How can I avoid Cheat Engine's speedhack?

Hello, everyone!
For those of you who didn't know, Ludum Dare #34 finished yesterday and we released a game called 'React!'.
You have 6 seconds to turn off a nuclear reactor.
It's pretty good and people like it!

The thing is we want to add online highscores soon and right now, it's easy to cheat on the game using Cheat Engine's speedhack. That sucks.

I wanted to know if there is a way to avoid speedhacking.

Also, an offtopic question: is "we have no idea on how to turn off a nuclear reactor" gramatically correct? (English is not our main language)

Thank you!

 

If the game requires an internet connection to post high scores, you could require an internet connection to "validate" the high score as you play it. Ping a time server when the 6 seconds starts, ping it when the player finishes; if the time difference between pings is more than 6 seconds (plus a reasonable time to allow for latency, maybe another 2 seconds?), they have cheated.

 

Simply remove on

Technically, both forms are correct because it's something a character or narrator is saying, and this is a somewhat grey area. It would be different if it was an instruction manual. People don't usually say "on" in that context.

I have no idea how to save a file.
I have no idea on how to save a file << pretty needless rambling.

 

You can query running programs and services and search for Cheat Engine's signatures;
That way you can know 100% sure if player is running Cheat Engine. Then if CE is running, force close/quit the game.

 

That would be good, but the game can last up to 6 seconds (you can deactivate the reactor in less than that). What if the player takes less than 6 seconds to finish the game?

I thought about this one, and it could work, but I don't think CE is the only game that allows speedhacking.

 

Thank you! We'll remove the "on".

 

So compare the time between pings to the actual reported time, as opposed to comparing it to 6 seconds then.