General > Bot Challenges

DNA Obfuscation Contest

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PhiNotPi:
This contest is similar in style to the "Obfuscated-C" programming contests.   The main idea is to take a simple robot, say Animal_Minimalis or something not-too-complex, and re-write its DNA such that it is unreadable yet similarly functioning.


* Your goal is to cause onlookers to ask "How does that even work?!"  Try to take advantage of "hidden" functionality.  Impress people with your knowledge.
* The DNA should be hard to understand, yet not too long.  It is relatively easy to write a humongous unreadable math expression, but your submission should not rely on sheer size to create unreadability.
* The underlying robot behavior ("phenotype") should be relatively simple.  Write super-complex DNA for a simple bot.
* Basic ideas include substituting numbers with their associated Sysvar names, or messing around with the data stack, or making certain things "conditionless."
For your submission, simply include the "before and after" of the obfuscation. 

There's not going to be an official judging/awards process, but I'm simply interested in seeing what people can write.  It's somewhat open-ended. Have fun!

MysticalDumpling:
This sounds like fun. Do evobots count? Or just hand-authored?

PhiNotPi:
I prefer that the bots be handwritten.  I think it is more challenging that way.

MysticalDumpling:
OK. Is there a specific limit to size? I want to use oculus III, but it is 500+ bp long.

Peter:
I would prefer a hard limit on the size. In a way that you're doing a lot of complicated stuff, but it doesn't take a lot of room. The way it works also needs to be explained.

A good example is this: http://perl.plover.com/obfuscated/
Only 312 characters, and you don't have a clue what it is doing. Read the explanation and still you're overblown.

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