Building Fair Play with API3: Transparent EXR Algo Gaming

The road to provable fairness— powered by API3 & blockchain tech

Exiled Racers
3 min readAug 11, 2023

--

At the heart of Exiled Racers lies our algorithm — an algorithm which we have spent years developing and refining — which now enables us to build our vision of a low touch fun gaming experience. While we dont publicly share the details of the algo to prevent potential exploitation (outside of being really important IP to EXR), we have taken steps to help ensure that the results it produces are verifiable and reproducible.

“Go on…Prove it!” — EXR 🤝API3

This is where our partnership with API3’s Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) comes into play, providing transparent on-chain data that fuels our algorithm.

API3 QRNG is an oracle service operating with the courtesy of the Australian National University (ANU) Quantum Random Numbers API, which has operated through a REST API for over ten years. With API3’s first-party oracle node Airnode deployed to the ANU QRNG API, Exiled Racers is able to utilize truly random numbers generated by quantum fluctuations. Within the scientific community, this is considered to be the highest standard of random number generation. API3’s Airnode verifies data through on-chain verification ensuring that the ID of the deployed Airnode correlates to the ID within the requester.

As Ben from the API3 team said, “We’re excited to see how far EXR has come in developing their algorithmic virtual racing game. EXR was in fact one of the very first to use the API3 QRNG oracle service that now has over 100k requests. It is a pleasure to see the service utilized further throughout their on-chain game to provide truly random events.“

However, we understand that the concept of “provably fair” gaming involves more than just verifiable results. It requires a level of transparency that allows players to independently verify the fairness of the process. With this in mind, we have a roadmap to make our algorithm even more “provable”. Nothings perfect but, here we are now…

Our plan involves moving races and seeds on-chain, providing a mechanism for players to run the seed themselves via an API. This will allow players to verify the results of each race independently, adding another layer of transparency to our gaming platform.

Here’s a brief overview of how this process may work:

  • RNG in Smart Contracts: We will continue to generate the seed for randomness in a transparent way, using the Moonbeam blockchain.
  • Hashing Initial Game State: We will take the initial game state (which includes the generated random seed, player attributes, etc.) and hash it using a cryptographic hash function. This hash represents the initial state of the game in a way that can’t be tampered with without changing the hash.
  • Running the Race: We will input this hash and the seed into our proprietary algorithm, run the race, and generate the outcome.
  • Publishing Results: The result of the race, along with the original hash and the seed, will be published back on-chain.
  • Validation: Anyone can now verify that, given the same initial hash and seed, the same result is always produced. If the result was manipulated in some way, it would not match the result that is calculated with the same initial game state and seed.

This process will increase the game transparency and provide a degree of trust that the game is fair, because any tampering with the initial game state or the result would produce inconsistencies that can be spotted. While the inner workings of our game algorithm remain internal to maintain the integrity of the game, we assure all players that it is designed with fairness at its core, ensuring an equal playing field without any hidden biases.

As we continue on this journey, we look forward to sharing more updates with you as we go. Lets go.

--

--

Exiled Racers

Experience the the first low-touch NFT fantasy racing manager & prediction game.