History

Edition 2023 - Pyro Party

The very first edition of the CeneBotBattle took place in 2023. CenEka's new Web&ICT responsible, Thomas Van Acker, wanted to attract more computer science engineering students to the association. He came up with the idea to organise an online programming competition specifically for these students. Together with the help of Wannes Sys, they developed the competition's webportal and custom arcade game from scratch over the course of the summer vacation.

Participants had to write a small Python program for a bot to play the game Pyro Party. This multiplayer arcade game was inspired by the popular game Bomberman. Over the course of 7 weeks, participants competed for the top of the leaderboard or one of the 10 special prize categories. A livestream of the battles was available on Twitch. On the 29th of November, the first edition officially came to a close on the Closing Ceremony where all participants could meet eachother and the winners were announced.

The event was well received by both students and the university. More than 150 students followed the competition online, and about 40 actively participated. At the end of the 2023-2024 academic year, Ghent University even awarded them with the DSAward Achievement of the Year.