Reversing Choplifter – Blondihacks

"The Apple II line of computers had an amazing run, from 1977 to 1993. In that time, hundreds of thousands of pieces of software were written for it, including many tens of thousands of games. Like any platform, however, the number of truly great games within that range is much smaller. If you ask any former (or current) Apple II user what the best five games on the platform are, there would be variation of course, but one game would be on everyone’s list: Choplifter."

Saved because I didn't play the Apple II version, but I loved it on the CBM64!

#retrocomputing #gaming #game #programming

·blondihacks.com·May 15, 2024

Reversing Choplifter – Blondihacks

Genetic Algorithms for Evolution of QWOP Gaits

QWOP is a browser-based, 2-dimensional flash game in which the player controls an Olympic sprinter competing in a simulated 100-meter race. The goal of the game is to advance the runner to the end of the 100-meter race as quickly as possible using the Q, W, O, and P keys, which control the muscles in the sprinters legs. Despite the game simple controls and straightforward goal, it is renowned for its difficulty and unintuitive gameplay. In this paper, we attempt to automatically discover effective QWOP gaits. We describe a programmatic interface developed to play the game, and we introduce several variants of a genetic algorithm tailored to solve this problem. We present experimental results on the effectiveness of various representations, initialization strategies, evolution paradigms, and parameter control mechanisms.

#game #gaming #programming #paper

·arxiv.org·Nov 22, 2023

Genetic Algorithms for Evolution of QWOP Gaits