Hack and Flick

[Bob Matcuk]

A thought occurs:

I'm thinking of planning an event at HI Capacity that I'm going to call "Hack and Flick". I'd like this to be a regular event (monthly, perhaps?). The idea is simple: watch a movie or two at HI Cap while hacking on some competitive code that is somehow related to the movie(s), followed by a deathmatch of said code with prizes and such.

For example, for the first Hack and Flick, I'm thinking the theme will be "zombies". Participants will be broken into "humans" and "zombies", and your code will determine the behavior of your character(s) in a game. For example, the "zombies" would write code that would prefer movement toward humans and eating brains, whereas "humans" would write their code to prefer movement away from zombies and killing zombies. I haven't worked out all of the details, but I was thinking "human" players might start with a group of characters so they can write some code to use some group dynamics to their advantage. Whereas "zombie" players might only start with one zombie, but any human they eat will turn into a zombie under their control. There'll probably be some more rules and such as the idea is... fleshed... out? *badum, pssh!* But that's the general idea...

After the movie(s), everyone's code will run against the other players in a large deathmatch style game... points will be awarded... winner(s) will be chosen. Fun will be had.

I'm thinking the best time for such an event would be a Sunday. Fish Cake closes at 4pm and Box Jelly is usually dead (we'll have to plan around any events they have scheduled). We could meet up around 3ish, 3:30ish to talk a bit about the challenge, lay out the rules, discuss the particulars of the game environment, etc. We'll start the first movie after Fish Cake closes so we don't have to worry about making much noise... two movies, an intermission, running everyone's code... we'd probably wrap up around 9? So, about 6 hours - it's a bit of a time commitment, but if we only watched one movie it probably wouldn't be enough time to write anything interesting in terms of game strategy, etc...

So, the first question: is there any interest in such an event? Are there enough people willing to commit the better part of a Sunday to watching some bad zombie movies and writing some cool game code?

For this to work, we'll need a simple game interface and such, which I'm willing to write. But the second question is: what language would people prefer? For some reason, I'm leaning a little toward Javascript because it would be really easy to write a simple, graphical game so we could actually watch everyone's humans and zombies running around... but it probably wouldn't be too difficult to write something graphical in another language as well. An alternative would be a hub-and-spoke style system that communicates to the individual programs via TCP/IP - then you could write your code in any language that had TCP support =) That might be interesting, actually, because we could all share code at the end and it would be interesting to see what similar programs look like in different languages. I'm open to anything, really, I just need to know what everyone else is comfortable in. Ideally, we wouldn't want everyone wasting most of their time figuring out a language they've never used... though... another thought occurs...

Third question: is anyone interested in a bigger time commitment? Say we expanded this idea to a weekend-long thing where Saturday is spent learning a new language and Sunday is spent watching bad horror movies and implementing zombified code? Would there be an interest in that? Perhaps every couple months we could plan a weekend long event in place of the regularly scheduled Hack and Flick...

Final question: any other comments? =)

-Bob

[Matthew Badeau]

I love it! I'm in!
A TCP protocol based app sounds cool. Then we can program in almost any language.. though most people probably feel more comfortable in JavaScript

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[Bob Matcuk]

People who favor javascript could use nodejs and the "net" module =)

[William Heath]

I would enjoy this as well!  I would prefer html5 webgl technologies as that is the most cutting edge.

-Tim

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[Brian Russo]

Not to be a spoilsport, but if the balance rules can be pulled from an existing game (or inspired from?) that would help tremendously as balancing games requires some thought. E.g. weapon strength of the humans vs infection rate of the zombies, speed of humans vs speed of zombies, etc..

 

Of course you don't want to make it too complex, but if the humans are allowed to launch into space and nuke the zombies from orbit it is not so sporting ;)

 

- bri

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[Bob Matcuk]

Haha, I agree that some thought will need to be put into balancing, but I'm not overly worried about making it perfect. I mean, participants will have the length of two zombie movies (which are usually on the short side) to write some code for the game. I think we'll probably get more lulz ("why is he running in circles?!??") than nail-biting, close battles. But my thought is that we could build on and refine the code over time. Maybe every couple months we'll come back to one of the previous Hack and Flicks and improve our code... at that point we could revisit game balance issues and such.

For this first round, I'm thinking that I'd like to have at least 2 options for humans, and 2 for zombies, to make things a little more interesting. I'll try to make it balanced, and, if you'd like, I could post the rules for review before the event. But like I said: I don't think it has to be perfect. The point isn't to win a game... the point is to write some code to do something most of us have never done before and have a little fun doing it.

-Bob

[Brian Russo]

Haha yeah. Although I'm sure someone will try to min-max. I just figure if one were to co-opt the broader mechanics from something else it might be more attainable. Kinda like if you were asked to zombify Risk rather than starting entirely from scratch. 

I.e. constrain the problem so as to avoid wallowing amongst infinite possibilities.

- bri

Sent from my iPad

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[Bob Matcuk]

Sure... ideas will be stolen from existing games =) I don't have the time to create something entirely original anyway.

Thanks!

-Bob

[Maleona A]

Aloha,

I love the idea! Bob, would you be willing to host a tutorial or information session for beginners like myself who may need a little more working knowledge prior to the main event? Mahalo for your willingness to introduce and lead a new activity for us hicappers!

Mahalo nui,

Marion

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Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

~Dalai Lama

[Jerry Isdale]

Hack the Rules.

Hack the System

Humans eat Zombies… make Them run!

ok stumble, shuffle…

Jerry Isdale

isd...@gmail.com

[Bob Matcuk]

Eww! Why would you want to eat zombies?! =)

Marion: sure, we'll work something out!

-Bob

[Drew Wallner]

Greetings programs,

My name's Drew and I'm a newcomer to the islands...in fact actually I'm on the mainland this very moment but will be moving to Oahu in two weeks. It also just so happens that I'm a geek who loves hackerspaces, and a filmmaker involved with The DEFCON Documentary, which releases next month. When I saw this thread I thought I would offer: would anyone be interested in screening a documentary about hacker culture and one of the largest hacker gatherings in the world, with a member of the crew that shot it? I could even do a little introduction and Q&A if anybody is interested in that sort of thing.

Please let me know, I'll be in Vegas at DEFCON 21 for our premiere on 8/1 but will be back at HNL by the following evening, so pretty much anytime next month would work. I can bring a 1080p, DRM-free digital copy of the film with me. It sounds like you guys already have a projector or some kind of display for this sort of thing?

Looking forward to meeting island geeks! ^_^

P.S. one of the contests at DEFCON actually mixes hacking and videogaming, and is featured in the film