ColorShapeLinks: A board game AI competition for educators and students
This framework provides an accessible and extensible platform for educators and students to learn and compete in AI game development.
This paper introduces ColorShapeLinks, an AI board game competition framework based on an arbitrarily-sized version of the Simplexity game. It provides graphical and text-based frontends and an open development framework, successfully used in AI classes and an international IEEE competition.
ColorShapeLinks is an AI board game competition framework specially designed for students and educators in videogame development, with openness and accessibility in mind. The competition is based on an arbitrarily-sized version of the Simplexity board game, the motto of which, "simple to learn, complex to master", is curiously also applicable to AI agents. ColorShapeLinks offers graphical and text-based frontends and a completely open and documented development framework built using industry standard tools and following software engineering best practices. ColorShapeLinks is not only a competition, but both a game and a framework which educators and students can extend and use to host their own competitions. It has been successfully used for running internal competitions in AI classes, as well as for hosting an international AI competition at the IEEE Conference on Games.