Can Games Keep Their Code Secret from Players?

The only real way to hide game mechanics completely is to run everything on a server and only send minimal data to clients. This makes it harder to discover mechanics that aren't built into the client’s code. For instance, if your game could dynamically generate surprises that players could only discover online, that would add an extra layer of secrecy. However, it's tough to implement at a larger scale because of bandwidth limitations.

If you're using certain programming languages like C# or Python, your game might be relatively easy to reverse-engineer. On the other hand, C++ gives you a bit more security because of its compiled nature. Still, any determined modder could eventually break through these barriers. It’s about making it more difficult rather than impossible.

When you have a compiled application, the source code isn't directly exposed unless you publish it. Yet, even with the compiled code on a player's machine, they can analyze it. Tools are available that can help dissect the program's behavior without needing the original source code. While obfuscation can complicate this process, it doesn't guarantee complete protection. For example, your suggestion about underground attack distances could easily be uncovered just by testing it while playing.

Games can make it harder to reverse engineer their logic, but it won't ever be foolproof. When a game is compiled, it becomes machine code, which is much more challenging to interpret than human-readable code. Developers often use techniques to scramble their code and even incorporate measures to prevent debugging, but skilled individuals can still reverse-engineer complex programs. For Minecraft, even if an underground attack mechanism is obscured, someone determined could still find out through gameplay experimentation.

Obfuscation tools can help to hide the code, but in the case of Minecraft, the code has been obfuscated before, and it's still been modded extensively. Obfuscation just makes things trickier, not impossible.