How does a game detect outside file alteration and connect it to in game events?

Question

I’m talking about those games, where you manipulate things outside the game to achieve objectives within a game. I hope I worded this correctly?

For example, moving a file labelled “pickaxe” to a certain folder to open a door in the game, deleting a file corresponding to a character to “kill” them in the game, or having a certain file in your folder influencing the story and ending you get. How does the game itself detect this kind of alteration?

In: 0

Answer 1

The game is just another program running on your computer, so it can access the files on your drive, through the operating system.

It can ask the OS to check whether a file exists, or it can ask the OS to notify it when there’s a change in the file system that matches specific criteria (for example “notify if a file was added to folder X”).