TRTLfarm is one of the first web-based games build on top of TurtleCoin, utilizing TRTL.Services. Players deposit TurtleCoin on their account, allowing them to purchase virtual farm animals. These farm animals generate produce, which in turn can be sold for TurtleCoin at a price which is determined by the total balance of the game at that moment.

fexra

Hey Boris. Thanks for agreeing to do this interview with me. As some already know, you are the developer behind the web-based game TRTLfarm built on top of TRTL.Services. I want to congratulate you with the early success, it has gotten a lot of attention the past few days in the Turtle community. I thought it would be a good idea to interview you as so that our readers can get a better understanding of the game mechanics and purpose; your motivations and future plans ahead. So without further ado let’s get started!

What led you to make this game? When talking to you a few days ago, you mentioned that you played a similar game like this on the TRON network; was that your inspiration?

Boris

Yeah, that was it. I played a lot of DAPPS on TRON network. That being said I wanted to do some kind of game on TurtleCoin network so the TRTL becomes a utility token for the game. Since we all like farming games I decided to go in that direction. I also loved the API from TRTL.Services, and decided to put it to use for this project. All started with a simple design and one thing lead to another and now I’m trying to keep up with the request for additional things.

fexra

I can imagine. I have been watching your progress and been myself also involved in the game. It’s simple, but quite fun to play! How did you go about designing the game? Could you maybe, in a few words, explain what the purpose and goal of the game is?

Boris

To be honest about everything, I was at first only interested about it as a sole project and maybe invite some friends to play with. The design was done just as one thing on another. I was not planning anything prior starting developing it. The main purpose of the game is just to have fun with it, compete with other players and to just use shells as a utility so they float around. I have heard a lot that the game is “Ponzi” scheme and/or exit scam. I can just tell you as I told many others, I’m not planning anything like that, as I’m learning from developing it further and take knowledge from it all. There is a simple calculation behind it and I must say that some users will get ROI and some never will. There is no additional funds in the game, just what users bring in.

fexra

I have seen that you developed it using .NET Core. Was there any particular reason for that choose or is that a language you feel comfortable with?

Boris

Yeah it’s developed in .NET Core. I decided to use it, because I want to strengthen my skills in it.

fexra

On the topic of the ROI you mentioned, can we get more into that? I assume you’re pointing at this part of the code:

Boris

Ah, the ROI thing again  The function above calculates the current unit price. The total balance is divided by the players total productions, and divided by 60 which is hard-coded. Why 60? No particular reason behind that; the game could not end in one day.

fexra

Gotcha. Moving on, how can a player improve their ROI and how can they prevent from losing. In other words, what is the secret!

Boris

How can user improve a ROI? That’s a hard one, haven’t thought too much about that. I think the secret is to watch when someone joins and sell only then, because you get more per unit. Still, it’s up to anyone, so I can’t clearly answer that.

fexra

I guess we’ll leave that to the players to figure out. I see that you have been very busy, and even during this interview you released a leaderboard page as a new addition to the game. I must say, I’m impressed! So what is next? Are there any plans on adding new animals or perhaps additional items or functionality to the game?

Boris

Yeah there are plans yes. I’ll say there will be special animals, not to go in too much detail at the moment. Also you will be able to buy your nickname on a leaderboard instead of payment ID pretty soon (has been added by the time of this publication).

fexra

Cool! I can’t wait. The other day I know you were busy for over six hours patching a critical bug our friend SoreGums from the core TurtleCoin team discovered. I can imagine upon hearing about the exploit you must have gotten at the very least some sweaty palms. You followed the correct protocol, disabled the withdraws, and quickly patched the bug. As this is a common exploit that led to the emptying of a few cryptocurrency exchanges, I think our readers would be interested in learning more about this. Would you be so kind to explain what the problem was and how it was resolved?

Boris

Ow boy, I was excited and devastated at the same time. That just goes to show SoreGums’s honesty and helpfulness, and I’m glad he got in contact with me. I’ll briefly explain it now. There is a delay while contacting TRTL.Services API (time that goes by while calling and waiting for a response ) and getting the balance deducted in the game so people could execute multiple withdrawals at the same time from different browser tabs for example.

fexra

From what I understand the issue did not lay with TRTL.Services but with you not saving the balance first after modifying it but waiting until the end, creating a time delay which gave the attacker the opportunity to execute multiple requests.

Boris

Correct. The game balance did get deducted after the call, now it’s deducted before and instantly saved to database. Before it only executed changes to the database at the end, and during that time frame there could have been millions of requests that would go through, check the balance, and proceed to withdraw.

fexra

Boris, do you have anything else to add to this interview, or shall we wrap it up? I suppose we will be hearing updates from you in the weekly roundups when something new is out. Where can people reach you best?

Boris

That would be it. Best to reach to me in Discord. Thanks for everything!