# Chart Runner

> Chart Runner is a browser platformer run by GMYLD (DEFI Mechanics Lab). Every try is one run along real Hyperliquid price charts cut into 5 second candles: run, climb the candles, fart over the gaps and get past everything that wants you off the chart. Every run starts on BTC, and every 100 candles the chart forks into two coins: the player picks one. Each board ranks one thing: the most candles in a try of a length the launcher sets, or the fastest run to a finish candle the launcher sets. A player's single best run is their place, and the top places on a board share a prize pool. Practice is free and needs no sign in.

Nothing is traded. The chart is Hyperliquid's real price history, recorded by the game server. What players pay for is the try itself, and the try price goes into the board's prize pool.

## Key facts

- The charts: Hyperliquid perpetuals (BTC, ETH, SOL, HYPE), cut into 5 second candles by the game server. Every board plays the 3 hours before its round started on every coin, so everyone in a round runs the same charts until the round settles.
- Branches: every run starts on BTC. At candle 50 and every 100 candles after, the chart forks into two coins, and which two depends on the coin you are on. Each board gets its own branches at launch (from its address), the same for every player. They are not shown anywhere before a run: players find out at the fork. You pick a lane by standing on its side of the junction (up arrow for the back lane, down arrow for the front one); the signs say which coin is where, how wild it is and how far its price moved.
- A run: up to 15 minutes. It ends when the runner falls off the chart (bottom or side), lands from too high (a parachute opens by itself if you have one), runs out of lives or runs out of time. A player can also end a try from the menu (Esc): it counts as it stands.
- Two modes, set by the launcher per board: Longest run (most candles in a try of 2, 3, 5 or 10 minutes, set by the launcher) or Fastest Candles (lowest time to a finish candle the launcher sets, anything from 50 to 1500; a try may last 3 to 15 minutes depending on the distance).
- A clear: on Longest run a candle for every second of the try (180 in 3 minutes), on Fastest Candles the finish. Clears rank first, and only players who cleared count toward a board's players bar.
- Chilis and Moon Dust: chilis lie on the chart, sit on tall wick tips and drop from stomped enemies. They are rare. A runner carries 5 at most and each one is a short boost (1.2 seconds); a station's ↓ pad gives 2; a few hazards steal them. Moon Dust is rarer, boosts first, faster and longer, smashing through enemies. Every try has 5 lives: a fall, a hard landing or a hit (a bear, a bull, a missile, a drone's shot) costs one. A station gives one back, or fills everything if you reach its jackpot.
- Hazards start early and get nastier deeper into the chart and on its wildest stretches: the local volatility of the real chart sets how hard each stretch is. Bears each have a job (patrol, ambush from inside a candle, a two-stomp grizzly, a raid of three, and the Bear Market that chases you), plus a fee goblin that rides your back, a hopping goblin, a Golden Bull on your side (jump as it charges and it tosses you far up the chart, if you steer onto a candle on the way down; stay on the ground and it costs a life), a Pump Rocket you jump into that shoots you up and drops you (keep gas or a chute), a big chili floating over a candle that, if you jump into it, turns the next candles to quicksand, hidden skulls that burst out when you step on their candle, hop between purple candles and hide a trap under the last one, a rug puller who stands at the end of his carpet (mostly 2 or 3 candles) and shoves you if you walk into him, a whale that leaps in and bends the candles, a bag holder, a succubus, a phishing scammer, drones that aim where you will be, a hunter drone and missiles, some attacking from beside the chart. Practice has a key that drops the next enemy, trap or event in front of you. A whale surfaces as a platform you can ride. Portals flip between ahead and back, so the moment you jump in decides. Earthquakes break candles. Some events move the candles (Pump, Dump, Volatility, Liquidity Injection, Whipsaw, God Candle), and in a Bull Run every candle throws you to the next. Three more: Tornado (a funnel lifts the candles in front of you and drifts at you; it takes you and spins you round it, and you jump each time you face the open chart to break out, three times, or after 7 seconds it spits you out and that costs a life), Liquidation Cascade (the candles behind you fall like dominoes for 6 seconds: keep running) and Liquidation Wave (walls of red water roll along the candles at you while the screen rolls like a boat: jump the crest). Events only ever move candles: every candle keeps the size Hyperliquid gave it. Nothing comes round again until the rest have had their turn, whichever lanes you take at the forks. Every stomp gives back a line of gas. The enemies and traps are new on every run, so nobody can learn or script them; stations, chilis, chart events, Golden Bulls and rockets sit in the same places for everyone in a round.
- Sideways: the runner can step across the candle. Slippage slides you sideways, a phishing scammer hooks you and reels you toward his side, and off the side is off the chart. Hazards wake by arrival time, so speed does not carry you past them. Deep in the chart the Rug Puller takes 5 to 9 candles at once (the Exit Scam), and the Whipsaw and God Candle events move candles up and down under you.
- Perks: a loadout before the run (Stop-Loss, Diamond Diaper, Parachute +1, Big Tank, Moon Boots, Spicy Start), paid in Copium, never money. Airdrop crates on the chart hold more.
- Copium: the game currency. When a round ends, everyone outside the paid places gets some: 100 to 200 for a clear (more the closer they finished), 50 for playing. Once per board per round, never from the number of tries, no cash value, can not be sold or sent.
- Stations: three pads across a candle (a life, a full tank or 2 chilis, picked by the side you run on) and a jackpot above it that fills all three if you jump and fart up into it.
- Place: a player's single best run in the board's mode. Other runs never pull it down. Ties go to whoever started that run first.
- Server authoritative: the browser only sends which keys are held. The server runs every run itself and signs the result. Runs that look scripted are held for a person to check the replay.
- Rounds: 1 hour to 48 hours. A round pays out when its clock runs out and both bars are full.
- Payout: the top 30% share the prize. Whale (top 5%) 30%, Shark (next 10%) 30%, Dolphin (next 15%) 40%.
- First round only: if a new board misses its first round, every try is refunded minus the 3% protocol fee.
- Sign in: email, Google or Apple, which creates a wallet in the background. Card payments are supported. Solana wallets also work.
- Launchers: anyone can start a board, choose the mode (with its try time, or the finish candle on Fastest Candles) and the round length, and put up the first prize. Launchers do not pick a coin: the board's branches come from its address. Each board has its own token paired with GMYLD.
- Free play: practice runs any time, and The Hourly, a free board where everyone runs the same charts and branches for an hour.

## Pages

- [Home, live boards](https://paly.io/): every board with its prize, mode and bars
- [Practice free](https://paly.io/training.html): a free run on real charts, on new branches every time, with a key to meet every hazard, no sign in
- [The Hourly](https://paly.io/arcade.html): one set of charts and branches per hour, free, everyone on the same ones
- [Start a board](https://paly.io/launch.html): the launcher form
- [Runners](https://paly.io/runners.html): backers fund good runners' tries for a share of any prize
- [Full rules in plain text](https://paly.io/llms-full.txt)

## Optional

- [GMYLD](https://gmyld.com/): the protocol behind the prize pools
- [Hyperliquid API docs](https://hyperliquid.gitbook.io/hyperliquid-docs/for-developers/api): where the charts come from