{"id":4566,"date":"2026-11-05T16:25:54","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T21:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/matlab\/?p=4566"},"modified":"2026-11-05T16:25:54","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T21:25:54","slug":"practice-agentic-coding-with-the-matlab-one-button-game-mini-hack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/matlab\/2026\/11\/05\/practice-agentic-coding-with-the-matlab-one-button-game-mini-hack\/","title":{"rendered":"Practice agentic coding with the MATLAB One-Button Game Mini Hack"},"content":{"rendered":"
MATLAB Central's <\/span>Mini Hack contests<\/span><\/a> have evolved quite a bit over the years. Back in <\/span>2021<\/span><\/a> we asked competitors to produce a beautiful image using only 280 characters of MATLAB code. This format was so popular that we repeated it in <\/span>2022<\/span><\/a>. In <\/span>2023<\/span><\/a>, the character count was increased to 2,000 with the aim to produce a 2 second, 48 frame animated looping gif. In <\/span>2024<\/span><\/a> we kept the 2,000 character count but the video-length was increased to 12 seconds; one of the winning entries from that year is shown below.<\/span><\/div>
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MATLAB One-Button Game Mini Hack<\/span><\/h2>
The aim of <\/span>this year's Mini Hack<\/span><\/a> is to produce a game using MATLAB but there's a catch!<\/span><\/div>
Part of the fun of all of the previous competitions was dealing with the limitations. Indeed, while researching this article I discovered the concept of creative limitation and the quotation by artist Phil Hansen who <\/span>said in his TED Talk<\/span><\/a> <\/span>\"Embracing the limitation can actually drive creativity<\/span> \u2026 <\/span>We need to first be limited in order to become limitless\"<\/span><\/div>
The primary limitation in this year's competition is that you can only use one button; either a mouse click or the space-bar to control your game. It turns out that such 'one-button games' form an entire genre which go back at least a couple of decades so this isn't quite as limiting as you might originally think. <\/span><\/div>
Secondary limitations are that your code must be 10,000 characters or less and that you should use MATLAB R2022b or above but in my experience so far, they are nothing to worry about.<\/span><\/div>
The competition started a few days ago and there are already a <\/span>bunch of fun entries which you can play in the gallery<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/div>
As a MathWorks employee, I am ineligible for any prizes and so feel no shame at all in promoting one of my entries, <\/span>Slalom Run<\/span><\/a>. Here's a video of me playing it. The space bar changes the skier's direction<\/span><\/div>