Thank you for the great feedback, and sticking through with the game! We would have liked to gradually introduce the mechanics and show you what to look for. As it is right now, being overwhelmed at the start is understandable. It's a lesson for future jams to set aside more time for tutorials! (And to reduce scope... as always!)
You have a fair point that certain hacks are hard to notice. It should be possible to make detecting these hacks more reliable, by changing mechanics and through balancing.
I'm glad you found the player list useful and found a successful strategy! Directional and position-aware audio is a fantastic idea; I would like to implement that.
Finally, congratulations on the perfect run :)