Level Generation Competition - Basic Instructions

Note: We will occasionally update our software or the documents after we removed any bugs or made any improvements. Here you will always find the latest versions. Current version is Version 3.0 (June 9, 2017).

 

Here you can find simple instructions on how to download the required software for the level generation competition. This includes the basic game version created in Unity3D as well as a baseline level generator created in python. For more details on how to use these, please refer to the following document.

We provide precompiled Unity builds of the software for your convenience. In order to run the game, please download and extract the Unity build for your particular operating system: Windows, OSX, Linux.

Now please download the latest version of the baseline level generator written in python. Please ensure that you have the latest python version installed on your system. If you don't know how to use the python programming language, please have a look at the documentation and the tutorials available on the python homepage.

The baseline generator is accompanied by an input data file called "parameters.txt". This file contains the necessary information about the levels that will be generated. This information is provided in blocks of five lines, with each block containing the following information in the given order:

  • Number of levels to generate (positive integer)
  • Forbidden block and material combinations (list of valid materials/block types, may be empty)
  • Range for number of pigs (two positive integers, minimum and maximum)
  • Time limit to generate levels (minutes) (positive integer)

During the competition, information about what levels to create will be passed to each generator using this input file, please ensure that your level generator uses this input file correctly.

Running the baseline level generator will create a collection of files, starting with level-04.xml and increasing upwards from there. Copy these files to the following location within the game directory: StreamingAssets/Levels/ and you can play the newly generated level using the Unity build, starting from level 4.

For more details on the baseline level generator, the XML format we use, as well as instructions for the Unity build, please refer to the detailed instructions. Please note that you can create a level generator in any programming language as long as it creates xml files according to the format we use.

We also provide software that allows AIBIRDS agents to connect to the Science Birds game. Please refer to the detailed instructions for how to do this. You can download the source code of some of the best agents of the past AIBIRDS competitions and run them on your generated levels.