prizes
Prizes
$2,500 across two tracks and a community prize, and the terms attached to them.
Draft — pending reviewupdated 2026-07-25
$2,500 total, paid within 30 days of results. The split is fixed and published here before the competition opens.
Agent track — $1,500
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1st | $800 |
| 2nd | $450 |
| 3rd | $250 |
Ranked by agentScore on the final hidden seed set, with the tiebreaks in the rules.
Generator track — $750
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1st | $500 |
| 2nd | $250 |
Ranked by genScore from the final nightly evaluation after the deadline, including the human fun multiplier where a generator has at least 25 ratings.
Community prize — $250
One award, judged by the organizer against published criteria, for the contribution that made the competition better for everyone. Things that qualify:
- The best replay — a run that is genuinely worth watching, with the debug overlay to explain it.
- The best write-up — how your agent works, what you tried, what failed.
- The best physics bug find — a reproducible case where the engine disagrees with the reference game, with evidence.
A physics bug find that lands as a failing test in the repo is the strongest possible entry in this category.
Payout
- Winners are contacted after results and provide payout details privately. Payout information is never public and never appears on a profile.
- Paid via PayPal, Wise, or GitHub Sponsors, whichever works for you, within 30 days of results.
- Prizes are a personal promotional giveaway from the organizer, not employment or a contract for services.
- US winners: any single prize of $600 or more requires a W-9 and generates a 1099. First place in the agent track is $800, so at least one form is going to be involved. [Draft: pending review — this is a factual note, not tax advice.]
- Void where prohibited. If your jurisdiction forbids receiving this kind of prize, we cannot pay it.
Eligibility
- Anyone may enter, anywhere, subject to the line above.
- One entry identity per human. Submit as many times as you like — your best submission counts — but multiple accounts for one person are a disqualification, not a strategy.
- The organizer and anyone who worked on the engine before launch are ineligible for prizes. They can still submit; their entries appear on the leaderboard marked as ineligible so you can see what you are up against.
- Entries must be your own work. Code generated by an LLM at your direction is your own work — that is the entire premise of the 2026 edition. Copying another entrant's submission is not.