I rebuilt Baldies without its source code
I directed AI coding agents to rebuild Baldies, a 1995 god game, without its source code. The Windows desktop build reads all 100 original levels from an owned copy; a procedural edition runs on this site.
- Kind
- Result, measured by the author
- Published
- Filed under
- baldies
I wanted to know whether AI coding agents could rebuild an old game from the outside, so I picked my favorite game: Baldies.
The Windows desktop build reads all 100 original levels from a copy you own.
Baldies is a god game by Creative Edge Software. It came out on the Atari Jaguar CD in December 1995, then on PC in 1996. You breed a tribe of bald workers, make them builders, soldiers and scientists, and outwit the Hairies.
It isn’t sold on GOG or Steam today. On October 14, 2026, it had 341 votes on GOG’s Dreamlist.
What happened, by date
- October 7, 2026. The earliest preserved prototype file.
- October 8. Two separate playable prototypes reviewed.
- October 9. The combined remake finished at commit c37f1b5. An AI red team found 7 problems. All 7 were fixed and rechecked at a later build, 01415d3.
- October 11. The checks were run again on a fresh copy of the code.
Two prototypes, one game
There was no source code to start from. One prototype wrote a Python simulation from public specs without decompiling the program. The other decoded the original level files and used a disassembler to pull out values like the house sizes. I kept the first one’s simulation. Its house sizes match the table the second one pulled from the original files.
I directed the work: how to structure both prototypes, which parts of each to keep, what to verify and when it was done. AI coding agents wrote and tested the code.
| Component | First Prototype | Second Prototype | Combined Remake (c37f1b5) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay simulation | Written from public specifications without decompiling the executable | Explored decompiled routines | Kept from the first prototype |
| Level loader and tile decoding | Procedural maps only | Decoded the 1996 level files and 1,280 tiles (16x16) | Kept from the second prototype |
| Data tables (such as house capacities) | Specification-based defaults | Extracted via disassembler and Consumption Engine context (10, 20, 30, 40, 50) |
Uses second prototype’s extracted table (10, 20, 30, 40, 50) |
| Art and interface | Project-made procedural art and UI | Read original asset files | Desktop reads owned original assets; browser uses procedural art |
What the files showed
From the case study:
- The whole world is drawn from 1,280 tiles, each 16 by 16 pixels.
- A level file is a grid of tile numbers, plus who starts where and what can be researched. The rules lived only inside the program.
- There are 31 inventions. Each level has its own settings for the Hairy AI.
- The original ran ten steps a second. The remake runs twenty. In the remake, a house holds 10 Baldies and grows to 20, 30, 40 and 50.
What was checked
On the Windows desktop build:
- 334 automated tests pass.
- All 100 levels load in 4 views with 0 errors.
- Saves resume the same in all 8 tested cases.
- 9,000 random inputs caused 0 exceptions.
The browser version and live rules controls came after these desktop checks. The rules are the remake’s own tuning: change them while the game runs and see how the simulation responds.
Play it
The browser version plays all five generated worlds, with levels and art made for this project. It has no original game files. On the front page you can change breeding rate, house capacity, walk speed and Hairy difficulty while it runs, and watch the population respond.
Play it Case study Full checks
Why it matters
Once a game’s rules are plain code, they can be read, tested and changed. Preservation comes first for me: great programs should not vanish when the machines they ran on do. The next question is whether these methods can recover the formats and data of other old programs.