In 2022 [0], Jan David Nose (jdno) released a game / programming challenge called _Auto Traffic Control_ [1]. Rather than controlling airplanes with UI interactions, the simulation is a GRPC server that expects the player to construct a game client that issues flight paths.

I tried to make a game client for jdno's ATC [2]. My client was deficient, as I tried to treat the movement as a fixed interval, by only submitting flight plans that moved in cartesian directions. Only by cheating, modifying the simulator, could my greedy algorithm land any planes [3]. I suspect I was supposed to continuously model and poll the future positions of airplanes when developing a flight plan.

I suspect that I won't have much competition on the leaderboard, despite the asterisk, as jdno eventually archived the project [4]. Originally, the project was self-publication while looking for work. The Rust Foundation hired him a little while afterward.

[0] https://jdno.dev/auto-traffic-control/

[1] https://auto-traffic-control.com/

[2] https://github.com/Nzen/hircine-anise-okkoz

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czsSjy1Uqyk 1.5 minutes

[4] https://github.com/jdno/auto-traffic-control/commit/b5972dfb...

I think about this game quite often and would love to eventually pick it up as a project again. I was only able to scratch the surface of what I had in mind, and I’m sure there’s so much to learn from players about what makes a good programming game.

Imagine how cool it would be if something like this was based on the actual FF-ICE / FIXM flight plan format.