Abstract: Sokoban is a puzzle game where the player is tasked with moving crates in a warehouse to designated places. While the task is simple on its surface, the reality is quite different: intricate floor layouts force particular sequences of moves, the limited space in which to move creates difficulties in moving when crates block each other, and as your warehouse increases in size, things only become more complex. Solving these puzzles automatically is a problem that maps nicely into real-world applications, but the evaluation of these strategies often relies on fixed test suites which may be prone to overfit. We propose a King-of-the-Hill (KotH) competition designed to develop and evaluate automated puzzle solvers and generators. With each contestant submitting both a puzzle solver and a puzzle generator, contestants must demonstrate both effective solving strategies to overcome puzzles generated by opponents and generation strategies which exploit limitations of the other competitors’ solvers. We expect that this competition will act as an exciting way to push the envelope in automated solving and adversarial testing of solvers, with contestants discovering new ways to target the weaknesses in each other’s strategies and optimisations.

Biography: Addison Crump is a second-year PhD student at CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Thorsten Holz. Though specialising primarily in fuzzing for security testing, Addison’s focus prioritises the integration of strategies from other testing domains to make security testing more automated and approachable. Outside of academia, Addison is a maintainer of LibAFL and a member of secret.club.