"Shrekaton", or How is the hackathon in MobileUp

While the majority of programmers are involved in the usual hackathons, the gallant droids from Mobilapia arrange the "Shrekaton": they rescue the princess by programming and solving logical problems.

On December 9, we decided to conduct a hackathon in order to distract specialists a little from routine work and motivate them to new feats. It’s boring to take on ready-made tasks or similar ones to work, so I made up my own plot. Now I want to share the details of the game and tell how to ~~mock employees to~~ organize a boring hackathon on their own.

All MobileUp developers are divided into mixed teams of 2 people each: iOS developers with Android developers, Android developers with R & D engineers, Backend developers with iOS developers, and so on. The first challenge was to decide in which language to program.

In the workplace, I hid QR codes that opened up access to a fabulous legend, whose heroes have striking similarities with the real employees of the company. And although the inscription read: “ all names and events are invented, the coincidences should be considered random ”, I decided to enter a small descriptor (or a list of characters) for Habr readers:

The list of characters of Shrekaton

Shrekozavr is an alter-ego of our project manager Oleg Shirokov. He is engaged in capoeira and loves to rate jokes on a points system like: “This is a joke for a hundred.”
The Beatic Princess Olyagushka is a character whose prototype was a marketing and PR manager, with the rare name Beata.
Sergius I Magnificent - it's easy to guess that we are talking about the CEO of MobileUp, which we call Serge.
Nyashny cat - development director Victor Chernogorov. He called himself that.
Aylesha Popovich - iOS developer Alexey Nemychenkov.
Very Troll - iOS Team Lead Vitali Zarubin with the nickname Very Zloy. Known for its rare but caustic comments.
Kos Tian - Android Team Lead Konstantin Tskhovrebov (@terrakok).
Timon is a meerkat from the cartoon "The Lion King", or iOS developer Nikolay Timonin.
Polindroid - iOS developer Polina Demidova. They say that she loves cookies very much and always carries them with her.
Dark Lord is the author of this madness, CTO of MobileUp, Evgeny Valeev.
Pendalf White - in contrast to the dark Zhenya we have a bright Zhenya Denisov, project manager.

We will be familiar. So let's start our story:

“In a certain kingdom, in the twenty-first (according to Tagline) state of Moibailapia, grief happened - the evil Shrekozavr stole the Beatic princess Oryagushka, and imprisoned her (not in the sense eaten) in his Parad-Dur castle. Upset King Mobilapii Serguey I Magnificent, but did not lose heart and decided to act. And since the king is “Magnificent” and not “Brave”, he did not go to fight with Shrekozavr himself, but announced a reward to those who would save the princess.

Many different iOblast droids responded - everyone wanted the kingdom and the floor of the princess as a reward. The legendary Russian bogatyr Aylesh Popovich, and the great Chinese droid Kos Tian, and the famous Crimean Timon, and the experienced Very Very experienced troll, and even the good old Vologda Polindroid, also presented him. Only the gray-haired Pendalf Bely, who appeared white-faced, did not appear, there was nothing for him to fight with the power of an unclean one, because his arsenal contained only html knowledge with which he could only conquer the little infantrymen, and then only the sleeping ones.

It is known that Shrekozavr is absolutely invincible by physical means, for he is engaged in single combat with Byda-Oreira. But he has absolutely no sense of humor, and it is rumored that if you make him laugh at 400 points (no one knows how much it is and how to measure it), then he will burst out laughing, and the princess will be saved.

technical note:
There is reliable information that says that it is necessary to do this in two moves that go in a row. Otherwise, what is happening will come to Shrekozavr, and he will devour Petrosyan to hell with the dogs. And the only salvation - is to run away from him at a distance of one cell. And in general, he is so fierce that he eats everyone who stands close to him for more than two moves (ie, by the end of the second move). Laugh points accumulate over two turns from all players. The winner is the one whose contribution of the joke first led to an excess of 400 points.

All players from birth have approximately the same mass (~ 50) and sense of humor (~ 100), which can be pumped by collecting different nishtyaki from the field:

Mushroom - causes acute bouts of ogofrendii, gives +20 to the mass and -30 to the sense of humor.
Kicker - gives +25 to mass and +25 to sense of humor.
Cookie - adds +15 to mass.
Beathe bra - the princess helps to play Shrekosaur, +50 to the humor, but only in jokes to Shrekosaur.
Nyashny cat is an absolutely useless creature, but beautiful and cute, and pulls him to take with you, but bear in mind - it instantly annihilates your whole mass and completely nullifies your sense of humor. When moving to the cage in which the cat sits, he jumps into his hands. If there is an object in the hand, it falls out.

technical note:
Rumor has it that the cat prefers his left hand, and there is also a non-zero probability that the cat will not jump on his hands.

Shrekosaur's panties give nothing and take nothing. But once seeing them, it is impossible to forget :)
The Eye of Serveron - it can not be taken and carried away. But being on the same cage, there is the ability to see the whole field.
Dark Lord - like any dark matter, it is absolutely unpredictable. By taking it with you, you can both gain weight and humor and lose them. But you won't know it until you try.

technical note:
It was established experimentally that the mass inversely affects the humor - the more mass the creature has, the harder it is to make it laugh. But it is not exactly.

Since the villain is very fierce, in order to increase the likelihood of the princess being released, all iOblast droids are divided into pairs.

technical note:
All iDroids should run on different devices - i.e. have different IP addresses, even if they are on the same team.

On each cell there is a fence on which you can write (being in this cell), whatever (the only restriction is that the word should consist of ~~three letters~~ no more than 10 characters), and this message can be read by anyone who is within a radius of three (i.e. 5x5 square) cells from it. [ A little boring: the inscription on the fence erases the previous message from this fence ].

A little more boring:

field size unknown in advance;
at the very beginning, players are randomly placed on the pitch, but players on the same team are within sight of each other;
Each turn, the player receives the current state of the playing field within a radius of three cells, i.e. 5x5 square;
in one move, a player can move one free cell in any direction, including diagonal ones, write on the fence and take one of the following actions: pick up / drop an item or tell a joke to an opponent / Shrekosaur in a neighboring cell;
if the opponent likes the joke, he laughs for so long that he misses the next move;
a cage can have a wall, another player, or a part of Schrekosaur's castle (in general, it occupies more than one cage and has an arbitrary shape) - then it is impossible to move to that cage;
since each droid has only two hands and not a single pocket, you can take no more than two nishyaks at a time.

technical note:
In the case of sending a command containing more actions than it should be done in one move, only the first ones within the limit will be executed. The rest will be ignored.

All who read this document to the end, congratulations on the beginning of the adventure! Forward to the challenges! ”

On this joyous note, the legend ends and the API begins. He is freely available. Who cares, you can watch it here .

How it all went (small photo report)

The key to the legend.

Never before have our developers been so close (in the sense that they usually do not sit in pairs). They fight with Shrekozavr under the supervision of His Darkness.