Reverse Engineering a 1991 Winter Olympics Game: Unpacking Copy Protection and Anti-Debugging

A computer scientist, driven by nostalgia for a childhood DOS game, "The Games: Winter Challenge", embarked on a reverse engineering journey. He discovered the game employed a code wheel copy protection mechanism and anti-debugging measures, with multiple releases and cracks existing. Deep analysis unveiled the code wheel check's intricacies, revealing hidden copy protection checks that subtly break gameplay. He successfully bypassed all copy protection, fixing broken versions available on GOG and elsewhere, and shared his patching tool.