Gold Rush - mine gold and grow your empire!
This is a Perl web game server that requires players to write programs in any language that interact with it in a certain way. The game requires strategy and improvisation, as some events occur randomly and has to be taken into account. Your task is to build settlements, explore land, recruit units and gain as much gold as possible. A person with the highest amount of gold after a given number of turns win.
Problem type: optimize the process, take randomness into account.
Required technical skills: able to use HTTP APIs and WebSocket connections.
Recommended skill level: Intermediate. Likely too hard for beginners to have fun.
Recommended solving time: no less than three hours for one person, as this is the time it took the author to write the reference perl bot implementation. Since the goal is not a simple matter of solving a puzzle, it can be back and forth battle who has the better algorithm with live preview of current leaders.
See instructions/lang.pod for game reference. Can do it in
command line with command: pod2text instructions/lang.pod.
The examples directory contains approaches to playing the game.
Caution: SPOILERS
docker-compose up
Note: perl 5.28 with Carton required. Carton is a Perl module dependency manager. You will need to have it installed prior to the script below: cpan Carton
carton install # install the dependencies
carton exec prove -l # test the installation
carton exec plackup -p 5000 -D runner.psgi # daemonize the game server
carton exec ./websocket prefork # run the websocket server
After playing the game, a scores directory will contain scores for players. A
scores file contains a single JSON document, with game state for every 10
rounds. The file is only present after the player has finished the game. A new
score will override the last one.
To view scores interactively, go to address:5000/scores.html