Bitcoin Forum

I've been working for a while on a video game, fashioned after the older-style side scrollers, which is powered entirely by Bitcoin.  The game itself is playable at http://hacknoid.ca/bitcoinrunner/ however, note that it currently is at alpha stage.  I was inspired last summer by some innovative visualizations of the Bitcoin network, such as BitListen, and it occurred to me that there is lots of (effectively)  random data created constantly in Bitcoin, and this could actually be used to created the playfield for an arcade-style game.  So, after picking away at it for the last few months, I am happy to say the game is now available and playable!  Feedback is welcome (

twitter.com/hacknoid (http://twitter.com/hacknoid) or this thread).

Note the graphics and sounds are really just cobbled together at this point from various free sources around the web, so if anybody with skills in these areas wants to contribute, please let me know.

Alpha Stage Release
Currently the game is playable and all features are there.  There are still some more parts planned, but they may be slow coming.  There may also be some serious bugs in it at this point, but hopefully nothing too major.  Again, please advise of anything you come across.  Gameplay is subject to revision based on feedback.  Biggest problem right now is probably that the game is too hard to lose at!

Bitcoin Powered
So, what does it mean to be powered by the bitcoin network?  Well, just that - all game elements are generated on the fly - there are no predefined levels, enemies are not created by a script, and all the game elements (except some random ones) are created in response to activity on the network.

Specifically:

• Walls : walls are created from the current bid/ask walls of the bitcoin exchanges dealing in the currency of the current level.
    The top-most wall level is the ask price, and the bottom-most wall is at the bid price.  So as the bid/ask goes up and down, so do
    the walls.
• Coins/Banks : The coins that appear along the top wall are created when a trade is executed at the current asking price; the banks
    on the bottom wall are created by trades executed at the current bid price.  The actual value of the coin is determined by the value of
    the trade.
• Energy Coins : The flying bitcoins that give you energy are created by transactions broadcast on the P2P network; their value is
    determined by the amount of the transaction (taken from the first output), and the value in turn determines the coins size and appearance.
• Motherships : The "motherships" that appear on the bonus levels represent new blocks mined.  The value of protecting the ship is
    determined by the amount of bitcoins in the block.  The time that the ship has to be proteced for is random, based on the historical average
    time for blocks to propogate the network (on average, 90% of blocks will fully propogate the network within 2 minutes, so this is the max
    time the game makes you defend for).

Screenshot
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6Cg8zyCcAAAiE2.png:large

Planned Features
Here is what I have planned so far:

• Local server - Currently each instance of the game will connect to the exchanges to retrieve data; this will be combined into a local server that the games will connect to in order for more streamlined supply of data (including from multiple sources)
• Shields for the ship
• High score list

Credits
I would be remiss if I didn't give credit to all the supporting packages I used to create this:

• iioengine (http://iioengine.com/) - This is the game engine the code is written on; it would have been a ton of work to create all the basic code if I had to do it myself.  The engine allows creation of games in only a few lines of javascript if you want.
• blockchain.info (http://ttps://blockchain.info/) - This is where I am currently getting my transaction information from.  I was using it for blocks as well, but that seemed a little flaky.
• toshi.io/ (http://"https://toshi.io/) - Current source to get notification of new blocks.
• Soundmanager2 (http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/) - Used to play the sounds in javascript.
• Highslide (http://highslide.com/) - Create the popup windows for information and help in game
• Textillate (http://jschr.github.io/textillate/) - Used to create the text animation in the opening backstory

Trade/pricing information:

• bitstamp (USD)
• bitfinex (USD) (in works)
• BTCChina (CNY)

Known Issues

• The first bonus item doesn't usually appear (subsequent ones do)
• Sometimes the block "ship" doesn't appear... in this case the game will have to be restarted.  Looking into this one...Fixed!

• Unpausing the game with the help or information window open does not dismiss the window (need to close it with the 'x' button)
• Muting the sound after the game has started does not always mute the background music; to get around this, either mute the game before starting to play, or add &sound=off to the URL Fixed!

[/list]


So, that's the announcement for now... as I say - feedback welcome, and enjoy!

EDIT: I added the list of credits... sources I shouldn't forget about!  Also added known issues...
EDIT2 (10 Jan 15): fixed the block appearance and sound issues.

So cool! Post this on reddit!

So, some early feedback: I think it would be much more pleasant to play this game if you replaced the haunting "in a windy ghost tower" background music with something energetic (and ideally Bitcoin related)! It would be fun if you could find (and get permission) to use one of the many soundtracks made by Bitcoin fans.

Some possibilities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdrSP0V-KLg&index=45&list=PL3C264C70646796C4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83LgutBxymQ

and a long list here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3C264C70646796C4

Yeah, I wasn't the happiest with that as background music, but it was the best I came across with just some initial looking (amazing how many different sound effects I needed to find).  For some reason it didn't even occur to me to looks into some actual Bitcoin-related music!  I'll work on that next, as it's an easy change.

Thanks!

Also... I tried to mute the existing background music and listen to something of my own, but didn't see that as an option... might want to add it.

(oh, and one more thing... should pressing the "p" key after you've paused the game remove the pop-up pause display? It seems like it unpauses the game but then you have to click the "x" in the corner to remove the display)

OK, back to work for me :p

Thanks!  And thanks for the reminder -  done (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2qqbh9/bitcoinrunner_an_arcadestyle_side_scroller/)

Upvoted ;)

My God this game is addictive. I love retro games so this gets permanent bookmark status. Thanks so much for this!

Also upvoted your post on reddit, you deserve it.

I'm glad to hear people like it!  I'll continue work on it, but it may be slow for the next little while.  Hopefully can pick up development time in the new year.

I've updated the initial post to include some of the known issues, as well as to provide some well-deserved credit for the tools I used to work on the game with.

Cheers!

UPDATE:

I fixed the block appearance issues, so the game should play much better now.  Note you may have to refresh the page in order for the file to be loaded (it should show "BitcoinRunner v0.50" now).

Also worked on the sound issue related to pausing/unpausing, and I think that should work better.

I apologize that during the Bitstamp downtime this week there were no coins at the top of the tunnel nor banks; also the walls would "move around".  This is due to the lower levels being created from Bitstamp only data right now.  This will be fixed in a future version.

Also, looking into the replacement sound track... most of the Bitcoin songs seem to have lyrics, which doesn't seem appropriate.  So far the only one that I have seen that doesn't is the "rally song", which I'll investigate further.  If anyone has any recommendations for instrumental-only soundtracks that I might be able to use, I'll be happy to hear them!

Cheers...

No worries mate, I am mildly addicted to this game as-is. One of my irc bots was practically useless until bitstamp came back up yesterday.

cool game, love the sfx!