alright, before starting i have a serious question to ask i scored 2104 at ente.com/404 - can you beat me?
just kidding. btw if you do go beyond that, share it in #off-topic - it's pretty hard.
this was supposed to be a simple task. rahul already made an amazing game for hackathon#2. i just needed to make it responsive and put it on /404.
the game dynamics and UI were already solid. people loved it. the laser obstacle, the dino chasing you, all of it.
but we wanted to add SOMETHING MORE. so we decided to store runs and scores. seeing where you rank globally was fun. getting to #1 was the MAJOR focus - it was about the top players.
also, we knew the game was hackable. but i underestimated the impact on legit players.
minutes after releasing v1 on last monday, the high score was 99999.
the hack was simple: just send {score: "99999"} to the API. done.
shared by community on day 1but new players who saw this? not fun. felt unfair. no matter the effort they put in, nobody would know.
on DAY 2, we made it harder to hack, added measures, and thought a leaderboard would motivate players more. but still that too was focused on the top players just like v1.
the hack this time happened after an hour. you thought the solution was good? nah the hackers were offline for an hour when we put it out. STILL HACKABLE.
top positions on the leaderboard? hackers. one person even wrote a blog (will put a link at the end) and put it as #1. it was nice, but this was also expected - just not this fast.
my initial plan was to make the app SO HARD to hack that the game would work as intended eventually. the hackers in v1 and v2 were actually so nice with us - they agreed to help me test the app.
on DAY 3, we realized it was a longer thing. making the app harder to hack while blocking other things might not be good.
so we did a final iteration: cut the spotlight off the hackers. make it PEOPLE focused. even if a hack occurs, new players won't be affected.
also with this change, the leaderboard left us.
and it seems to have worked. we have 50,000+ gameplays at the moment of typing this
btw, special mentions to the community folks who helped us test this app. if it wasn't for their engagement, it wouldn't have been this FUN. i don't think i'd be typing this right now.
like if the hacks occurred after we released it to a wider audience, we might not have got an opportunity to make the changes we did.
thanks folks.
so yeah, that's the story. try beating 2104 IF YOU CAN at ente.com/404 😉
fin.
P.S. this is the minified version of the entire story. for the full version, join our Discord and check out the #off-topic channel.