AI game competitions are also known as AI programming competitions or bot programming competitions. They're different from your average data science competition. In an AI game competition, you aren't given a data set. Instead, you get a game or simulation and your job is to program an agent that can compete in it (sometimes head-to-head against other players' agents).

They can be a great place to practice programming, algorithms, and AI/ML. The competitions vary widely in their difficulty, prizes, languages available, and feasible strategies. To help you find the right one, I've compiled a list of ongoing and upcoming AI game competitions to check out below.

Note: If you're interested in competitions that are geared towards reinforcement learning, check out List of Active Reinforcement Learning Competitions.

June 2022 update: Updated for mid-2022! Updated competition details for Battlecode, Russian AI Cup, Coder One, Lux AI Challenge, and IEEE CoGs. Re-arranged the list based on which competitions are currently active.

List of AI Game Competitions

1. Kaggle Simulations (2010 —)

You've likely heard of Kaggle. They're the most popular platform for hosting data science competitions. But they're also home to a range of simulation playgrounds such as ConnectX, Hungry Geese, and the resource management game, Halite by Two Sigma. Players submit agents that compete on a live leaderboard, and prizes include Kaggle merchandise and ranking points for your Kaggle profile.

Kaggle is a great place to start if you're new to AI game competitions since they provide tutorials and free GPUs for training.

2. AWS DeepRacer (2018—)

AWS DeepRacer is a 3D racing simulator designed to help developers get started with reinforcement learning. Using their prebuilt model, you'll be able to focus on designing a reward function and tuning hyperparameters.

It's free to get started with 10 hours of training on AWS. Top racers each year receive an expenses-paid trip to compete in the AWS DeepRacer Championship Cup at re:Invent. If you plan on seriously competing you'll need to pay for training, evaluating, and storing your model on AWS.

Aside from their virtual racing tracks, there is also an option to purchase their DeepRacer Evo (a 1/18th scale autonomous racing car) for US$399 to try out your RL model on physical tracks.

3. Coder One (2020—)

Coder One is our own multi-agent AI programming competition based on the classic console game, Bomberman. The competition will run between 1 — 14 September 2022, and registrations are open now. It will feature an AU$5,000 prize pool and job opportunities to compete for. At the end of the competition, top teams from the leaderboard will be compete on a casted finale livestream.

Participants are free to use any language of choice. Starter kits are available in Python, TypeScript, and other community-contributed languages.

It is free to create an account and program an agent for the game. To enter an agent into the competitive leaderboard, you will need to purchase a US$10 season pass.

4. Battlesnake (2015—)

Battlesnake is a multiplayer Snake game. Your goal is to survive the longest - either by eliminating others or trying not to starve.

Battlesnake runs seasonal tournament leagues lasting a couple of months each and prizes include gift cards, customizations, and merchandise. Each tournament usually features a different game mode, live leaderboard, and casted livestreams of the top Snakes on Twitch.

To participate, you'll need to host your agent on your own server implementing the Battlesnake API. You'll be able to use any language, with official starter kits available for Python, Go, Java, JavaScript, and Ruby.

5. Terminal by Correlation One (2018—)

Terminal is a two-player tower defense game organized by Correlation One. In Terminal, you take turns building structures and mobile units to take down your opponent.

Terminal features regular seasons (currently on Season 8), which boast ludicrous prize pools (US$200,000+) and end with a finale tournament stream.

Players can use Python, Java, or Rust to build their agents.

6. CodinGame (2012—)

CodinGame is a training platform for programmers and features a range of game-based exercises, in-built IDE, and support for multiple languages.

They host seasonal contests which last for about 2 weeks each. Each contest features a new game, and a ranking system to measure your progress from Wood → Legend. Previous prizes have included CodinGame T-shirts, monitors & keyboards, and Amazon gift cards.

If you're planning on entering, you'll be in good company as each contest attracts thousands of developers, with some of them actively streaming their participation.

7. Lux AI Challenge (2021—)

Lux AI is a new AI programming competition that first launched on Kaggle in late 2021.

It features a 1v1 RTS game with a day/night cycle in which you control a team of units that can gather resources, research, and build cities. The goal is to manage your resources effectively in order to maintain the largest city.

The previous competition featured a US$10,000 prize pool with support for Python, C++, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Java. A new season is planned for launch in late 2022 on Kaggle.

8. Screeps (2014—)

Screeps is an online RTS PvP game in which you control a colony to harvest resources, build units, conquer territory, and trade with other colonies.

The original Screeps game involves players competing in a single persistent open world. A pre-release of 'Screeps: Arena' recently launched in late 2021 which takes place in a match-based arena environment instead.

Both the original Screeps (renamed Screeps: World) and Screeps: Arena are available for purchase on Steam (US$15 - US$19.95). You can program in JavaScript as well as other languages supported by WebAssembly (C/C++, Rust, TypeScript, Go, and more).

9. Battlecode (2003—)

Battlecode is MIT's longest-running programming competition. The theme changes each year, but generally centers around a turn-based strategy game. Participants write an AI player in Java controlling a robot army to take down their opponent.

The competition is open to anyone to participate. Although, only teams of full-time students (international students as well as MIT students) are eligible for tournament prizes (2021's tournament featured a US$15,000 prize pool). The competition is held in a multi-stage tournament format over a one-month period.

The 2022 competition is now over, but is expected to return in January 2023.

10. Russian AI Cup (2012—)

The Russian AI Cup is an annual competition organized by Mail.Ru Group and My.com. Games vary widely between competitions, but previous years have featured RTS, action/platformers, and more.

Each competition sees about ~2,000 participants each year, with prizes that range from merchandise, MacBook and cash (up to 250,000 rubles).

Officially supported languages are: C++, C#, F#, D, Go, Java, Kotlin, Scala, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Rust.

The next competition starts in July 2022 with a 1 million rubles prizepool.

11. SamurAI (2012—)

SamurAI is an annual international AI programming competition based in Japan. The grid-based game involves controlling a samurai and dog team to dig more treasure than your opponent. The finale event is usually held as part of the IPSJ National Convention.

The schedule for the 2022 competition has not yet been released, but usually takes place between December - March. Participants can choose from supported programming languages including Python, Java, and others.

12. AI Coliseum (2018—)

AI Coliseum is an annual competition in Java held around July. Each year features a new theme, usually centered around resource management and real-time strategy.

The competition is split into two parts: a sprint and a final tournament, with accompanying streams. Previous competitions have lasted ~3 weeks with ~EUR1000 in total prizes to be won.

13. CodeCup (2000—)

CodeCup is held annually and organized by the Dutch National Olympiad in Informatics.

Each year features a new game. Previous years included puzzle and board games such as five-in-a-row and tic-tac-toe variants. The 2022 competition features the 2-player board game, 'Spaghetti', and will accept submissions until 22 January 2022. Supported languages are Pascal, C, C++, Java, Python, or Haskell.

14. IEEE Conference on Games (2019 —)

The IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) is an annual event held for researchers in the general domain of AI in games. It's aimed at helping researchers generate new papers and research in game AI, but also features multiple competition tracks open to the public.

CoG returns in August 2022. Competitions include AI Werewolf, Pandemic, Dota 2, StarCraft, and many more. Some competitions will also feature cash prizes in the range of US$500.

Special Mentions

Here are some additional websites and platforms to check out:

• AICrowd (2018—): Runs a combination of supervised ML competitions as well as RL competitions.
• Yare.io (2021—): A new RTS game similar to Screeps which launched in April 2021. Features an aesthetic space theme, in which you control units that attack, defend, and harvest energy from stars to create more units.
• Robot Rumble (2021 — ): A simple 2-player game in which you control multiple robots with the aim of ending the game with more robots than your opponent. In Alpha, with Python and JavaScript supported out of the box.
• Starcraft 2 AI Arena (2016—): An active community developing scripted and deep learning agents for Starcraft 2.
• AIGaming.com (2017—): Website featuring a wide range of games such as Battleship, Chess and Go.

Closing Remarks

I've tried to make this a comprehensive list of all active and upcoming AI game competitions. As new competitions come up, I'll aim to keep this list up-to-date.

Whichever competition you end up choosing — good luck!