[xorcist]

Why the JVM? Why not run your own bytecode, or even use Redcode straight up?

edit: Perhaps I should explain. I dabbled in rec.games.corewars a few times, and what I found most rewarding was all the tricks you could play with the bytecode. I've never found the Java variants as fun, as one fun part of the game seems lost. I feel like I'm missing something.

[dvorak42]

While we do allow bytecode tricks, we want the focus of the competition to be on developing high level macro and bot level micro strategy, instead of spending all the time working on optimizing at the bytecode level. Especially since the main competition period is less than a month, we don't want to encourage time being spent on that.