. arena, the Entelect Challenge also offered a GUI specific competition. GUI specialists or hobbyists entered the Gooey Award challenge, to build their own graphical user interface for the game, and stand to win R15 000.
On Saturday 08 October 2016, the top 8 entrants went head-to-head in The Entelect Challenge Finals on the main stage at rAge, where their bots battled it out for that top spot and epic cash prizes. The eight finalists in the 2016 competition were Charl van Niekerk, Christian Reeve, Faruk Can Kaya, Ralf Kistner, Rethabile Mokoena, Riaan Nel, Thinus Potgieter, and Willie Theron.
The top prize for the winning bot went to Ralf Kistner, with second and third places going to Rethabile Mokoena and Riaan Nel respectively.
Prize money was awarded to all the top eight performing bots competing in the A.I. Challenge, with the top three positions being awarded R70 000, R35 000 and R25 000.
"Hosting the Finals event at rAge is always great fun - for both the team and the contestants. For the bots to compete on the main stage in front of a crowd makes the whole event so exciting. rAge continues to be the ultimate place for developers to compete and showcase their creations. We're already looking forward to 2017." concludes Ravic.
