INSTRUCTIONS.md

Locomote Tycoon

Play by API! Write a JSON Web Service to move your fleet, win airport dominance and take over the world.

Game Rules

The objective is to become the dominant airline at all airports controlled by your oponent. Gain dominance by flying your planes between airports

• Every Flight earns loyalty at the landing airport - once loyalty reaches 100% - the airport becomes yours
• Every Flight earns you money! How much depends on the Route chosen. Route values can be found here
• When you reach $500, a plane is purchased at your airport HQ (beginning airport)

First Steps

Click the Robot Button for both teams, and see the game mechanics at play. Your goal is to write an JSON Web Service to replace the Robot on one of the teams.

To use your API - enter the API's endpoint into the relevant teams API textbox (i.e. http://myhost.com/my_endpoint), then click on the brain.

At the start of each turn, for a team with an api enabled, the current gamestate is posted to the configured endpoint:

Posted Data

POST /my_endpoint HTTP/1.1
Host: some_host:some_port
Connection: keep-alive
Accept: application/json, text/javascript, */*; q=0.01
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate


{
  "currentPlayer": "Blue",
  "players": [
    {
      "name": "Blue",
      "color": "#9fc5e8",
      "money": 0
    }
    ...
  ],
  "loyalty": [
    {
      "location": "NYC",
      "amount": 0,
      "owner": "Blue"
    }
    ...
  ],
  "airports": [
    {
      "key": "NYC",
      "name": "NYC",
      "x": 330,
      "y": 300
    }
    ...
  ],
  "routes": [
    {
      "key": "NYC->LHR",
      "name": "NYC->LHR",
      "start": "NYC",
      "end": "LHR",
      "flightValue": 200
    },
    {
      "key": "LHR->NYC",
      "name": "LHR->NYC",
      "start": "LHR",
      "end": "NYC",
      "flightValue": 50
    }
    ...
  ],
  "planes": [
    {
      "name": "Plane1",
      "flights_flown": 0,
      "location": "MEL",
      "owner": "Blue"
    },
    {
      "name": "Plane6",
      "flights_flown": 0,
      "location": "NYC",
      "owner": "Pink"
    }
    ...
  ]
}

Expected Response Format

An API is expected to return movements for their Player planes.... i.e. IF an API is controlling the "Blue" team

[
  {
    "name": "Plane1",
    "location": "MEL->DUB"
  }
  ...
]

Test the mechanics - Click to play

To test the game mechanics, you can move planes manually between airports, and watch as loyalty and $ increase. Manual clicking gives you a way to figure out the rules of the game, and stage decision points for your API.

GOALS

The idea is to build some intelligence into how you organise your fleet of planes. Some routes are good money earners, money buys you planes. How will you position your planes; balancing the growth of your fleet, while expanding / defending your locations?

For applicants, the test is purposefully open ended, but as a minimum, try and build a service that will defeat the Bot :)