Making a game uncrackable

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by van_dammesque

For the Amiga I reckon Leander was the best, subtle change in level design, nowadays it would be reported and solved much quicker.

Leander's protection wasn't anything special at all, there were a lot of protections that were MUCH better and harder to crack! But the coder of Leander thinks he invented the best protection ever according to his video on YouTube...

[Retro1234]

Last time I played SleepWalker AGA WHDload (2015 ish) its impossible to progress past a level because theres no Giraffe. So copy protection is effective even today.

although old JST version works

[oRBIT]

Me and my pal started with an interesting idea when we coded A/NES (the NES 8-bit emulator back in the days). We played with the idea of "hiding" relevant code as 6502, running the code through the emulator itself. I don't think we ever got it running properly but I think the idea is interesting.
Obfuscating (custom) code by running it through an emulator/parser of some sort.

[aszu]

I keep thinking of an idea, that if a new game will be developed, then just before publishing it could be given to crack and whoever does it first (and creates a proper cracktro!), his/her crack would be included in the final version...

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by aszu

I keep thinking of an idea, that if a new game will be developed, then just before publishing it could be given to crack and whoever does it first (and creates a proper cracktro!), his/her crack would be included in the final version...

Lol or a reference made such as:

Cracked by X - thank you for not releasing (yet!)

Removing objects and giving false sense of everything working is a great crack... I think it's a way of programmers getting crackers frustrated lol.

I always wondered whether the Amiga could be made to read disk in REVERSE ie spin motor the opposite way. Then you effectively read data at specific points but the original code would be encrypted to instruct how and where to read code and it what direction.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by AC/DC HACKER!

Real games are made for computers, not consoles.

What a silly thing to say. You might get a better framerate on a PC, but games never run as smoothly on computers.

Windows is doing so many more things in the background compared to a console, and it causes the game to jerk or pause at times. Also all the issues with DRM, drivers, OS compatibility issues...

Nothing beats just putting the disk in and playing without any bullshit.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by oRBIT

Me and my pal started with an interesting idea when we coded A/NES (the NES 8-bit emulator back in the days). We played with the idea of "hiding" relevant code as 6502, running the code through the emulator itself. I don't think we ever got it running properly but I think the idea is interesting.
Obfuscating (custom) code by running it through an emulator/parser of some sort.

Well, also 6502 code can be reversed. In the end, you might make it a bit harder for the inexperienced coder/cracker but anyone who ever had to deal with interpreter based protections would be able to break your protection too.

[oRBIT]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Well, also 6502 code can be reversed. In the end, you might make it a bit harder for the inexperienced coder/cracker but anyone who ever had to deal with interpreter based protections would be able to break your protection too.

You're right of course, it would always be a matter of time. Would make me think of the old Sierra-games (Leisure Suit Larry 1 & 2 comes to mind). The first one used some kind of age-verification questions (that could be bypassed by pressing some key-combo If I recall correctly). And the follow-up had some image-matching with stuff found in the manual.
I never saw cracked versions of these games (protection was bypassed in other ways) but didn't Sierra use some kind of engine/interpreter for those games that possibly made cracking them harder(?)

[Predseda]

B.A.T. 2 came with a dongle allowing you to play the game, so you need a special dedicated hardware. And even that was cracked...

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by Predseda

B.A.T. 2 came with a dongle allowing you to play the game, so you need a special dedicated hardware. And even that was cracked...

Very similar to how arcade machines work... or at least some games.

[jotd]

dedicated hardware means dedicated software to read it. And it's not very subtle to access a serial port from a game.

[Phantasm]

The only thing I can think of that comes close to being uncrackable is including some piece of hardware that is vital to the game (like the super-fx chip on the snes) but that can still be cracked depending on what you mean by cracking. You could reverse engineer the hardware and produce documentation on how to create your own hardware or re-use the hardware if it is the same across multiple games (the way the snes copiers did for the dsp chips) or you could possibly replace the hardware with a coded software equivalent

[lesta_smsc]

To make a difficult to crack game/programs what you need is something like an RSA key. It generates a unique code each time - the same method is used for banking apps for example.

[Alpha One]

Originally Posted by oRBIT

Me and my pal started with an interesting idea when we coded A/NES (the NES 8-bit emulator back in the days). We played with the idea of "hiding" relevant code as 6502, running the code through the emulator itself. I don't think we ever got it running properly but I think the idea is interesting.
Obfuscating (custom) code by running it through an emulator/parser of some sort.

Thats how major protections on PC work nowadays, running several functions through one or more virtual machines that e.g. blow a 1 kb function up to tons of megabytes including thousands of checks and checksums. Of course they are not uncrackable in the end, but looking at the pc scene nowadays, companies are near to achieve that aim. Luckywise those protections are expensive and 95% of the games use more simple methods. :-)

[kamelito]

Seems easy to do, do not protect the game then it will be uncrackable

[redblade]

When people were cracking a prerelease version of a game, where would be the best place to put a serial?

Would you put it in the copper list? Put it as a sample in a music module? Or would you change the level order so that the cracker wouldn't recognise it i.e Lemmings has many levels so only the publisher would realise if the level order was different?

Thanks

[RichL]

Railroad Tycoon.

Manual protection was removed but then you could only buy max 2 trains. Could never have any more. Went and bought the big box Microprose version and of course you could have more than 2 trains.

Can anyone remember that? Another example of affecting the game but the cracker assumed the manual protection was successfully removed because the game still ran.

[sparhawk]

Originally Posted by grond

The real question to be asked is: did the fact that everybody had a copy that had some overlooked protection still in place but everybody thought was completely cracked actually improve sales of the protected game?

I doubt it.


For me I can, say that it wouldn't have mattered one way or the other. At that time I didn't have the money to buy too many games, and even though I lived in a big city, there were no stores where you could actually buy games. Those that had some, usually only had some small choice, but not the ones you wanted anway. In fact, when I got my first pirated copy of a Koala Painter on C64, I tried to get it legally, because I didn't even know then that you could copy software. I only learned that because the dealer told me that he can sell me a copy, much cheaper than was advertised in the mags, which actually surprised me, because I didn't expect this.



Later with my contacts I got so many games, that it didn't matter if one didn't work properly.

[sparhawk]

Originally Posted by Alpha One

but looking at the pc scene nowadays, companies are near to achieve that aim. Luckywise those protections are expensive and 95% of the games use more simple methods. :-)

I think, today, with the internet and sophisticated crypto algorithm, games can be better protected. If part of the software runs on a company server, it's quite hard to crack that. And nowadays, nobody thinks twice that even single player games want to have access to the internet.

[sparhawk]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

To make a difficult to crack game/programs what you need is something like an RSA key. It generates a unique code each time - the same method is used for banking apps for example.

That doesn't help. It works with banking, because you are talking to an external server where you haven no control over. If your application runs locally, the RSA key doesn't help )or any other encryption), because you can simply decrypt it, using the key that the application itself needs- I have done that. Takes some patience, so it is mostly a question of motivation. How much time are you prepared to spend before you give up.
Many programs have multiple layers, which boils down to the same question.