Trade Bots: A Technical Analysis Simulation News

Hello Quants!

Wow. It's been so wonderful chatting with so many of you on discord and using your feedback to make the game better. Here are some of the new features:

• Scroll Wheel Brushing (you can now pan and zoom with the mouse or trackpad)
  
• Bulk Upgrading Button Added
  
• Bots can now use your "Last Buy/Sell" as a relative time interval
  
• Discord is now fully integrated within the game as a milestone
  
• Google Translate is now integrated within the game (this comes at a performance penalty if enabled)
  
• External Indicator Layouts are now unrestricted
  
• New Transaction History View
  
• A few more Podcasts were embedded (please let us know if there are particular podcasts on iHeart you would like added to the game in the future)
  
• The randomness of ending a stock is now relativized.
  

More importantly, we fixed a whole lot of bugs dedicated players brought to our attention. We're so grateful for your help and understanding with all of this - in hindsight we should have released in Early Access and made use of the community to patch these bugs sooner. Our non-profit will not make that mistake again for our next release. That being said, all known issues (except for the few minor ones mentioned at the bottom of this announcement) have been rectified, in no particular order:

• Tutorials would re-initiate after restart
  
• Set Var node lacked a trigger
  
• Spacebar exploit now throttled
  
• Recession hover events not registered
  
• SMA/EMA trash hidden between upgrades
  
• Tooltip issues
  
• Formatting adjusted for Negative Numbers
  
• New Stock button would do nothing
  
• Feedback button would be unresponsive
  
• Fees not reset properly between restarts
  
• Two fatal game loading errors
  
• Brush moves on sim instead of scaling on sim
  
• Margin Loan Minimum rate Locked at 5%
  
• Short position persistence issues
  
• Cancelling lim/stop orders with a short position would flip position
  
• SMA/EMA colors fixed
  
• Issues with switching modes
  
• Layout persistence of external indicators
  
• Leading Indicators would be hidden unless DXY was purchased
  

Phew. That's a lot. And it wouldn't have been possible to patch these if not for the community who really stepped up and sent us their save files and made bug reports. I'd like to especially thank:

@rocketorbit, @dertorm, @DrDerpenstein, @malestrom, @utility, Sveelen, bob-the-builder, Johnny Gueggu and SterlingH

A few minor issues yet to be addressed:

• Windows icon is split in half if not pinned (this is an electron bug, trying to find a solution)
  
• Video rewatch exploit
  
• New transaction view erroneously shows everything as a "buy"
  

We'll patch these shortly along with more fixes and updates.

I did want to ask everyone about a suggestion someone had on the forum recently -> that automation upgrades (i.e. lim/stop, simple bots, visual bots and all their upgrades) persist through restarting runs. I kind of like this idea, and we could change the upgrade costs in these areas to make sure the balance of the game stays more or less the same. Interested to hear what you think!

As always, shoot us an email or drop-in on discord (remember you can now do it in-game) and say hi! We'd love to hear from you.

Thank you all so much for your continued support, it means the world to us.

- Chris

Hi Everyone! In the 48 hours since launch, the community really stepped up and helped identify a few debilitating bugs all related to the same general issue with the refactor of the new engine. We rushed to deliver a day one patch with 1.0.3 but that didn't address all the issues and even created a few new ones. With 1.0.4 we believe things are now relatively stable and we can't thank you enough for your support, patience and understanding. In addition to several miscellaneous bugs, the big things addressed in this new version:

• Stepping while finishing a stock now works properly and doesn't break or recede back (the team and beta testers missed this since we all bought the simulation upgrade well before the first stock ended)
  
• Simulation Speed Upgrades now function as intended (a consequence of releasing 1.0.3 too quickly)
  
• YouTube Embeds have a contingency so videos that have been removed or taken down should now redirect to a fallback
  
• Linux Stability has been improved (issues with steam overlay)
  
• We have introduced a new "restitution" button in the menu on the main title screen that allows us to issue codes to provide anyone effected by these or other bugs in-game currency to compensate for lost gameplay
  
• Feedback button now appends your save state so we can reproduce bugs more quickly.
  

The full version is now live with the 1.0.4 build, however the new version of the demo needs another couple hours before it will be set live.

There may well be other bugs on the horizon, this game is of unprecedented complexity for our modest non-profit, but we're committed to fixing any issues that come up as quickly as we possibly can and we're so grateful to all of you for your support and understanding.

Thanks!
- Chris

The day has finally come - Trade Bots version 1.0 release! We can't thank our fans enough for their patience and support as we've worked toward this initial presentation of the game.

As mentioned in our last post, we completely refactored the engine for the game from the ground up, improving simulation speeds dramatically. We've also quashed many bugs brought to us by our beta testers, for whom we are eternally grateful.

We will continue to support and update the game (I will be personally watching the community hub like a hawk) as well as listen to feedback to improve the experience.

As a reminder, a few features will not make it into this initial release but will be added in (free) updates. These include:

• Modular nodes in advanced bots (making your own nodes as nested sequences of other nodes)
  
• Paper / Backtesting modes in advanced bots
  
• Leaderboards
  
• Custom Data Import
  

We will again note that neural networks and bot import/export features are in beta and are somewhat lacking in presentation at the moment, but they are functional.

For the next release, we are tinkering with adding a mission system so that people struggling with the game have a way earn more - we are especially interested in feedback about how the game can be better balanced and more satisfying to play.

As part of our non-profit mission, Cinq-Mars Media makes our games freely available to current students and teachers. As mentioned in our previous note, this will be after the initial launch period so we can focus entirely on patching any bugs found by the community. The publish date for the site where students and teachers can redeem free codes will be announced within the first month of release. In the meantime, please feel free to shoot us an email about manual verification, but please be patient, as this initial release period can be a tremendous whirlwind, particularly when trying to patch the many bugs that are sure to crop up.

Again, thank you all for your support and please reach out to us at [email protected] with any questions or just to say "hi". We always love hearing from you.

Thanks!

We're very excited to share with you all that Trade Bots will have its version 1.0 release on April 18th. We deeply appreciate your patience as we've been hard at work improving the game. We made the decision to completely refactor the simulation engine from the ground up, improving simulation speeds up to 20x. This is particularly useful in the late game, where speeds of over 1000 days/s is possible, even on legacy hardware. This total refactor did, of course, lead to a number of unexpected bugs that we're still trying to iron out in pre-release beta testing.

We've also included the ability to listen, directly in-game, to a number of popular financial podcasts while you play. As you hit higher net worth milestones, more podcasts become available until ultimately you can select your own.

Our non-profit has also settled on the price point of $12.99 (with a 15% launch discount). Determining a price point that reflects the magnitude of work and effort poured into the project while also trying to accommodate the most diverse audience possible is a very difficult balance, one we believe we struck. While this is our non-profit's most expensive game to-date, it has also been the most expensive and complex to develop by far, and we believe the quality of the product reflects that.

Of course, we still plan on making the game freely available to teachers and students. This will be after the initial launch period so we can focus entirely on patching any bugs found by the community. The publish date for the site where students and teachers can redeem free codes will be announced within the first month of release.

A few features will not make it into this initial release but will be added in (free) updates. These include:

• Modular nodes in advanced bots (making your own nodes as nested sequences of other nodes)
  
• Paper / Backtesting modes in advanced bots
  
• Leaderboards
  
• Custom Data Import
  

We will note that neural networks and bot import/export features are in beta and that we also hope to integrate more features suggested by the community, as in my experience those tend to be the most rewarding and fruitful.

Again, thank you for your patience and for making it possible for us to do what we're most passionate about, creating fun, engaging and educational games for all of you. Please reach out to us at [email protected] with any questions or just to say "hi". We'd love to hear from you.

Thanks!

We're so excited to share our non-profit's newest game with you, Trade Bots. Join us as we explain the mechanics and our ambitions with the project.

Trade Bots is an educational simulation game featuring technical analysis and algorithmic trading. Decide when to buy or sell an unknown stock based solely on patterns and technical indicators. As your profit increases, unlock upgrades that help expedite and automate gameplay with bots. Below is a breakdown from our lead developer who will be leading the discussion for this event:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The vibe will be very casual and we'll open it up to Q&A towards the 2/3rds mark of the session. Hope to see you there!