[Spades] Judging Script?

Wow. Two games I like in a row.

Will there be a judging script made available?

Just curious.

Yup, as soon as I finish judging the Risk games

Will you judge judge script scripts as well?

(Does it sound like I've been reading about Active Directory directory services)

Hell, why not

Here's an unofficial sub-contest:

Make a judging script for the Spades contest. There are no requirements, except that it works 100% correctly, and that after configuration it works automatically. Output can be anything, as long as it's easily human readable If possible, include a facility for viewing games step by step, but it's not mandatory.

The prize is what I'd get for running the contest - after the winner chooses his prizes, you get to choose one.

(oh, the winner will be the script I like best, for any reason; I'll try to justify my decision, though, so it won't be random)

Caveat: if no script is bugless, I'll make one and take the prize myself

The judge script sub-contest sounds great.

You said there are no requirements. So, for example, it doesn't matter how the judge script makes random moves?

Should the judge script only play one game, should it play games until someone reaches +500 or -200, should it assign pairs and run the entire tournament, ...?

Also, you mentioned that this sub-contest is unofficial. Does that mean you could pull the rug out from under it on the last week, and laugh at the people who actually made judge scripts? It sounds extreme, but I want to make sure.

By the way, it is very kind of you to offer this sub-contest when the result might be that you don't end up with a prize for all your hard work as the contest coordinator.

Are you allowed to enter a judge script and player scripts?

Does this mean that there won't be a judge script to test player scripts on, since people doing the judge script contest could just copy your judge script and modify it? Or is the main part of the judge script contest output/design?

Or is this subcontest just a joke?

I also said that it must be 100% correct, meaning it must follow the rules that are posted. So, one of the correct ways of doing random moves would be to make an array of all possible moves, and use something like:


As is said in the rules, it should generate card distributions for 100 games, and use the same for all of the pairs in this round. Then, it should keep the pairs and switch the player order, and play another 100 games with the same cards. All of this is a single round. Because I don't know yet how many rounds there will be, have a configuration setting for this. If possible, when playing many rounds, try to use non-repeating pairs, so that each submission plays against as many other submissions as possible (in short, don't repeat pairs until necessary).

Yes, you can enter as a player once, and unlimited times as a judge (don't just waste my time, though ;))

I'll make a vert simple judging script for running a single game. I won't make your submissions public, so people won't be able to copy them. Output/design is a part, although not necessarily the main part. Like I said, I'll choose the script I like best...

April is far away ;). It's a completely serious sub-contest, unless all the submissions will be buggy

Okay. Your caveat in the subcontest rules just made it sound like a joke even though it is absolutely needed.

For the judging script sub-contest, is Flash allowed for output? Flash would require Actionscript, which obviously isn't PHP, so I assume the answer is no, but I thought I would check just in case.

It is OK to use Flash (sub-contest is not bound by the same rules) for viewing games (I assume that's what you want it for). You should present results in a textual manner, though (i.e. text/plain or text/html).