We are more than happy to announce the winners of [url=https://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13528]Cemetech Contest #19[/url]: Pathfinding from Hell.

[img]https://www.cemetech.net/img/contests/cc19.png[/img]

Participants had to make a pathfinding algorithm in pure BASIC, which finds its way through some mazes. To make it more challenging, some tokens were excluded, which made it harder but funnier. Entries were required to fulfill this tasks, and output a correct path.

Judging was a puzzle, and that was a big mistake of us. Only 2 participants submitted their entry, so one could say it was pretty easy to judge. However, we didn't make the inputs before looking at both entries. While testing an example, we noticed that both participants used a different way to find a path, which heavily depends on the input. But, we had no inputs yet, and we sadly knew what kind of inputs (lots of walls, or more open areas) were required for one entry to find a path very quickly. Thus, we were all biased at making inputs, so that is why we decided to do it a little bit different. Instead of making all the inputs ourselves, I've asked a girlfriend to generate some inputs, because she was totally independant. Because there were only 2 entries, we decided that 9 inputs in total would be enough, especially since the timings of both entries were quite different. So, we all tested 3 inputs each, and this was enough to declare a winner.

And now it's finally time to announce the winners!

[list][*]The second place goes to [url=https://www.cemetech.net/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=18647][b]commandblockguy[/b][/url]. He wrote a very nice program which works fine, but sadly it didn't got the speed from the other participant, and because his program was bigger as well, he only got 8 points for elegance. If only the speed was a bit faster, he would surely have a change to win this contest. Nevertheless, congratulations on actually finishing an algorithm and being second!
[*]The first place goes to [url=https://www.cemetech.net/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=5162][b]jacobly[/b][/url]. He wrote a very small and fast program, which did a recursively search in the maze, finding it's way through the maze. The only program with jacobly's entry was that is sometimes results in an error, although it found a path. However, we did not disallow resulting in an error, so we want to congratulate him with his well-earned first place![/list]

As mentioned in the [url=https://www.cemetech.net/news.php?year=2017&month=all&id=844]original news article[/url], the winners will receive a Steam giftcard of $30 and $15 respectively. Outside of that, [url=https://www.cemetech.net/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=10880]jonbush[/url] is willing to create plaques for both winners. Congratulations again to both winners, and hope to see you all next time at Cemetech Contest 20!