Corewar

Corewar is a very peculiar game. It’s about bringing “players” together around a “virtual machine”, which will load some “champions” who will fight against one another with the support of “processes”, with the objective being for these champions to stay “alive”. The game ends when all the processes are dead. The winner is the last player reported to be “alive”.

This project is made of three parts:

• The assembler: compile the Champions' code written in pseudo assembly code into binary file (bytecode)

• The Virtual Machine: manage the arena where the champion's fight. Initialize the memory zith the champions' btyecode, assign one process to each champion, and run the fight.

• The Champion: fight in the arena and (try) to win.

compile

make

Execute Assembler

./asm [-a] <file.s>

Option:

• -a : verbose mode

Execute VM

./corewar [-d N -coplkv] <champion1.cor> <...>

Option:

• -d N : dump memory after N cycles and then exit
• -c : Show cycles
• -o : Show operation
• -p : Show pc movement (except for jumps)
• -l : Show lives
• -k : Show deaths
• -v : Visual output mode. Pipe output to love visu
  • Ex: ./corewar -v <champ.cor> <...> | love visu

Install löve for graphic output:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" < /dev/null 2> /dev/null ; brew install caskroom/cask/brew-cask 2> /dev/null

brew cask install love

Assembly language

Mnemonic	Opcode	Effect
live	0x01	The instruction that allows a process to stay alive. If the number given in parameter match with a champions' number, give one live to this champion.
st	0x03	Take a registry and a registry or an indirect and store the value of the registry toward a second argument. For example, st r1, 42 store the value of r1 at the address (PC + (42 % IDX_MOD)).
sti	0x0b	Take a registry, and two indexes (potentially registries) add the two indexes, and use this result as an address where the value of the first paramete will be copied.
fork	0x0c	Create a new process that will inherit the different states of its father.
lfork	0x10	Long fork. Same as fork but with no address restriction.
ld	0x02	Take an argument and a registry. Load the value of the first argument in the registry.
ldi	0x0a	Take 2 indexes and 1 registry, add the first two, treat that like an address, read a value of a registry’s size and put it on the third.
lld	0x0d	Same as ld, but with no address restriction.
lldi	0x0e	Same as ldi, but does not apply any modulo to the addresses.
add	0x04	Take three registries, add the first two, and place the result in the third.
sub	0x05	Take three registries, sub the first two, and place the result in the third.
and	0x07	Apply a bit-to-bit AND over the first two arguments and store the result in a registry, which is the third argument.
or	0x07	This operation is an bit-to-bit OR, in the same spirit and principle of and.
xor	0x07	This operation is an bit-to-bit XOR.
zjmp	0x09	Take an index and jump to this address if the carry is 1.

compatibility

Mac OS

Interface