Adversarially Validating Game Repairs

Purpose

A fix that makes the symptom disappear has proven one thing: the symptom disappears under the one condition that was tried. That is compatible with the fix being correct, and equally compatible with it being a guard at the reader, a clamp on the output, a special case that happens to cover the reported input, or a change that works only at 60 fps on seed 2001.

This procedure attacks the fix with conditions its author did not have in mind, and produces a record an independent reader can check without re-deriving the author's reasoning.

When to Use

• A patch exists, the reported symptom is gone, and confidence in why is low.
• The fix touches lifecycle, identity, timing, ordering, persistence, or a shared/pooled resource — the areas where a locally correct change is most often globally wrong.
• Before shipping a repair to a mechanic that players can grind, repeat, or abuse.