Bitcoin Forum

Hello everybody,


The more i dig into bitcoin and related crypto currencies the more i realize this is the future of humankind.
I'd like to be a part of this fascinating movement and help spread it and make this world a better place.

I started playing with blockchain API because that was the fastest way to learn about transactions and how bitcoin works in general.

I programmed a game and called it SatoshiRat, inspired from a game from my childhood.
No login required, your address becomes your rat.

You can access it at http://satoshirat.com  (http://satoshirat.com)

Story
You are in a prison and together with your fellow inmates have thought to catch some rats and train them to run in races.
Each time your rat runs in a race, it will get some exp and gain levels. Higher the level, higher the speed and more races it will win.
The rat is actually your bitcoin address you use to enter the race.

How it works
You must use a bitcoin address that you can receive back the payments. You have to send BTC0.01 to take part in a race. After 5 rats gathers, the race begins. All BTC0.05 gathered in the pot are then split accordingly to the place your rat finishes the race. I don't keep anything all winnings goes back to your rat.
After each race your rat gains some exp, tires a bit and gets some damage. You have to wait some time to heal and rest before taking place in a new race.
If you do not want to wait(and if you appreciate my work and help me develop further, maybe even litecoin functionality) you can add a bribe of BTC0.001 to your payment.

Your rat also gains a new level when enough exp accumulates, gains +1 speed per level so it will have a better chance to outrun the other rats.


For more details please visit the game's website satoshirat.com (http://satoshirat.com)

I will use this topic for all communication with the community. Please report here all bugs, advices, suggestions and other problems.

Thank you and enjoy!

I suggest you also posting to gambling section for more people to dump coins in it
Perhaps you should consider the confirmations.0 Conf is dangerous

I have done that.
I acknowledge the pay at 0 confirmations but you are set up for games only at 1 confirmation or more.

I noticed a bug, if 2 games takes place in the same time, they are displayed in the reverse order.

This is only a display bug, i will fix this tomorrow when i will be more awake.

How and when do you pay out?

a few games went on and still not getting paid
please check 1CasperDEhyGD81WNPo9qkaFnWxUSWmrqk

I see there is a min pay of 0.01

If you go to your rat and keep your mouse over Unpaid, you'll see a popup with some explanation.

In short, you automatically get paid after each game if your winnings are greater than 0.0102.

I do this because i could not figure out how fees work. I know in theory and i read the original work of Satoshi Nakamoto, but i am using the blockchain api for this, and could not find how do i compute in advance the necessary fee so that the payment will not get suspended in the air for a long time.

So i decided to always pay a minimum of 0.0005 in fees for all outgoing payments. Because the game survives only if the people are kind enough to throw a 0.001 bribe i was afraid the fees will be to great for me, and that's why for each of your payment you'll get with 0.0002 less as collateral for the fees.

For you 0.0002 is negligible but for the game a 0.0005 for each transfer adds up.

That sounds very logical and acceptable!

Fixed it

I send 0.11BTC, 10 games and 10 bribes, but I guess that doesn't work, right?

You just payed for 11 games. You had to send 0.109 to pay for 10 games and 10 bribes.
or 0.119 to pay for 11 games and 11 bribes.
0.009 is a special bribe - you get max(nr of games submitted, 9)

What you can do right now is to send another 0.019 and you'll pay for 1 game and 9 bribes.

Dangit. Thanks for the info!

I send 0.015 and had 9 pending games. I received it when I got 7 pending games, but I only received 2 bribes...
32093095ed7b1210fba6934d46f9391b6053492e6ab969673dd95660ccdf0e1e (https://blockchain.info/tx/32093095ed7b1210fba6934d46f9391b6053492e6ab969673dd95660ccdf0e1e)

I checked you received 5 bribes but games #23 #24 #25 all took place in the same time and you used 3 bribes in them. Right now you still have 2.

Oh, that's why. Thanks for clearing that up! Well, I still love your game. :D

When we play with other different level people the chances to win very low. Hurm

This isn't true, not for 100%:

In order to ensure transparency i have added on the top of the page near HOME tab List all games.
Here all games played are listed and you can click on them and check them.


I'll do the same for rats also.

Also, change the way the played games are shown. The more games I play, the further "Last Race" get's pushed to the right. That is a bit annoying :P
You could try to use a dropdown box or something like that.

Solved the problem for the moment.

Yeah, that works too. For now :P

I added a list with all rats that played for better transparency.

It looks great! And apparently I am the number one at the moment. I did not see that coming.

The "balance" tab in "List Rats" shouldn't show pending games. I had 0.015+BTC win, send some more over and now I have -0.07799496BTC, because I haven't played those games yet.

Just a suggestion :P

EDIT: How about 1-vs-1 rooms and maybe rooms with higher bets?

Yes, i guess they shouldn't get counted cause they will be played in the future and the outcome is unknown.

Also i decided to increase the collateral transaction fee from 0.0002 to 0.00025. This is an extremely tiny increase that should go unnoticed but will help me cut the losses with the fees.

Tomorrow i will start implementing what i talked earlier in protecting the new players. They should not get associated with players above a certain level, in order to let the game be fair for everyone.

Well I don't mind. I also buy bribe all the time, just to support you :3 And that does sound good (for new players, not for me :P).

Oh, I am sorry for spamming this thread btw.

I think this game has great potential, especially because you can add more option on how players can impact the outcome of a race. Some suggestions:

- Set out some prices for each race that are selected randomly from all prices available, some prices will be more or less rare and useful so the incentive to win that particular race is higher or lower and will encourage players to use more or less of their ressources to win

- Introduce items that impact the outcome of races, like extra steroids, boosts, slow downs for competing rats, rat poison, mouse traps, special food for between the races to develop the stats of your rat,..

- Increase player engagement by allowing them to trigger items (one time use) or item effects (multiple use or permanent effect) during or between races

- Allow commands to attack certain rats during the game or afterwards (poison them or have your rat fight them) to take out competition

- Make building stats more interesting by adding more stats or ways to improve, reduce them.

- Make race parcours diverse by including random effects, like weather, traps, cats or similar obstacles that impact the outcome of a game.

- Add a shop system

- Add trading of items between players

- Add other creatures, like cockroaches, spiders, cats, worms or similar with different abilities to compete against each other in addition to rats

just some ideas to make this more interesting!

I hard coded a limit of maximum 3 games per turn that can take place in the same time. The rest will start the next turn.

If in the future there will be too much game that waits, i'll increase this limit. But for now i think 3 is ok.

I noticed that. Really liked it! Do the rats still get the +9 health and +11 stamina between those 3 races?

Quick question. If I send 0.509 BTC to that address. Would that mean that I get 50 games and 50 bribes? Because according to the documentation, I think I should. Am I right or just a complete idiot? :P

Why does my rat loose stamina and health which each race although I added bribes for 10 races in advance?

It currently has something like 80/130 Health and 90/130 Stamina. It says Pending Games: 4, Pending Bribes 4

I have the same thing.

A few bugs need to be ironed out which have been previously stated, but this is a really good game.

The rat still losses health and stamina like a normal rat, but because of the bribe at the start of the game that is ignored and the rat wiil run with full health and stamina. He can achieva maximum speed like a healthy rat. At he end of the race, the rat goes back to normal and even losses the health and stamina for that game, so it will get even more damaged.

Let's say you race in 5 games, first 3 are bribed, the other ones not. The 4th will start with your rat damaged and tired.

I hope i was clear.

What happens when my rat runs out of health and/or stamina? Will it die although I bribe?

Oh I see! Now I get it :3 Maybe add that to the bribe section?
@Above, I hope not :P

Health and stamina are always credited and the start of the turn, right before races are set up, so yes because a turn will pass between races your rat will heal.

0.509BTC i think it will work as i said, i never thought one can be mad enough to do such a bet.

I see and I'm a mad man. Just wanted to be sure ;p

No, he cannot go below 1 health and 1 stamina no matter what you do, and when he has that he will run with exactly 10 speed.
If you pay bribe the rat will run as a normal healty rat, but at the end of the race he will get back to his unhealth extremly tired state.

ooaa, nice things, now i have something to dream at night.

Don't forget to add this to the list. I think it would make the game even better:
- Live updates
- 1-vs-1 rooms
- Rooms with higher value bets

1-vs-1 rooms would be nice with special attacks or items in your command the opponent doesnt know you have before the fight.

I prefer just racing :P
Maybe add an option that the player can choose if they want a normal race or a "special" race with items and such.

How are you determining who wins in case of a tie on speed? I've lost every single tie so far.

Experience. The one with the greater experience wins.

I implemented the barrier between levels. I made it 4.

This means a player level 1 can go into battle with max a player level 5.
A player level 2 with a player max level 6
..
and so on

That sounds good to me. You will most likely lose a bit at the beginning but as you go one you win more and more. (Almost sounds like a Ponzi ;p)

Idea: Maybe it would be a good idea to start a race if there aren't 5 people after a full hour of waiting. Sometimes I need to wait hours for that fifth person :P

For the time being i'll keep the 5 rats race

They aren't people; they're rats!  ???

Hahaha. You know what I mean :P

For people who are not into doping: if I pay now for 10 races, will my rat run as soon as it could, even with health 1 or is there a way to make it wait to join the next race until it is 100%fit again?

There would still be an incentive to pay for steroids, to level up your rat faster to be more competitive.

Still with the 4 levels difference setting, everyone but the first 4 players will be at a disadvantage the whole time.

Edit:
I'd also like to see the list of the next racers, now its even impossible to guess from the rat overview who will still race.

For now the rat runs as soon as possible.
But i think i will do something similar of what you said.
Maybe the rat to stop running if his health or stamina is below 75% and no bribed has been payed.
I think this is the best option. Maybe below 80%. We have to decide the percentage.

In other news:
I put on each rat page how many bribes and how much he's owner payed for them.
On the rat list i took out the bribes from computations to better reflect the mechanics of the game.

I'll do it on monday. thx

Apparently I bribed a lot. My total comes down to 0.071BTC. Have fun with it :P

oaauuu yes, thx dude, generous hand u had there.

it seems the blockchain.info is down for maintance and i was depending of their api for all things related to BTC, payments and stuff.

Please be patience, and report here any anomalies, and i will investigate them and  do the necessary things manually if it is the case.

Thank you

BlockChain.info on twitter:
the site will be under maintenance for approximately 1 hour @ 12:30 GMT. Time for a database upgrade.

30 minutes and they say it will be up.

I think is better not to send any payments till their site is up, cause if they do not send back the call url with your payment, i will have to put it manually and will be a time consuming task

thx

Now it's 0.08BTC and I really don't mind. It's helps you and I still am in the profit zone, so yeah, why the hell not?

BlockChain is backup again. And you should really really put "Played games" inside a dropdown box. My page is getting way too full with games :P

I will do it.


Blockchain is very unstable, right now is down again.

I sugest to wait till becomes stable again.

Thanks and yes, you are right. Sucks T_T

Your wish was my command.

https://blockchain.info was up for 5 minutes but with with problems. There api fails and even some querys in their database for some addresses with the error:

No operations allowed after connection closed. Connection closed after inability to pick valid new connection during fail-over.


Now is down again.


I also saw that some inmate made a payment and was not recorded. If you read this i'll wait a little for blockchain.info to become stable and send me the notification and if not i will credit your games by hand. Thank you for your patience.

Thanks dude. This looks a lot better :3

It looks stable now, i'll make a payment with an address of mine to check everything is ok

Alright. Sounds good. Let's hope it's work, because I want to play again :3

It validated, so everything is ok.

Only one poor soul has his payment in the air, but i'll add it now(199BEKqUjkZfWyvRiKKqwzuLwokYKenz4H)
Transaction: https://blockchain.info/tx/6012e3ed50346b9e15eb5804dadf7c155f9ca605c804be344b0ec7738e368d54

I have added a list of who is waiting.

Click on waiting and you will see a list of rats that are preparing to race.

That is awesome! Now I can see why I am waiting :P

i was thinking of adding +1 bribes for the last place to encourage more new players to come.

That sounds like a good idea. Big players will bribe anyway.

Done it. The rat who finishes last will get a free +1 bribe.

Don't forget to post it on the homepage. :P

I'm afraid I don't understand how the website works...
I 've send 0.01 BTC to the adress on the top of the website (BTC address for play: 1DTiiobTw8LTFwCRoVVCg1gYeBfe4tzyHN)
but I can't find my rat...

This was the transaction: https://blockchain.info/tx/9e98dd6d67e2bafc87fc977f0657bdf827e80ab30afecfe047cf8fd3b1209a11
I controll all adresses I've send from...

I am using the blockchain.info api and they never sent me this payment notification. Maybe becouse you sent from 3  addresses at once.
It is just the second time this happens to a player.

No problem, just tell me which one of your addresses to be entered in a race.
thx

ok, so it wasn't me :)

please use this address: 1xmpRpT1ZTwwWg3KGFwsmuwRwRsbgHZEY

How is this possible? I bought 10 games and 10 bribes.

You forget the +1 bribe for the losing rat

Oh that always happens? I thought only with low level rats :P I get it and damn, my rat sucks then D:

At the start of next turn, ETA 1.30 min you rat will be credited. thx

What do you think about adding some small augmentations to the rat?
Not much just something that will give him +1 speed or quicker recovery or something like that?

Great idea!

I thought of that post of yours all night, great ideas you have.

This are the augmentations that the prison medic will be willing to operate on the rat:

Neural Implant - Bypass of the pain sensors.
No matter how tired or injured your rat is, he will run like a normal rat. This is the same as paying bribes for a game.
This makes bribes obsolete.Effect is permanent.


Mechanized Tail - The rat keeps his balance way better with this new tail.
+1 to maximum speed.Effect is permanent


Metal Claws - Pulling out the natural claws and implanting metal ones was a painful and meticulous process but in the end it was worth it.The rat has a better grip of the ground as never.
+1 to minimum speed.Effect is permanent


They are not available yet, but what say you?

I don't want to be something major to influence the speed to much.

First one would decrease your income of bribes dramatically, so I wouldn't advice you to do it.
I like the other two options, but they should have a reasonable price. Like 0.05BTC or something.

Depends on the price.

Id turn my rats into cyborgs if that meant some power up while keeping the same level.

How about a rejuvenating cure to drop some levels but keep the stats?

This will destroy the balance, and provoke chaos among low level rats.
Don't think right now is a good idea.

They are online. Hope you like them!

Looks great. Well done!

Okay, how about if it's a tie, say for 1st, the losing rats leave  field & the 2 tied rats draw close for a fight, like a hockey brawl. You get to have different moves and special finishers. That would be sweet. You can't go wrong with that

Nice. Why not.
Maybe even some random events that can happen to rats during the race, or just meeting each other and give one to another a bite or a claw that will slow down the other rat a bit.

Interesting game. Keep working on it.  ;)

I've posted an augmentation giveaway.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=288531.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=288531.0)

Enjoy!!

Does anyone want to play? We are waiting for 1 more level 3+ rat. (And 3 level 1 rats). Go and try your luck!

In the days to come i'll work some more on the graphics of the site, to make it more appealing for the people that value that :D

sure

There is a small issue with a payment

https://blockchain.info/tx/eb4bec0486469f74cbf016904fa106dd20b2c3e68da0f1dd4c181ff1819179e5

on short vosjes22 used inputs.io wallet to send from 1PkPaFikavMLs6qfk4JbQncsRDtr7D1f2M
but that address does not appear in the inputs of the transaction.


i did not credited the games yet, i'll wait some more for some clarifications on pm.

Using Inputs.IO is not possible on your website, because the payment will be send from a random address and not one that he owns/controls. As far as I know.

Thx, this is what i wanted to know.

I've got a new idea.

What say if the runway is a bit longer and for each rat to draw two speeds, one for the first half of the runway, the other for the last half.

This way more drama will be added to the race.

I think that is a great idea! A fast rat could still lose at the second part and a slow rat could still win at the second part.

I've done this update.
A rat draws 2 speed, one for the first part, the other for the second part of the runway. The rat with the greatest sum of both speed is the winner.

To ensure compatibility with past races, the second speed is considered the same as the original speed.

Also the runway is almost double in length.

Sounds and looks good. Well done!

made another major update

I studied the way just-dice and satoshidice makes their provable randoms and implemented something similar to satoshirat as well.

Everybody can check their rolls or other's rolls to ensure the game is fair for everybody.
More info on satoshirat.com (http://satoshirat.com).

For this i had to change the way speeds are drawn to a DnD fashion roll.

A level 1 rat will run by default with 10+d21.

The order of the rats is determined now by their average speed which is 2*s1*s2/(s1+s2).

Enjoy!

Great update!

For you guys that are using Mac OS with http://grabhive.com/ (http://grabhive.com/) wallet an app is available:

https://github.com/hivewallet/hiveapp-satoshirat (https://github.com/hivewallet/hiveapp-satoshirat)

Great idea, will try it.

new players needed!

I'm sorry, but I believe it's not provably fair at all.

What prevent you, with a shill account, to change your own seed at the last moment, trying several ones until you know it gives you a result that you like? This can be done automatically in microseconds and other players cannot tell that this was not a "normal" last moment seed change.

This should have more players! It just doesn't work if there is a race every few days. Maybe you should drop the requirement for five rats?

You don't got your own seed. There is just a server seed that changes once every 10 games. A hash of this seed is provided to know the seed does not change.
Once the 10th game is played, instantly the server seed is revealed for everybody to compute their past speeds(and the other players' speeds) and the new seed is generated and the hash for it provided(this is done also instantly).

This seed cannot be changed on the fly cause then the hash wouldn't mach and again the last 10 games wouldn't mach.

The algorithm uses data from the new race, so someone that wants to cheat need to know in advance the exact rats that will take place in a race, what race id and of course the server seed. So only the last player that enters the race has any chance of cheating.
The server seed is impossible to get cause nobody has access to the code except me, or someone could hack the server to get it, but the gain is so small i don't know if it worth the trouble to try.

Anyway another defense is that everything is in the open, history of all games is provided and everything is on the blockchain so anyone can look.
On the blockchain you can see the order the players entered in the race and so you can look at the last players to enter the race to check if they won more or not.

Any idea of another data feed that can be used for the RNG that is impossible to know by anyone only at the start of the race is welcomed.

thx

Happy new year !

I changed the Random Number Generator today.

One data that nobody can precompute or know before a game is the timestamp when a transaction is included in a block.
I decided to add this info also in the algorithm.

In this way the last player(or any other player), even if he somehow hacks or know the server seed, still cannot compute in advance anything because the last piece of the puzzle for all rats will be the timestamp his transaction will be included in a block.

Sounds fair! Well done :)

You can now change the name of your rat.

No need for an account, you just need to sign the new name with your btc address and that's it.

Well this is great! I like it..

Transaction fee down to 0.0002 from 0.0005.
The 0.0002 fee will be split among the rats that will get paid.

There was an issue and last game payment was delayed.

Now everything is in order, payments are instant after a game is finished again.

This is still going? Glad to hear that! How much visitors do you get each month?

seems a nice game, really bad i didnt hear it before. Did you make the layout? seems to simple but clean and beautiful to the eye.

I don't know most probably not many.
But i moved the game to a server were other projects are on, so basically the only cost is just the domain itself.
The game runs by itself so i intend to leave it online in the next years.

Finally fixed the payment issue.
Game working again.

This might be a stupid question, but why are the Server seed generation delayed? See this ---> http://prntscr.com/lbchsl  <Should this not be displayed immediately to show that the seed is not rigged?>

I use Freebitco.in Multiplayer Server seed as an example, because that is given as a verification, the moment after you placed a bet, so there are zero delays to provide the Server seed.  ??? ::)

The same server seed is used for 10 games.

It is generated before the first game starts, and a hash of it is presented to the players.
When the server seed is revealed you can check the hash to be sure it is the same server seed.

This way you know it wasn't changed for the last 10 games.

After 10 games are played the server seed is revealed and you have all the data to use the formula and compute the rolls to be sure all rolls were correct.

Additionally the formula uses the timestamps of the blocks each transactions were included (first confirmation).
This timestamps are impossible to predict in advance.

If you have more questions please let me know.
thx

I think need redesign provably fair algorithm because need publish seed before game.
Or make easy it, not all player understand how it works..

ServerSeed must be published after the game not before as it is used in the rng functions. Before the game you get the sha1 of the ServerSeed. After the game you just check the sha and it should be the same and you know this way the server seed was not altered and is the same and was generated before the games. (You can see the hash of the current server seed on "Fair" page but i also added it to the game lists to be more clear)

Also take into consideration multiple games can start at the same start as it happened in the past. That is why the same server seed is used for 10 games, cause otherwise the second game that starts the same time as game 1 can have it's seed manipulated cause server seed, the game, and revealing of the server seed happens at the same time. Players have no way of knowing it was generated before the game.

Also if you look closely at the formula, as a second precautionary measure, even the first rat's roll uses data from the last rat that enters the game(timestamp of all rats first confirmation.) This way even if someone knows the server seed(sys admin, db admin , hacking) in advance, he still can't predict a thing, cause he needs to predict the timestamp of the the last rat, which is impossible.

Agree, I don't mean clear seed, need hash of server seed before game.
How can possible use timestamp for provably fair game?

Well any random, unpredictable, verifiable, public variable is good for any algorithm.
In this particular case it defends against malicious admin knowing the server seed. Please read https://www.satoshirat.com/index.php?page=fair for how the algorithm and timestamp of first confirmation is used.

In this game you don't play against the house, you play against other players, so it is a bit more tricky to ensure fairness for all participants against each other than playing against the house.
thx

I agree on the thing you have said shows on bolded one but most people nowadays will really prefer showing of not only on last 10 games but it would be much better if it shows on every game.Confidence will always matter on players side.

can you check the following? after 7 confirmations still no entry at your page
transaction id
 abd70ae95dfb65b0416a6e31a3cfcbd174ac094c7cb0e8432f6c0cf5df8e2bc7

It's there you are rat 39CKFWxaVjLHvxTBdmm4FhfhUESLzYwXew

I think with the bitcoin price been so high than other crypto currencies its not something to play around with it is rare it is scarce why in the world you are required create a game out of it. with bitcoin been such an important store of value lately. No one will ever dare to play with their btc such an game.

Its been 5 years since anyone posted in this thread, yet the game is still going  :D

https://www.satoshirat.com/

Are bets still being paid out?? Each bet costs 0.01 BTC minimum so I don't think I'll be partaking  :D

But it was just interesting to see the website is still up and the rats are still running.

Oh, it looks like the last race was in Nov 2018:


Oh well, kudos to the creator for continuing to pay for hosting and server fees all these years, its like a blast from the past.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/07/25/QThOq.png