Hi! This is a little game I've been working on over the past few weekends.
It's heavily inspired by lastpaywins.com by @alex_lewin.
It works similarly, except that you invite a friend to join your game—so you're not playing against strangers. Also, the timer is 24 hours instead of 300 seconds.
I think this game could be fun because winning sounds simple: you just need to remember to zap back within 24 hours. But the same goes for your friend. So, over time, the pool grows, and eventually—maybe after months??—someone will forget, and the winner gets the full pool!
I'm glad I can finally release the first version to get some feedback and see whether it's worth continuing to work on alongside SN in my spare time. It can get quite depressing to work on the same codebase day in, day out for two years.
I don't have high expectations for this game; I mostly just wanted to prove to myself that I can execute on an idea from start to finish completely on my own that others might also find cool. Oh, and I wanted to try out a different tech stack instead of only working with Stacker News' tech stack. This game is built with Echo+HTMX+Templ.
Here are some screenshots:
Let me know if you want to play, then I will create a game with the default of 100 sats per zap and reply with the invite link. You can of course also create your own game and drop the links in here so others can join! I am just offering to play with anyone using the default zap setting (or lower if requested).
PWA with push notifications is planned
Btw, this is FOSS: https://github.com/ekzyis/zapback
Are you paying me to be your friend or am I paying you?
Either way, I'm in!
We will see who pays who!
https://zapback.ekzy.is/game/ac6b6b091b15e43c
You know I love getting to accuse you of cheating.
I made my payment two hours ago, but your countdown clock has only advanced 16 minutes.
There’s a bug, I suspect clock drift between my JavaScript counting down each second vs real time
But when you refresh the page it should show the correct time
I just paid and it did show 22h left for example
edit: ohhh, or my JavaScript countdown is only running when it’s in the foreground. If I were a browser, I also wouldn’t keep JavaScript running in the background.
Yeah, I remember lastpaywins had something similar going on where timers would not sync between tabs... @alex_lewin resolved it somehow, but don't know how.
payment notifications are emitted via websocket that contain a timestamp of the payment. then the browser calculates how much time is left based on its own clock
Ohh, thank you, that would also fix my issue probably:
I currently fetch the timestamp when the invoice will expire once and then I let the browser count down the seconds.
But instead, I should let the browser calculate the difference between now and the expiration timestamp every second. Then there would be no clock drift, for example if the browser doesn't run the JS interval every second for whatever—probably good—reason.
See @Undisciplined, we have a real OG here
I can already tell that this game is going to get out of hand.
Yes, but #971692 is probably going to get out of hand even faster
Depends how often they zap each other.
I’m playing with him
He‘s an expert in Last Pay Wins iirc, it’s going to be though
Cool idea! I'm writing a bitcoin zine, can I recommend this game in it?
#971708
Sure, I feel honored!
Sounds cool, if I had friends lol
I can be your friend!
https://zapback.ekzy.is/game/45c9aa9a607cbfb7
Engaged!
Your turn again but no pressure, you have 24 hours!
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hey, that's cheating lol
lol I can cancel it
nah it was okay, you can use it if you want
Interesting! What’s min zap amount?
1 sat
wanna play with 1 sat per zap? I'd be paying more in fees with Phoenix though lol
But can you handle so many games at once?
yes or we will see
I’m in!
Let's do 25 sats per zap
https://zapback.ekzy.is/game/e5dafca9909eff75
Ek vs SN
Cool
I'm up for it. Who wants it?
You can play with me if you want:
https://zapback.ekzy.is/game/60aa490b9d02cf00
OK let's go!
Is that lightning address an LNURL?
What do you mean?
Your Stacker News lightning address is OT@stacker.news for example
Yeah, got it.
It's your turn
Check again 👀
My turn.
Looks like its working
I definitely picked a bad time to do this, traveling for several days. I missed my turn, so you win!
Haha yes, same here, I went to bitcoin++ today and I lost against @Undisciplined
Excuses are like assholes...
Oh yea. I’ve got an excuse, and an asshole, and I’m also kind of an asshole too lol
But the good news is I’ll be back home tomorrow so I’ll be primed for more NBA playoff discussion soon
The games have gotten worse without your discussion threads.
I’ll aim to make a discussion thread for tomorrows games!
You better. These last two games were rough.
Well my lost sats cover half of your lost sats lol
Cool want to check this out tomorrow in the lab.
there's not much to check out, the screenshots already show everything haha
Ya but I don’t understand it, via screenshots, I could get into it but rather just ask irl.
ah ok, makes sense
One piece of feedback: in addition to the countdown for time remaining on the current turn, I think you should also display the exact time at which the turn ends/expires. That way any sort of bugs in the countdown itself would be eliminated.
I've encountered this when switching out of the zaprank tab and then back into it later - the countdown doesn't correct itself until I refresh the page.
Mhh, if I fix the countdown, do you still want to see the exact timestamp?
Maybe clicking on the countdown could toggle between timestamp and countdown though.
I think the latter makes sense
I get a feeling this isn't going to turn out well for one of us...
I feel the same about this game with @south_korea_ln ...
This is going to end badly, indeed~~
With LPW, I think, at some point, node liquidity could become a problem.
But things could get out of hand much faster there...
I run phoenixd which has automated inbound liquidity so that at least won't be a problem here
Yes, maybe you should just give up now rather than later 👀
Maybe I should~~
@remindme in 1 year.
Maybe I should add an option to ask for a draw where we split 50:50
but that would also be kind of boring
Or a specific split chosen by the person who asks for it. The other one can accept or refuse.
I'll probably just forget to pay at some point. Or I won't have internet access for 24 hours.
Maybe dynamic time blocks between 8 and 24 hours.
Maybe you should try to zap after 23 hours and 59 minutes.
That would be exciting!
It ends up being who has more bitcoin
zapback - the real way to 2x your bitcoin
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Zap till big pot. Then kidnap counterparty for 24hours.
might have to negotiate
Ooofff
so cool man!! thanks for the shout out. Love the modifications to the concept. gives the game a whole new feel :)))
Congrats on shipping.
Thank you and thank you for the inspiration!
Let me know if you want to play 👀
Ha ha this reminds me of the old days of facebook, where you would have poking wars
Yeees, I was inspired by them!
I used to explain zapback by saying it's basically a combination of Last Pay Wins + Facebook pokes. Very cool that you saw that, too!
Anyone care to join for a 1000 sat game?
https://zapback.ekzy.is/game/0978ba688173f8d2
Oof, LFG haha
This is a nice idea. Can I make a bitly link for this to post in my discord server?
sure
Thanks! Are you available for a game now?
https://zapback.ekzy.is/game/e5f74fc92d4a2063
LFG! I wanted to know more about it during our displacement lol
We can play too if you want 👀
Yes!! Let’s play tomorrow 😸
Great work @ek. I'm definitely going to try this out with my friends.
Random question - do you have any tips for wrapping your head around the SN codebase? I'd love to contribute, it just seems overwhelming to start
That game would be interesting to play
Very cool!
Thank you!
Uh 🥺
it could be promising game however what is concept of zap it is gambling or tips from people?
gambling
Who am I gonna zap here?
How do I know that my friends has zapped the pool and how come @ek keep winning all the time?
What's the game about,?
That's cool.
For once I thought a new game for comments!
Aren't the Stackers already playing similar (kind of) game for the "Cowboy Hat" on SN?
*We need to pay/spend daily, or we lose the hat/game.
I'm in... for a 10 sat game..is it ok?
sure
Let's do it.
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