Can AI Agents Learn Their Way to the Top? Evaluating Heuristic Learning in a Long-Running Game Agent Competition

arXiv:2610.12341 · cs.AI, cs.CL · Submitted 2026-10-08 · Read on arXiv

cs.AI, cs.CL

Submitted: 2026-10-08

Updated: 2026-10-08

Code: https://github.com/THU-CST-SAST/AAArena

Project page: https://aaarena.net

Terminology

• AI Agents — 11× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Ablation — 8× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Reinforcement Learning — 8× in this paper · explained in 4 episodes
• Adversarial Heuristic Learning — 7× in this paper
• Benchmark — 6× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Benchmarking — 5× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Trace — 5× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Adaptation — 4× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Core — 3× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Adam — 2× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Combinatorial Optimization — 2× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Distillation — 2× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Action Space — 1× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Active Learning — 1× in this paper · explained in 6 episodes
• Agentic System — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Calibration — 1× in this paper · explained in 7 episodes
• Continual Learning — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Generalization — 1× in this paper · explained in 13 episodes
• Iterative Refinement — 1× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Multi-Agent System — 1× in this paper · explained in 5 episodes

Sources

• GameBench: Evaluating Strategic Reasoning Abilities of LLM Agents
• Can Vibe Coding Beat Graduate CS Students? An LLM vs. Human Coding Tournament on Market-driven Strategic Planning
• Game Arena: Strategic LLM Evaluation in Competitive Environments
• From Code to Play: Benchmarking Program Search for Games Using Large Language Models
• CATArena: Evaluating Evolutionary Capabilities of Code Agents via Iterative Tournaments
• Heuristic Learning for Active Flow Control Using Coding Agents
• TextArena
• lmgame-Bench: How Good are LLMs at Playing Games?
• GameArena: Evaluating LLM Reasoning through Live Computer Games
• Automated Design of Agentic Systems
• ZeroSumEval: Scaling LLM Evaluation with Inter-Model Competition
• Learning Game-Playing Agents with Generative Code Optimization
• Eureka: Human-Level Reward Design via Coding Large Language Models
• AlphaEvolve: A coding agent for scientific and algorithmic discovery
• BALROG: Benchmarking Agentic LLM and VLM Reasoning On Games
• ProxyWar: Dynamic Assessment of LLM Code Generation in Game Arenas
• EvoPolicyGym: Evaluating Autonomous Policy Evolution in Interactive Environments
• OSWorld: Benchmarking Multimodal Agents for Open-Ended Tasks in Real Computer Environments
• SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineering

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