In case anyone was wondering, the IOCCC specifically permits LLM use in their guidelines.
"The IOCCC has a rich history of remarkable winning entries created by authors who skillfully employed various techniques (often their own tools) to develop their code."
I'm not sure this kind of competition is still meaningful, given that LLM can easily convert a program clearly written in any programming language to the most obfuscated C code, and can still easily verify it's correctness in an automated way.
Yes, you haven’t tried it. LLMs are actually awesome at deobfuscation, but terrible at obfuscation. They just can’t do it yet.
They also lack the creativity needed for those entries. Obfuscation is only one part of it. Coming up with the idea is another. Many entries also have special qualities that make them true works of art.
yes llm can do it but i think competitions have more to do with developing scientific temperament, competitive mindset and complex problem solving skills. that's why i think they are still relevant and will be relevant for a long time.
In my experience LLMs were pretty good at deobfuscating many entries (including mine) but very awful at generating any significantly obfuscated code. So obfuscation can be regarded as a truly humane art---at least for now.
It's a bit annoying getting frontier models to even work on IOCCC code because of "safety", but even if you get around that LLMs just aren't very good at it. Obfuscating code involves a level of creativity and deviousness that LLMs struggle to meet.
> You are free to use whatever tools you wish to write your code. This includes tools that are AI based, LLM (large language model), Virtual coding assistants, code generators, or similar tools, as well as your own tools. The IOCCC judges do not discriminate on the basis of the tools used to write obfuscated C code so long as you are the ultimate author of the code you submit.
Maybe, but it can't make the gameboy code look like a gameboy too, unless asked to, and that probably would not work even. That's the difference between an LLM and a human, and that's what make this competition worthwhile.
The GameBoy emulator's code also looks like the GameBoy. Slow clap this is insane, definitely my favorite entry.
https://github.com/ioccc-src/winner/blob/master/2025/ncw1/pr...
The author, Nick Craig-Wood, is the creator of rclone!
Damn, that is cool! Looking at me typing css & php...
My favorite is the 366-byte C program emulator that can run Linux and Doom [0]. The VM implements an OISC - a One Instruction Set Computer [1].
[0] https://github.com/ioccc-src/winner/blob/master/2025/cable/p...
[1] https://github.com/ioccc-src/winner/blob/master/2025/cable/R...
Here is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/live/MoWCwZx1Swc?si=eIOlRsKWNKRVRZeB...
In case anyone was wondering, the IOCCC specifically permits LLM use in their guidelines.
"The IOCCC has a rich history of remarkable winning entries created by authors who skillfully employed various techniques (often their own tools) to develop their code."
The website itself is obfuscated, it’s not easy to find the C sources at all!
Can jump straight to https://www.ioccc.org/2025/#inventory
I'm not sure this kind of competition is still meaningful, given that LLM can easily convert a program clearly written in any programming language to the most obfuscated C code, and can still easily verify it's correctness in an automated way.
Do I miss anything?
Yes, you haven’t tried it. LLMs are actually awesome at deobfuscation, but terrible at obfuscation. They just can’t do it yet.
They also lack the creativity needed for those entries. Obfuscation is only one part of it. Coming up with the idea is another. Many entries also have special qualities that make them true works of art.
> They just can’t do it yet.
Have you tried it or are you guessing this?
> Do I miss anything?
That human art is worth the humanity in the art.
As soon as anything is automated, it's worth nothing.
yes llm can do it but i think competitions have more to do with developing scientific temperament, competitive mindset and complex problem solving skills. that's why i think they are still relevant and will be relevant for a long time.
> Do I miss anything?
School ? /s
Tis a pity to not have LLMs compete, given level of obfuscation they be capable of.
In my experience LLMs were pretty good at deobfuscating many entries (including mine) but very awful at generating any significantly obfuscated code. So obfuscation can be regarded as a truly humane art---at least for now.
It's a bit annoying getting frontier models to even work on IOCCC code because of "safety", but even if you get around that LLMs just aren't very good at it. Obfuscating code involves a level of creativity and deviousness that LLMs struggle to meet.
LLMs are allowed. [0]
> You are free to use whatever tools you wish to write your code. This includes tools that are AI based, LLM (large language model), Virtual coding assistants, code generators, or similar tools, as well as your own tools. The IOCCC judges do not discriminate on the basis of the tools used to write obfuscated C code so long as you are the ultimate author of the code you submit.
[0] https://www.ioccc.org/faq.html#ai
Maybe, but it can't make the gameboy code look like a gameboy too, unless asked to, and that probably would not work even. That's the difference between an LLM and a human, and that's what make this competition worthwhile.
So like at a film festival, 90% of the entries won a price, but unlike a film festival there's not a single best. Weird, like modern education.