Decompiling Games with AI: Virtueel Zoetermeer

AI-assisted decompilation reconstructs a game’s source code from its compiled machine code, with correctness tested by checking whether the rebuilt program matches the original binary. Once reconstructed, code can be examined, repaired, adapted to modern hardware, or ported to new platforms. The author argues that language models can accelerate this work because functions can be tackled in parallel and tested against a precise target. An attempt to decompile the much larger Age of Mythology: Gold Edition had reached about 60 percent after a month, but progress was slowing, making a smaller project a better demonstration of what AI could accomplish.

That project was Virtueel Zoetermeer, an early-2000s city-building game commissioned by the Dutch municipality of Zoetermeer to teach children about urban planning. Players build a city while ensuring it has the necessary amenities; the game was used in primary schools nationwide. Starting with an archived copy, the author asked Claude to reconstruct the game and make it playable in a web browser. The first version ran but crashed, so Claude was directed to play through the game and fix the failures; the result was a stable port. Though the original was written in Pascal, a language the author did not know, Claude produced equivalent source code, which was published on GitHub. The game is now playable online, and an AI’s proposed high-scoring strategy - filling every vacant space with churches - provides a comic nod to the region’s religious character.