Decompiling Fast Food Tycoon 2: Drawing the World

A reverse-engineering project examines how the 2001 business simulator Fast Food Tycoon 2 creates its detailed isometric city and manages its inhabitants. The investigator decompiled more than 4,000 functions, indexed the code in a searchable database, and used Windows tools to inspect the running game’s memory and control it through its own interface. This made it possible to connect visible behavior - such as camera movement and changing cash - to the code behind it. The city renderer redraws only areas that have changed, restores the painted background, and draws objects in multiple passes along diagonal map cells to handle overlapping buildings and characters. Hidden parts of people and their thought icons receive special outlines. Color and lighting are stored separately, then combined with a repeating dither pattern for display.

The investigation also reveals how the game’s day-night cycle, animation, indoor scenes, and simulated routines work. Hourly brightness values govern daylight and lamp glow; building masks keep windows and signs bright after dark. Characters follow pre-drawn animation sequences along map paths, with frame-by-frame movement speeds, while restaurant scenes use layered artwork to place seated customers correctly. Citizens retain daily schedules, including routines assigned by character type. Finally, pizza ratings depend on topping distribution across 24 regions, symmetry, ingredient pairings, and customer preferences. A hidden plagiarism test penalizes recipes copied from rivals, showing how much depth the game concealed despite offering little in-game explanation.