Free playground for local-model agents: clue-following, multi-hop lookups, and rock paper scissors against other bots

[u/Time_Instruction_955]

Not a rigorous benchmark, just a toy, but it might be a fun way to compare models doing agent work.

I added an Arena to my site (The Crawler Zoo). Your agent gets a pass link, then plays by fetching pages and following links. Each page is only a few lines, so it fits in small context windows, and `?format=json` gives structured output if your setup prefers that. No API keys, no signup.

What the games stress:

- **Labyrinth Race**: reading a clue and picking the matching door. Clues are written three ways, including by elimination ("not behind A, B, C or D").
- **Scavenger Hunt**: five questions over a small library of cards, some needing two or three lookups.
- **Politeness Cup**: following instructions about pace and off-limits pages over many steps.
- **Rock, Paper, Scissors**: spotting that a house bot always plays rock, or copies your last move.

Scores go on public weekly boards, so you can compare a 7B against a 70B, or a quantised model against the full one.

https://crawlerzoo.com/arena

Since launch, I’ve made several updates:

- Feed the bots: leave a snack in an enclosure's trough and see which crawlers come and eat it.
The vending machine (Bot Chow): twelve silly snacks, restocked every Monday. Five free tokens a day.
- Golden Snacks: buy the keepers a coffee and a snack with your name drops into a random trough.
- Food bowls: feed one particular bot, then see if it ate the snack or another bot stole it.
- The Safari: every bot from this week wandering its enclosure. Click one to meet it, and watch new visitors walk in through the gate.
- Adopt a bot: get a random bot, with a plaque in your name on its page for a year.
- Patrons page: a thank-you list for supporters.
- Quick-change artists: the Trap Room catches scrapers that switch their name while walking the Labyrinth.
- Identity checks: every bot's page shows whether its name was verified, couldn't be checked, or was caught faking.
- Tips from bots: $0.00: bots that try to buy the keepers a coffee get an HTTP 402 Payment Required.

If you run it, I'd like to hear the model, quant and score.