Program synthesis with a 2 player Game of Life

[emilwallner]

Hey,

I'm looking for ideas to synthesize programs in GoL.

We've developed a two-player version of GoL to use for program synthesis. Similar to DeepMind's AlghaGo, we aim to generate a GoL program through self-play.

We are still working on the exact rules, for now, each player gets a 64x64 grid to create a program in a 512x512 game board. Killing cells follow the normal GoL rules. A new cell is owned by the player that has a majority of the three creating cells.

Each player has a 'game-wall' side and a collision side. The programs are mirrored to have the collision sides against each other. The program that has most living cells by say 1000 cycles wins.

We are developing algorithms that generate these programs. We are starting off by trying a deep neuroevolution/genetic algorithm approach.

Have you seen any similar research? Do you have any suggestions for the 2 player game dynamics? Suggestions for algorithms to synthesize programs? Or benchmarks to measure how good a GoL player is?

Cheers,
Emil

[Majestas32]

What is a GoL "program" exactly?

[emilwallner]

It's a normal Game of Life pattern. However, it's designed to occupy the game board and kill the cells of their opponent. It's similar in the game dynamics to core war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War but instead of using Redcode the player are built in GoL's cellular automata.

E.g you could create a wall of eaters and have a gosper glider gun shooting in the direction of their opponent.