Competitive World of Wumpus

What is World of Wumpus?

This project is based on the World of Wumpus, a toy game coined by early AI researchers to put their AIs to practice. The game is set in a 2D tile map with pits, Wumpus (a monster), and treasure. The objective is for the playing AI to traverse the map to find treasure without running into either the pits or Wumpus.

However, the AI is only able to observe a subset of the world through the use of their limited sensors. When the AI is on a tile, they can only tell:

• If there is a stench (an adjacent tile contains Wumpus)
• If there is a breeze (an adjacent tile contains a pit)
• If there is a shine (an adjacent tile contains treasure)

As the AI wanders around, they take stock of their surroundings and attempt to guess what the world around them is like (i.e. if the tile next to them is dangerous or not). By combining their observations with logic, they can more confidently reach their objectives.

Competition

This program is split up into a competition server and the client AIs. The server is already implemented along with the client networking code. All that is left is for a competitor to implement the logic behind their AI.

Once each competitor is ready, they connect to the server and concurrently play their own games of World of Wumpus. For each map provided in the maps directory, the server:

1. Makes sure each competitor is connected to the TCP server
2. Informs each client the match is starting and informs them of game metadata such as width/height
3. Prompts each client to make a decision
   1. Provides the observable world state
   2. Waits until they respond with their movement direction
4. Stalls until all able clients respond
   1. Clients are disabled if:
      1. They disconnect (killed until the next match)
      2. They die to Wumpus or a pit
      3. They completed the match by collecting all golds
5. Repeats step 2-4 until all clients are disabled (the match is over)

The server will repeat steps 1-5 for each provided map, then spit out scores at the end.

Running the Server

The server is easy to execute. Locate the CompetitiveWoWServer.jar file, then execute the following command while providing program arguments.

java -jar CompetitiveWoWServer.jar <port> <maps-directory> <users-file>

Argument	Description	Sample
port	port number to host the server on	9090
maps-directory	path to the directory containing map .txt files	maps/
users-file	path to the file with usernames,passwords	users.csv

Implementing the YourAI AI

Provided in this repository is ai.ClientAI, an abstract class that hides the implementation details of networking with the server. That leaves only a few methods to implement.

ClientAI(String hostname, int port, String username, String password); // constructor

void start();
Direction think();
void died();
void goldAcquired(Vector position);

void start()

start() is called when the new map file is loaded on the server, meaning the start of a new match. No implementation is required, but it could be helpful to initialize the variables you'll use for logic.

Direction think()

think() is called when your AI needs to decide which direction it will go in. The bulk of your logic should go inside this function. It should return the selected Direction.

void died()

died() is called when your player has walked into either a pit or Wumpus in order to notify you of your unfortunate fate. Until the next match, the think() function will not be called, so you'll have to wait.

void goldAcquired(Vector position)

goldAcquired() is called when your player has walked into treasure, meaning that you're 1/8 closer to winning the game. The position Vector is provided so you don't waste time trying to collect this gold again.

Provided Sensor Data

Before your think() implementation is called, the server sends over the details of your current tile. You can access these by calling these methods to sense the world around you.

Vector getPosition()

Returns the current position of your AI.

boolean isSmelly()

Returns true if an adjacent tile contains Wumpus

boolean isShiny()

Returns true if an adjacent tile contains Gold Treasure

boolean isWindy()

Returns true if an adjacent tile contains a Pit

Types

There are a few types that you should familiarize yourself with. They come with the repository and are kept in the types package.

types.Direction

public enum Direction {
    UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT
}

types.Vector

public class Vector {
    public int X();
    public int Y();
}