diff --git a/services/wolf.sh b/services/wolf.sh
index fcf2f9a..e06049f 100644
--- a/services/wolf.sh
+++ b/services/wolf.sh
@@ -1003,12 +1003,32 @@ XMLEOF
             # it (copies to /opt/ti99sim/bin, symlinks into
             # /usr/local/bin), so use that instead of guessing the exact
             # build subpath.
+            # ti99sim's own Makefile.linux calls the old SDL 1.x `sdl-config`
+            # tool, which no longer exists — modern libsdl2-dev ships only
+            # pkg-config .pc files (and sometimes sdl2-config, itself already
+            # a thin wrapper over pkg-config). Confirmed live: without this,
+            # every sdl-config call silently returns nothing, so the compile
+            # gets no -I/-L flags at all and fails on "SDL.h: No such file or
+            # directory" — not a real incompatibility, just a stale tool
+            # name. A tiny shim mapping the handful of flags this build
+            # actually uses (--cflags/--libs/--version) onto pkg-config sdl2
+            # fixes it without patching the project's own Makefiles.
             if docker run --rm -u root --entrypoint /bin/bash \
                 -v "$GAME_STORAGE_DIR/emulators:/output" \
                 ghcr.io/games-on-whales/es-de:edge -c '
                     set -e
                     apt-get update -qq
-                    apt-get install -y -qq git build-essential libsdl2-dev ca-certificates
+                    apt-get install -y -qq git build-essential libsdl2-dev pkgconf ca-certificates
+                    cat > /usr/local/bin/sdl-config << "SDLCFG"
+#!/bin/sh
+case "$1" in
+    --cflags)  exec pkg-config sdl2 --cflags ;;
+    --libs)    exec pkg-config sdl2 --libs ;;
+    --version) exec pkg-config sdl2 --modversion ;;
+    *)         exec pkg-config sdl2 --cflags --libs ;;
+esac
+SDLCFG
+                    chmod +x /usr/local/bin/sdl-config
                     git clone -q https://github.com/billzajac/ti99sim.git /tmp/ti99sim
                     cd /tmp/ti99sim
                     make