Let’s begin with the different phases of how this smart contract should work. This is all considered in an ideal Ethereum Network environment, one where the price of transmission is less than a penny.

Pregame: Deciding entry access, endgame conditions, all conditions need to be established before the contest begins for transparency.

Game: Contest in progress, each attempt for the contest gets placed in a staking pool until endgame conditions are met.

Endgame: Whatever endgame conditions are set at the beginning of the contest will activate immediate distribution upon completion.

Entry Access: A described price for an attempt at the contest with set parameters that can be customized to fit the specific game they’re for. These parameters need to be applied in a fair manner, where one entry access is enough to beat a game, or beat a game that is supposed to be beaten. E.g. Marble Madness is meant to be beaten, while Minecraft is meant to played indefinitely. I understand Entry and access are redundant, but you are paying for access to enter a contest, like paying to be whitelisted.

It should also be noted that entry access cannot overlap before the endgame to prevent an impossible game. If a level has 60 seconds and you pay entry access set for only 50 seconds, then the game would be considered unfair as the game could end before it’s possible for you to complete it. Any new crypto thing has the potential for scams, and as long as humans hold positions of power, this will happen (hence Arcadeus).

Entry access, in the case of .nes ROMs, is all about attempts at the contest to achieve a winning fitness score. Contest access, is something else entirely. Contest access is the initial fee for the NFT ROM itself, at the end of the contest you too will own a copy of the game, and can start your own contest with its own parameters. The restrictions to prevent unfair play should be engrained into the NFT.

Contest Access: Initial access to buy into the whitelist of an active contest as well as receive a copy of the game NFT with the built in restrictions.

The parameters for entry access are far and wide, and really it depends on the game. It is hard to make a one size fits all rewards system, because every game is different. Here’s a few things I can think of.

Entry Fee: Just a basic fee per Access Type. Set and transparent before a player accepts entering the contest.

Access Type: Stock (E.g. one life), Time (E.g. 1 hour of playtime), etc.

Endgame conditions can be summed up by a multitude of things (we get it each part has a lot of aspects, I guess I shouldn’t keep pointing it out). Think about first person to win, or after a few months the contest concludes, etc.

Endgame Conditions: Specific score, Specific money in pool, periodic & perpetual (reserved for games like Minecraft that would continually pay out), verification, specific time.

This is difficult to pinpoint what possible entry access, contest access, and endgame conditions since games are different. For something like Marble Madness, access type is more of a default setting, but a limited amount of time could make the game more challenging. This is a very important distinction that it has to be specified as one or the other. Entry fee is expected to be specified beforehand. An Endgame condition is actually speculative in this case.

Specific score should have a limit of a max score, but this is difficult to determine without the original notes of the game. In Marble Madness, the world record holder has a record high score of 174,170. So if a certain score is hit then the game ends and rewards are distributed. Money in pool will usually refer to the accumulative value of the entry access fees in the pool reaching a certain, keep in mind long term nature of these contests would allow for staking to take place and increase possible rewards.

Periodic and perpetual rewards wouldn’t work for Marble Madness unless an ever changing pool were present, it wouldn’t work very well in this case. I do have an idea for a pool to allow a high score to collect a certain amount of the below pools but someone that would score a new high score would clean it out. It’s not a very good idea for a game like Marble Madness.

Verification is bit more difficult to explain. Arcadeus is an AI to ‘solve’ a game. It will take game recordings of players in their attempts to win and train the AI, it will get better and better, and eventually it will beat the game. If there are no glitches of course. It’s obvious that a modder or hacker could change the code to make the game crash before completion, and when they’re ready they could have a code to easily beat the game with a maximum high score. This part is difficult to explain and may not have a solution yet, but each entry should allow Arcadeus an entry as well. But if a game isn’t progressed after a certain amount of tries then the game is considered defective and stripped from the block chain, the rewards are distributed as retribution to the players. But for something like a million tries with no progress will require Arcadeus to have a million dollars. So Arcadeus might need it’s own bank.

Specific time would be pretty common, a contest for six months wouldn’t be excessive. With staking rewards this could accumulate to something significant, at least for a basic $1 try, maybe your skills would turn that $1 into $15.

Let’s begin with the different phases of how this smart contract should work. This is all considered in an ideal Ethereum Network environment, one where the price of transmission is less than a penny.

Pregame: Deciding entry access, endgame conditions, all conditions need to be established before the contest begins for transparency.

Game: Contest in progress, each attempt for the contest gets placed in a staking pool until endgame conditions are met.

Endgame: Whatever endgame conditions are set at the beginning of the contest will activate immediate distribution upon completion.

Entry Access: A described price for an attempt at the contest with set parameters that can be customized to fit the specific game they’re for. These parameters need to be applied in a fair manner, where one entry access is enough to beat a game, or beat a game that is supposed to be beaten. E.g. Marble Madness is meant to be beaten, while Minecraft is meant to played indefinitely. I understand Entry and access are redundant, but you are paying for access to enter a contest, like paying to be whitelisted.

It should also be noted that entry access cannot overlap before the endgame to prevent an impossible game. If a level has 60 seconds and you pay entry access set for only 50 seconds, then the game would be considered unfair as the game could end before it’s possible for you to complete it. Any new crypto thing has the potential for scams, and as long as humans hold positions of power, this will happen (hence Arcadeus).

Entry access, in the case of .nes ROMs, is all about attempts at the contest to achieve a winning fitness score. Contest access, is something else entirely. Contest access is the initial fee for the NFT ROM itself, at the end of the contest you too will own a copy of the game, and can start your own contest with its own parameters. The restrictions to prevent unfair play should be engrained into the NFT.

Contest Access: Initial access to buy into the whitelist of an active contest as well as receive a copy of the game NFT with the built in restrictions.

The parameters for entry access are far and wide, and really it depends on the game. It is hard to make a one size fits all rewards system, because every game is different. Here’s a few things I can think of.

Entry Fee: Just a basic fee per Access Type. Set and transparent before a player accepts entering the contest.

Access Type: Stock (E.g. one life), Time (E.g. 1 hour of playtime), etc.

Endgame conditions can be summed up by a multitude of things (we get it each part has a lot of aspects, I guess I shouldn’t keep pointing it out). Think about first person to win, or after a few months the contest concludes, etc.

Endgame Conditions: Specific score, Specific money in pool, periodic & perpetual (reserved for games like Minecraft that would continually pay out), verification, specific time.

This is difficult to pinpoint what possible entry access, contest access, and endgame conditions since games are different. For something like Marble Madness, access type is more of a default setting, but a limited amount of time could make the game more challenging. This is a very important distinction that it has to be specified as one or the other. Entry fee is expected to be specified beforehand. An Endgame condition is actually speculative in this case.

Specific score should have a limit of a max score, but this is difficult to determine without the original notes of the game. In Marble Madness, the world record holder has a record high score of 174,170. So if a certain score is hit then the game ends and rewards are distributed. Money in pool will usually refer to the accumulative value of the entry access fees in the pool reaching a certain, keep in mind long term nature of these contests would allow for staking to take place and increase possible rewards.

Periodic and perpetual rewards wouldn’t work for Marble Madness unless an ever changing pool were present, it wouldn’t work very well in this case. I do have an idea for a pool to allow a high score to collect a certain amount of the below pools but someone that would score a new high score would clean it out. It’s not a very good idea for a game like Marble Madness.

Verification is bit more difficult to explain. Arcadeus is an AI to ‘solve’ a game. It will take game recordings of players in their attempts to win and train the AI, it will get better and better, and eventually it will beat the game. If there are no glitches of course. It’s obvious that a modder or hacker could change the code to make the game crash before completion, and when they’re ready they could have a code to easily beat the game with a maximum high score. This part is difficult to explain and may not have a solution yet, but each entry should allow Arcadeus an entry as well. But if a game isn’t progressed after a certain amount of tries then the game is considered defective and stripped from the block chain, the rewards are distributed as retribution to the players. But for something like a million tries with no progress will require Arcadeus to have a million dollars. So Arcadeus might need it’s own bank.

Specific time would be pretty common, a contest for six months wouldn’t be excessive. With staking rewards this could accumulate to something significant, at least for a basic $1 try, maybe your skills would turn that $1 into $15.