Hacking

	This article is not the place to add APKs, promote game mods, or to encourage cheating. Merely, this article explores aspects of hacking subject game(s), including instances of hacking and consequences for hacking. If you believe some of this content is inappropriate, please contact an administrator on their message wall, or leave a message on the talk page.

Hacking is, for the purposes of Bloons games, any and all modification that directly changes game code beyond what is officially supported by Ninja Kiwi (via their Terms of Service). Attempting to connect to Ninja Kiwi servers while using a modified client can cause your account to be flagged. Flagged accounts are not allowed to connect to Ninja Kiwi servers, and thus are unable to play in competitive events.

There is a distinction between hacking and cheating. For more information about cheating, see the Cheating page.

Negative connotations

In the Bloons community, hacking is generally associated with cheating, which can partially be attributed to the origins of Bloons games as Flash and iOS (later Android) games where modifying a game is less frequent than Desktop PC games. As the Bloons franchise grew and BTD6 became a mainstream PC game, the attitude towards mods started to slowly improve. This is associated with a change in terminology from "hacking" to "modding", where the term "hacking" is reserved for people who use mods to cheat, whereas previously the word "hacking" (and its associated negative connotations) was used to describe all mods.

Hacks and mods see regular showcases on the internet, and have since the Bloons TD 5 Generation. Ninja Kiwi have officially stated that mods, while not officially supported, are not something that the studio is against, provided they are not used to cheat in competitive events. Official mod support is in the works.

Pre-BTD5 generation games

It is possible to play Flash games with hacked cash, however mods for pre-BTD5 generation games are inaccessible outside of Flash games copied and modded by third-party sources, which are now unplayable unless there is a program capable of running Flash games on the device being used to load the game.

Games in the Classic Bloons series can port levels between games with striking accuracy, even from different platforms. A modded version of Bloons Insanity for instance had levels from Bloons Festive Fun with largely the same level layout just by copy and pasting level code from the latter, with no changes otherwise.

Not much is known about the consequences of hacking for pre-BTD5 generation games, as there is almost no interaction for those games, with exception of in-app purchases via NK Coins. Typically, modded games before BTD5 lack any consequence.

BTD5 generation games on Flash

As for all BTD5 generation Flash games linked by Ninja Kiwi account, the player's Ninja Kiwi account will be banned if caught hacking. Achievements will also be revoked for an account who is caught hacking.

BTD5 Flash

Possible to hack in the game. Hacking is less of an issue than BTDB Flash or BMC Flash, but being caught hacking (with either Experience or suspiciously high rounds on leaderboards) will revoke access to linking with the player's Ninja Kiwi account. Online features such as Co-Op Mode, Achievements, and Daily Challenges are banned. The rest of BTD5 Flash can be played, however, using a guest account.

BTDB Flash

If the player is caught hacking, the player's account will be banned from playing the game. The screen immediately reveals a troll-face Dart Monkey prior to getting banned.

"Trollface Monkey" as used in the anti-hacker screen

BMC Flash

It is possible to hack into the game. For instance, hacks for obtaining exceedingly high City Cash from Contested Territory are possible. Hacking in this way results in a ban.

An example of a hack in BMC Flash, showing an impossible city level

BTD5 generation games on Mobile or Console

BTD5 Mobile

People have made mods for BTD5 Mobile. It is suspected that a flagging system similar to that of BTD6 is in place for this game.

BTDB Mobile

Mods are readily available. Tower mods, hypersonic mods, card mods, game mode mods, and hacked Sandbox Mode (at least prior to Version 6.9) mods are some of the mods available, and these mods are regularly showcased in YouTube videos.

If the player is caught hacking (or attempts to play BTDB mods in a quick match/arena game), they immediately lose the current match and will be placed in the hacker pool. In the hacker pool, they may only play with other players who are also in the hacker pool.

In addition, going into the leaderboards while they are flagged will show "No data found.", which is an obvious indicator that the player was indeed flagged.

BMC Mobile

There are currently no online reports of hacking in these games, although this game is entirely possible to hack into. Just like the previous two games, modding is possible in this game, and mods for BMC Mobile have been circulating in the Bloons community.

BSM2 Mobile

It is unknown if players can mod in more substantial ways, such as making attacks hit the entire screen or deal enough damage for 1 shotting every bloon. There are no precautions in place against a player that has successfully edited a save file.

BTD6

Ninja Kiwi imposes an anti-cheat system in Bloons TD 6 to separate the players who play illegitimately from those that play legitimately. On August 8th 2022, Ninja Kiwi created an FAQ page about account flagging, titled "Account Flagged for Hacking".

BTD6 mods were being created and deployed as early as October 2020. Pirated games or infinite cash hacks were being created and distributed much earlier. Hackers who are caught will have their account flagged, and BTD6 instances logged into flagged accounts show a pair of leaves above the settings button. Flagged players are not permitted to play in competitive events, and they are placed into the hacker pool for co-op. Accounts can be unflagged upon contacting Ninja Kiwi if the support team approves of the decision to unflag the player's account.

It is possible to get the hacking flag by playing the game legitimately but with very unusual statistics (e.g. ending with $100,000+ in a Race Event, or winning Race Events with a lower time than usual relative to previous medals awarded by the player). Being paired with a hacker in a public Co-Op pool can also cause the player to be flagged. Occasionally, legitimate players in Race Events or Ranked Boss Bloon Events may be falsely flagged for hacking, even though they did not use mods or cheats. It is advised to e-mail NK Support if this happens; they usually unflag innocent players.

If the player ends up receiving a hacking flag, the common signs of being in the hacker pool for Co-Op Mode include:

• Getting continually paired with players who suddenly earn extreme amounts of cash or otherwise use an unusual number of Powers in the first few seconds of a round.
• Repetitive spamming of unusual cash amounts to another player during the first round and then later that player gaining an extreme amount of cash all of a sudden.

Even if there is no hacking flag shown in the main menu, a pirated version of BTD6 is prone to issues with updating new versions, not to mention that there is risk of containing malware. In fact, many pirated versions of Bloons TD 6 come with hacks by default, regardless on their impact on gameplay.

Players accounts that are truly banned will receive the following changes:

• There will be two leaves on top of the settings button to indicate the presence of such flag.
• Players will not be listed on the leaderboards on Race Events and therefore can no longer gain rewards off them.
• Players can no longer join public lobbies on Co-Op Mode. Instead, they are placed in the hacker pool.
• Players will not be able to participate in a Ranked Boss Event and therefore cannot join the leaderboards in Boss Events
• Players can no longer play Contested Territory, nor can they be reimbursed for points lost

These accounts still have access to these features:

• All features on Challenge Editor are still enabled, and as such they can still play, create, and make challenges.

Various mods have been made for BTD6, many of which are often used in a non-invasive nature as a form of the community showcasing new perspectives to the game, including:

• Tower mods (e.g. new towers, new classes, rearranged classes, etc.)
• Bloon mods (e.g. regrow on MOAB-class bloons, excessive HP MOABs or excessive HP Ceramics)
• Projectile mods (e.g. hypersonic attack speed, aggressively homing projectiles)
• Graphics mods (e.g. rotating towers, rotating the entire game screen in 3D)
• Map mods (e.g. inserting old maps adapted in BTD6 style, inserting popular meme maps)
• Game mode mods (e.g. every X seconds a new gameplay change happens)
• Upgrade mods (e.g. removing activated abilities and replacing with a weaker permanent ability, price adjustments, etc.)

Rohan Spibo from Ninja Kiwi says that the use of hacks in the BTD6 game should only be done on a secondary account and only involve elements of purely private gameplay, such as the aforementioned harmless mods. Link.

The game automatically reminds the player about modded clients, at least they have started appearing from Version 30.0. Version 30.0's patch notes clarified what happens to Trophy Store items when mods are activated, stating that Trophy Store would be unavailable for use by players who have mods turned on. As Ninja Kiwi's way of supporting modding for legitimate, friendly uses, Ninja Kiwi has stated that they will eventually be adding official modding support into their games. Version 34.0 updated the modding support to specifically handle player-made mods, allowing all events to not be disabled when mods are active.

In the Version 44.0 patch notes, Ninja Kiwi confirmed that Bloons TD 6 will be changing its handling of modded content. Instead of automatically disabling data saving whenever swapping between non-modded and modded accounts, the game gives a warning prompt for modded content after pressing 'Start', with the following options:

• Close Game
• Continue (at your own risk)
• Logout

BTD6 False Positives

Occasionally, there may be false positives in the anti-cheat system in Bloons TD 6, causing some players to be flagged as a hacker incorrectly. This is often caused by in-game events that may have unexpected parameters not typical of "normal" games. In most cases, Ninja Kiwi may revert flagged status from players affected by such.

List of events that triggered false positives:

This section is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

• Race Event #195, hosted between 9th-12th September 2022
• Boss Event #82, hosted between 10th-14th February 2023

Bloons Adventure Time TD

Bloons Adventure Time TD has an online multiplayer component that can become an easy target for hackers. These hacks are most commonly absurdly high rounds in Martian Games, going as high as the billions (not legitimately feasible as a Martian Games event runs for 2 days, or 172,800 seconds, and completing one billion rounds on time requires completing each round in at most under a fraction of a millisecond on average), as reported from online communities.

There are also reports of being able to reach Level 9,999, which can be trivially determined to be the result of hacking. It is entirely possible to get higher levels than 100, but only possible before Version 1.0.4 capped levels to 100. Exceeding Level 100 was only possible to do before Version 1.0.4 which capped max level to 100 for players below Level 100, or the current level if already beyond Level 100. Even then, it would take extraordinary amounts of time to grind to higher levels beyond 100; therefore, a player with Level 9,999 is definitely hacking.

Other than that, there are currently no other online reports of hacking into this game.

Bloons Pop!

In Bloons Pop!, there is a hacker pool system incorporated into the game. However, there is currently no online-posted evidence to how the hacker pool system for Bloons Pop! works other than the existence of such.

Bloons TD Battles 2

Occasionally, legitimate players may be falsely flagged for hacking. For some time, this could happen if the player lost too many times to the same player or surrender too many games in a row due to XP Farming, or "boosting" as it is commonly referred to as by the community, regardless of the type of match.

If an account is flagged for the first time, it will be flagged for 24 hours, unless it involves modding game files, in which case it is permanently flagged. After that, if the account is flagged again, it will be a permanent one, and the player will be forced to make another account. Link

Player accounts that are flagged will receive the following changes:

• There will be a space in the version number on the main menu, for example, "v 1.1.1" as opposed to "v1.1.1"
• The player will no longer be able to place on the Hall of Masters leaderboard
• The player will be placed in a hacker pool for public matchmaking

  

Conditions for flagging an account are similar to the first game, and include, but are likely not limited to:

• Having an unreasonably high amount of a currency (trophies, cash, etc.)
• Unlocking towers and their upgrades for an amount much lower than normal or unreasonably quickly
• Being in an arena while below its trophy requirement

Signs of being in the hacker pool (besides the space between "v" and the version number):

• Very slow loading speed when queuing up into battle

Bloons Card Storm

The Bloons Card Storm playtests can be modded, with mods enabling datamined content to be playable. This is discouraged by Ninja Kiwi for obvious reasons, and players that release footage of datamined content have been copyright striked alongside their game access being revoked. Besides this, the full extent of what is possible with mods is unknown, as what countermeasures against mods in the official matchmaking servers has not been properly explored.

Gallery

Error message when attempting to access online content under the flagged status