Strait of Hormuz Tower Defense

A game for the current (2026MAR) state of foreign affairs, and an exercise in ML-assisted game programming. See the experiments folder for unused or failed attempts.

Play

Play online — choose between:

• Canonical Game — original hand-tuned balance
• Experimental Balance — evolutionary self-play tuning applied (stats may change between runs)

Or download hormuz-game.html and open in a browser for offline play. Desktop recommended.

Self-Play Balance System

The self-play/ directory contains an autonomous balance-tuning system:

• Headless engine — runs the full game in Node.js (~9000 ticks/game, <1s) via vm sandbox
• Evolutionary optimizer — ~150-gene strategy genomes encoding build priorities, placement, upgrade policy
• Balance analyzer — detects dominant/underpowered units, monoculture strategies, difficulty signals
• Rebalancer — adjusts HP/DPS/cooldown (primary), cost (secondary), preserving 15 realism constraints

Run the balance loop:

node self-play/run.js balance          # full autonomous loop (evolve → analyze → adjust → repeat)
node self-play/run.js balance --cycles=8 --gen=20 --pop=60
node self-play/run.js balance --no-push # commit locally but don't push
node self-play/run.js test             # smoke test

Each cycle writes a timestamped config to self-play/configs/, updates balance-config.js, commits, and pushes. The GitHub Actions workflow redeploys the testing build automatically.

Convergence target ("edge of chaos"): 20-60% win rate, 4+ unit types in top strategies, 3+ distinct archetypes, no dominant unit >40% of kills.

Contributing

Gameplay, visual/audio, performance, etc. improvements welcome, as is commentary/critique.

Engineering policy

Development practices for this repository are described in AGENTS.md (TDD, ADRs before new features, documentation layers). Quick orientation:

Document	Purpose
AGENTS.md	Mandatory practices
DESIGN.md	Game design specification
docs/COVERAGE.md	What tests cover and known gaps
docs/adr/	Architecture Decision Records
LOG.md / MEMORY.md / LESSONS.md	Chronological log, durable facts, lessons

Tests

npm ci          # install deps (none yet; lockfile for CI reproducibility)
npm test        # fast suite — Node contract tests for self-play + bounded VM smoke
npm run test:extended   # slower — full headless game smoke (self-play/run.js)

The playable HTML file also includes an in-browser regression suite (Ctrl+T, runs on load).

Before commits that change game logic used by the headless engine or self-play pipeline, run npm run test:extended locally (see docs/COVERAGE.md).