Battlesnake

A simple Battlesnake written in Java.

Deployed to https://battlesnake-liquid.herokuapp.com/

Battlesnake documentation can be found at https://docs.battlesnake.com/.

Competition History

Variations of this snake have participated in multiple Battlesnake competitions.

• Competed in the veteran division of Battlesnake: Stay Home and Code as 🚚🦴🐶 𝗪𝗔𝗟𝗧𝗘𝗥 👑 🚒

• Competed in the expert division of Battlesnake 2019 & Battlesnake 2019 Winter Classic as 🐍 ‏‏‎𝙎𝙐𝙋𝙀𝙍 𝙎𝙇𝙄𝙈𝙀𝙔 ‏🐍 - View Snake

• Competed in the intermediate division Battlesnake 2018 as Solid Snake - View Snake

Strategy

Our snake's strategy was aggresive. For each turn, if the snake wasn't the largest on the board, or if the health was below a specific threshold, the snake would navigate towards the closest food. Otherwise, it would try to target the other snakes' heads to either eliminate the opponent in a head-on collision or trap them by cutting off their path.

Tournament - Stay Home and Code

The snake beat six other competitors the second round of Group B to qualify for the Quaterfinals, where it was eliminated. There were 32 competitors in the veteran division. Our games were played on a 11x11 board with 4 food spawned at start.

Timestamp on the BattlesnakeOfficial Twitch stream is 2:16:32-2:25:35 for Group B, and 4:04:08-4:15:18 for Quaterfinals.

Group B - Round 1

Group B - Round 2

Quaterfinals - Round 1

Quaterfinals - Round 2

Quaterfinals - Round 3

Usage

Prerequisites

1. Install JDK 11 or higher

2. Install Docker + Docker compose (required for Docker container method)

3. Install Heroku CLI (required for Heroku CLI method)

4. Install .war Heroku deployment plug-in heroku plugins:install heroku-cli-deploy ) (required for Heroku CLI method)

5. Create a Heroku App online or using the Heroku CLI with heroku create <name>

   (alternatively any other hosting service can be used)

Test Board

Online

Goto play.battlesnake.io

Run Locally

Gradle

1. Run the project using either ./gradle run or gradlew run for UNIX and Windows platforms respectively. This will build and run the project as a `JAR` using Webapp Runner.
2. Use http://localhost:8080 as the snake URL.

Docker

1. Build the project using either ./gradle build or gradlew build for UNIX and Windows platforms respectively.
2. Run the Docker Tomcat image in a container with docker-compose up.
3. Use http://localhost:8080/battlesnake as the snake URL.

Deployment

Heroku-GitHub Integration

1. Go the dashboard for the Heroku app.
2. Click on the deploy tab.
3. Scroll down to the Deployment method and select GitHub.
4. Enter the repository name and click Connect.

Heroku CLI

1. Build .war file ./gradlew build
2. Deploy to Heroku heroku war:deploy build/libs/battlesnake.war --app <name>
3. Use https://[name].herokuapp.com/ as the snake URL.

Acknowledgments

• Built by Jaxson Van Doorn and Ben Austin
• Adapted from tflinz's snake
• Designed for Battlesnake Official's competition