Hello everyone,

I guess almost everyone knows that the ICPC Challenge takes place every year before the ICPC World Finals. Of course, this year isn’t an exception. If someone doesn't know, the ICPC Challenge is an additional AI-contest for the ICPC finalists where they have two weeks to solve a single game problem. After that, a double-elimination tournament will be held between the team's submissions. The results will be announced at the Finals.

The ICPC Challenge 2013 has started several days ago (on the 3th of June, to be exact) and I want to solemnly declare that this year ICPC Challenge has been prepared by the team from Baylor University, North Carolina State University and Saratov State University, which I represent! We introduce you a new game called CodeRunner.

About the Game

The 2013 ICPC Challenge game, CodeRunner, has a playing field that looks something like the following figure. A red player and a blue player compete to collect gold, while avoiding several enemies that are moving around the map. Each player directly controls a single runner character, who can move left and right, climb up and down ladders and break temporary holes in the floor with a large hammer. In addition to collecting gold, the players earn points by exploring the map and trapping enemies and their opponent in holes.

Surprise

But the point of my speech is that everyone can compete in the challenge this year! In addition to the regular ICPC Challenge, a contest among ICPC World Finalist teams, we are running a new competition called the Open ICPC Challenge. This competition invites any competitive programmers worldwide to compete head-to-head on the same programming problem as the 2013 ICPC World Finalists.

You can find more information here and here.

We invite everyone to take part in this event!

Good luck and have fun!