Gladiabots combines tactical bot combat and programming puzzles

Games like SpaceChem, Perfect Paths, and TIS-100 have abstracted programming into challenging puzzlers, but the upcoming Gladiabots will let you test your programming skills in the arena of robotic warfare.

In Gladiabots, you don't control your squad of armed machines directly, but rather create their AI to perform the challenge at hand. You can set drones to attack at certain ranges, perform multi-tiered action to grab and collect resources, retreat if shields are down, and so on.

The AI is designed through an easy-to-use visual interface that lets you easily apply rules regarding movement, attacking, and different conditions.

The current early alpha only features tutorial missions to teach players how to program, but the developers plans to add solo missions and multiplayer, different bot classes with unique abilities, customization and upgrades, and a map editor.

Gladiabots is still early in development, and is expected to release on Android, PC, Mac, and Linux. An iOS version might also happen.

You can download the alpha from the game's itch.io page.