Happy Friday all!

I was wondering what game mod's do to catch cheaters submitting runs. I'm not the most tech savvy person in the world, so I require video (with sound) proof with of a run (which seems to be pretty typical) and I watch and re-time the runs with my timer to verify length. I keep my eye open for anything that looks/sounds out the ordinary. However, past that what options do I have to catch cheaters?

For instance, in the game I mod (Street Fighter II Gameboy) between every stage is a brief silence and black screen, which I suspect would be easy to splice. How would I go about investigating further into that?

Thanks for the help, and I hope you all have a good weekend!

(edit: Grammar)

Make sure to know the timing for how long the black screen lasts, and time it against suspicious runs I guess.

Not sure other than that!

I know there's something you can do with the game audio that can help to detect splices, but I'm not sure exactly how that works. Other than that I think all there really is to do is watch the run and notice anything that seems off. If there's health bars or experience meters or anything that persists between loading screens or levels pay attention to those.

Thanks for the quick replies y'all! I'd be interested in the audio detection. Not that it's relevant for me currently, but the more you know. . . .

I have some games like that too. The bad news is that you can't use the usual signs. The good news is that if it was spliced, you know exactly where to look for it. Cheaters are lazy by nature, otherwise they'd actually, ya know, play the game normally. A few things I check for:

• Make sure the numbers are consistent from screen to screen. Lives, money, points, timer, etc. You know your game better than anyone else does.
• @vercadia mentioned above, but make sure the timing of the black screen is consistent.
• If there's background music, make sure it is the same volume from one screen to the next. If it is spliced, it's likely done over the course of several sessions and your cheater might have changed the volume settings between sessions for other things.
• If it uses a webcam or similar, look for times when your suspected cheater looks away from the screen while doing an action, sets the controller down, or the inputs are obviously off. (not touching the 'A' button but the character is attacking, etc.) Be careful, because newer runners either don't know or forget to sync everything before streaming.
• Faking surprise on a webcam. Either you expected it or you didn't; there's no reason to fake surprise. Someone who fakes being surprised wants viewers to think a thing happened "accidentally" or "randomly", which only really happens when that person is hiding something.