Developer builds server-side anti-cheat and deploys Space Invaders on AWS ECS Express Mode

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A developer built a browser-based Space Invaders game hosted on AWS and found that a client-trusted leaderboard was immediately exploitable by cheaters submitting arbitrary scores. To fix this, the backend was redesigned to accept raw kill events instead of final scores, with the server recalculating the score using an official points table and validating eight strict rules. If the client-submitted score does not match the server-recalculated value, the submission is rejected outright. On the infrastructure side, ECS Express Mode reduced the deployment footprint to just five Terraform resources, with AWS automatically provisioning the load balancer, certificate, and DNS. The project demonstrates that server-side score authority and simplified cloud deployment can both be achieved without significant added complexity.

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