Detect if running on a rooted device?

[Vincent]

Can you detect if the device is rooted or in any way using a speed-hack?

[britzl]

I have no idea. If you ignore Defold and try to find an answer that applies to the Android or iOS platform at large then I’m sure the same method can be applied to Defold using a native extension.

[Vincent]

I think that Pokemon Go uses SafetyNet to detect if the device is rooted.

[Pkeod]

There are ways around that still. MagiskSU for example. It’s possible to make it more annoying to hack a client but not impossible.

For speed hacks, maybe you could keep track of the difference between device time, game time, and server time?

[Tomires]

There has been a topic on keeping track of time a while back that you might find interesting

Add a utc_now() function?

If I were making a game that depends on time (either some casual clicker stuff or a mechanic that provides periodic rewards to a single-player game), I would probably utilise NTP servers with a fallback to device time in case the user doesn't have an internet connection. I assume this would stop people who aren't tech-savvy from cheating the system. I have also devised a pretty neat trick that might be applicable to this scenario - how about letting the player reap rewards either way, but when…

Unless it’s a multiplayer game by default, I don’t think it’s wise to require the player to be connected to the internet at all times, as a player I find this practice highly annoying (mobile games shouldn’t expect the user to be connected by default as they might play in environments without a dependable mobile connection and PC games with their evil DRM methods are a beast of their own). A fallback option would be welcome, although it is far from unbreakable (then again, what is… I guess theoretically the player can spin up a raspberry and run their own time server, but who would do that just to cheat a game ).

I guess the question that this all comes down to is ‘Would the player’s actions have a negative effect on other players /if it is an online game/ or would it affect the revenue by considerable margin /if it’s a freemium title with in-app purchases/?’