The #Sprouts2024 webpage is up: http://kyleburke.info/sprouts/sprouts2024/ Our keynote speaker will be Michael Fisher from West Chester University of PA.

You can play around with writing a Gorgons player for our computer player tournament: http://kyleburke.info/sprouts/sprouts2024/sprouts2024ComputerTournament.php

We haven't yet picked a Saturday in April for the conference, but we're working on it. If you know any undergrads who will be working on anything related to combinatorial or mathematical games, please have them consider giving a talk! If you have a student who might be looking for an AI project, suggest to them to take part in the Gorgons player competition!

#SproutsConference #AI #UndergraduateResearch #CombinatorialGames

We have a game for next year's Sprouts! Gorgons, which is quite similar to Amazons. Each turn you choose one of your (non-stone) Gorgons to move, pick a direction a Chess Queen can move and then move it in that direction (or keep it still). Before your Gorgon moves, it uses its gaze to turn a space to stone. If there is another Gorgon in the direction it's chosen, it turns that one to stone. Otherwise it turns the last clear space in that direction to a stone block. (You can't choose a direction where there isn't any free space.) It's a normal play game, so you lose when you can't make a move.

Gorgons is playable here: http://kyleburke.info/DB/combGames/gorgons.html The basic AI is terrible (they needlessly turn their own pieces to stone a lot). I've been enjoying playing as just one gorgon against a team of many.

We don't have a date yet for #Sprouts2024 (it'll probably be a Saturday in April). There will be a human tournament and an AI tournament. I'll work on getting the webpages up with instructions to submit your own AI player.

#Sprouts2024 #SproutsConference #CombinatorialGames #Gorgons #UndergraduateResearch