Case study

Hover!: statically recompiling the Windows 95 game to native C

Hover! statically recompiles the Windows 95 game Microsoft Hover! from the owner's HOVER.EXE into generated C and builds a 32-bit native host. Its pcrecomp pipeline catalogs functions, lifts game code and binds Windows imports; the author reports playable level-one runs and conformance checks, while host code adds presentation and multiplayer features.

Targets: Game
Category: Independent reconstruction cases
Relationship: Independent reconstruction project
Sources reviewed: 2026-11-06
Evidence class: C1 partial scope or analysis entry

Stars: 5
Last commit: 2026-10-21
Language: C
License (GitHub): MIT

GitHub data as of 2026-11-10

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Evidence

Demo screenshot from the project's public documentation

Observed: Download and demo observed; the case covers part of the target software.
Scope: Partial
Checked: 2026-11-08

How evidence classes are assigned

Requirements & limits

Prerequisites: Requires the user's own copy of Microsoft Hover! and the pcrecomp toolkit.
Prerequisites: Windows builds require Python 3.10 or later and Visual Studio 2022 C++ tools; Linux builds require clang-cl tooling and 32-bit Wine.
Limits: The project is marked alpha; the author reports that the presenter window does not work under Wine.
License: MIT license.

Cite

BibTeX

@misc{hover-static-recompilation-case,
  title = {{Hover!: statically recompiling the Windows 95 game to native C}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/sp00nznet/hover}},
  url = {https://github.com/sp00nznet/hover},
  urldate = {2026-11-06},
  note = {Awesome REA entry: \url{https://awesomerea.org/resources/hover-static-recompilation-case/}}
}

Plain text

Hover!: statically recompiling the Windows 95 game to native C. https://github.com/sp00nznet/hover (accessed 2026-11-06). Awesome REA entry: https://awesomerea.org/resources/hover-static-recompilation-case/

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About this entry

The description was reviewed against primary sources.

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Primary sources

README.md GitHub · sp00nznet/hover · Revision c6db134
docs/architecture.md GitHub · sp00nznet/hover · Revision c6db134