OpenEnroth – Open reimplementation of the Might and Magic 6, 7, 8 game engine | Hacker News Reader

OpenEnroth – Open reimplementation of the Might and Magic 6, 7, 8 game engine

github.com

178 pointstoasteros51 comments

Nice to see it! I had a pretty big hand in making these suckers, worked at New World Computing during that era...

I'm thinking I'd better not elaborate on the particulars or give out any personally identifying information, but maybe I'll pop into their discord and make myself vaguely available (if I could even be of any help).

Oh wow! I found out about the project recently and had no idea sharing it could grab the attention of an NWC dev! I've played the series to death so I'm sure I've killed you a couple of times in the secret NWC office levels.

If it doesn't impose any ethical / legal questions (a la an ex-Windows dev working on ReactOS) I'm sure your expertise could be extremely valuable.

I'm not sure if by that era you mean that you strictly worked on 6-8, but you may also be interested that ScummVM recently started supporting the Xeen titles and even more recently started working on implementing MM1 & 2[0]!

[0]: https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/tree/master/engines/mm

Oh wow, I would gladly play MM1 but with modern-ish UI and minimap. I just find 1990 UI impenetrable. Also it's hard as it gets.

ScummVM aims for authenticity, so at least in its initial implementation the UI would most likely be exactly the same as it was at release, but it does open the door for modification I suppose - you may not see those enhancements made directly in the ScummVM tree though.

I've definitely seen engines with optional UI/QOL improvements included in ScummVM. Ultima VI, for instance, has a number of options that make it play a little closer to Ultima VII.

What a trip down memory lane... I only had access to the Xeen titles in my younger years, but they absolutely had a big influence on me, and I still remember them fondly.

In a way, I would almost hate to see it again- nostalgia almost certainly is kinder than reality.

Heroes of might and magic 1-through-3 were formative childhood experiences for me. Thanks for your service.

Might and Magic 6 and 7 are some of my favorite childhood memories and I still go back and play through them once every couple of years.

Thanks for making awesome games!

Yes absolutely, please do come visit us at some point! No need for names. Would be an honour!

Thank you, I'll be sure to swing by. I specifically worked on MM6-8 in detail, would be glad to chat about the good ol' days.

The "Might and Magic" and "Heroes of Might and Magic" games were a large part of my childhood. Personally, these games are the foundation to my understanding and expectations of anything in the fantasy genre.

I like Warhammer: Total War. However, I prefer the almost textbook archetypes/playable-civs in HOMM(1-3) over the dark and gritty palate of the Warhammer franchise. A new version of HOMM in the total war style would be amazing. Especially, if I had the option to doomstack Gremlins (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hxKjBeVvro8/hqdefault.jpg).

If you liked HoMM, check out Songs of Conquest[0]. It captures the style and feel very very well, and I like it a lot. I pine for it a lot, as I don't really have much time to play these days.

[0] https://www.songsofconquest.com

I love homm so much and still play it from time to time and they are still so damn good. I really love how South Park has always used similar background music to set the mood lol

another one with big nostalgia feels in the same medieval fantasy vein from back then is Lord's of the Realm 2. I still hold a grudge to this day with that cold bitch, The Countess...

In case folks are interested in Heroes of Might and Magic, specifically the fan-favorite part 3, there's also an open source reimplementation of that engine available: https://vcmi.eu/

It has high-res and mod support btw :)

As well as closed source but still awesome expansion, Horn of the Abyss.

https://h3hota.com/

The main selling points of HotA + HD Mod is UI improvements, modern display resolutions support, balance fixes as well as new content.

...and, of course, online lobby and simultaneous turns feature for online play.

You can play HoTA as a VCMI mod :-)

There is also fheroes2[0], for Heroes of Might & Magic II!

[0]: https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2

Also, for us HoMM fans, Songs of Conquest: https://www.songsofconquest.com

I tried it around half a year ago and it looked promising, but severely lacking in content.

Has that been fixed since?

When I tried it a few months ago, there was quite a bit of content, though I only played for a few hours. I just launched it again and they've added a bunch of stuff, including multi-player.

Basically, since this is Early Access, the best way to make sure content will eventually make it to the game is to actually buy it.

I bought it back in July! Just haven't touched it since, heh. Good to hear it's getting more fleshed out :)

Ahh yeah, give it another shot, I think you'll like it. I certainly did!

I started playing HoMM3 a year or two ago (zero nostalgia factor) and I've put in hundreds of hours since then, one of my favorites ever. It really scratches a lot of the itch of Master of Magic, with the tactical combat and spells, but much simplified city management and more variety in user-made maps.

It's actually been pretty threatening to my career how much I want to play this game. For years programming killed my desire to play video games, but now I can't make myself learn stuff on the weekends like I need to because I want to play HoMM3.

Those are some of the greatest games ever especially 6!!!

However if you play with the original engine (from GOG) it still works perfectly with windows and wine (Linux,FreeBSD) but don't forget the patches and mouse-look:

https://grayface.github.io/mm/

This is great! Coincidentally, I was thinking: how great would it be to experience MM6 in VR? just yesterday!

MM6 was a big part of my childhood and its great to see a modern reimplementation of it. Maybe in the future I will see my dream of VR MM6 come true :)

I keep pushing away my return to MM6 until it won't eat too much of my kids and work time, because I know I'd just spend hours upon hours grinding the first levels and dungeons for weeks. Oh the memories of my first 'open world' game (it's heavily scenarized, I know, but I didn't know back then). Almost finishing the games with four archers to realize I'd better start again with a more varied build because it'd be too hard and not that much fun...

So I know this is blasphemy in the community but the only game I've played is the Clash of Kings games on the Nintendo DS.

For rank amateurs like myself what would be the best entry point into the series? Ease of play a priority. I don't think I've played any similar games!

I would love to see this done to the original Hero's Quest by Sierra

Hero's Quest has been supported by ScummVM for some time[0][1]

[0]: https://www.scummvm.org/compatibility/DEV/qfg1/ [1]: https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/tree/master/engines/agi

I tried getting into HoMM3 but wasn't able to. Can anyone recommend a tutorial or anything?

Doesn't the level flow kinda act as a tutorial? Early very limited buildings and such?

I wonder why you had difficulty getting into HoMM3, I don't think the learning curve itself is that complicated when starting with the human campaign.

When I started the first level, I believe it referred to a tutorial document which I didn't have on hand (since I bought the game online). Was wondering if anyone could recommend a replacement tutorial resource.

I have a hard time getting into games in general. Usually I have to force myself to play for a few hours before it starts becoming fun. Even for games that have a shallow learning curve. It sucks, because I consider gaming to be a healthier way to relax than browsing online. It's just hard to get myself to play a new game enough that it starts being fun.

Online versions of old games usually come with a PDF of the manual.

Fair enough. GOG has a tutorial for first time players as part of the game. I uploaded it here, you can download it within next 3 days, after which it will automatically be deleted.

https://temp.sh/MndUi/Heroes%20of%20Might%20and%20Magic%20II...

Thank you!!

Hell yeah, so neat! Given that we are entering/have entered the age of nostalgia for early 3d, it would be so interesting to me to see someone making a commercial project off of this (obviously sans assets from the original games)

> Given that we are entering/have entered the age of nostalgia for early 3d

Are we indeed! I look forward to the new era of retro games then - maybe they will finally move on from the SNES aesthetic.

There's this recent PS1-inspired horror game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqQSliCGpMU

finally move on from the SNES aesthetic

Why do we need to move on from the SNES aesthetic? Can’t it coexist with other styles? To me, it feels like someone saying “maybe we’ll finally move on from classical music.”

Now if there’s some other retro style you want to support then I fully embrace that. I love the look and feel of HOMM3 and would love to see new games done in that style. But there’s no reason to abandon a style like 8-bit or 16-bit pixel art if there’s plenty of people who enjoy it.

Sorry that was poorly worded - I love the SNES aesthetic and of course hope it’s here to stay. I meant “moving on” as in chronologically to the styles that came afterwards. As though we gradually iterate through the past, marking each era as “retro vintage cool” instead of just “old”.

I think some periods have more lasting appeal than others. For example, the grainy low-polygon, low-colour, dithered look of early 3D PlayStation games has, to my mind, much less appeal than the 2D games of late SNES era (and PlayStation era, viz. Castlevania: SOTN).

Lots of people are nostalgic for Final Fantasy 7, for example, but I think most prefer the remake over the original.

Early 2D games have the same issue. I think very few people are fans of the Atari 2600 and its extremely crude graphics. To me, that machine is more interesting from the technical perspective than the visual or gameplay perspective.

Final Fantasy 3-4 is the big example for this.

Remade in 3d, then remade again in 2d to appeal to nostalgia for that style.

There’s definitely a sweet spot for me that overlaps with when games became “really good” to my taste.

I was playing Civ6. And honestly, why the 3D and all the animations? It’s just slow and consumes power that it doesn’t need to. The Civ2, MOO2, MOM, X-Com era is still to my mind the best. I just want the quality of life improvements and some of the newer mechanics from the new games.

Yes. I completely agree. I refuse to play new 3D games like Civ6 because they feel incredibly "heavy" without any benefit. A skilled team of 2D artists and graphic designers could run circles around Civ6 with incredibly beautiful and detailed art and user interface design without any of the power consumption or heaviness.

I am a huge fan of Civ2, MOO2, MOM, SMACX, and X-Com as well. Bringing those games forward with updated 2D designs, clean user interfaces, and high quality of life would be incredible!

I'd take up master of orion 2 again only with a heavy automation toolbox. Love the game, but bhe middle to end game was so click-click painful especially on big maps. Played it recently with Autohotkey and it was so much better.

In case of Civ6, the thing that consumes most resources doesn't seem to be the rendering so much so as all the game logic written in Lua. On very large maps late into the game, AI turns can sometimes take minutes.

That aside, I broadly agree that 3D graphics in 4X strategy games is, at best, a useless distraction. And sometimes it's actually harmful when it results in fewer noticeable details.

It still depends very much on the game. For example, Battlezone (1998) on PC was from that early / awkward 3D era. But the visual design of the game was very conscious of hardware limitations at the time, making it look surprisingly well back then, and tolerable even today with some minor tweaks like resolution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmHc_o9uoUI

(and then, of course, even if the graphics isn't great, the game mechanics might be so good that the graphics doesn't really matter)

I assumed that the appeal of pixel-arty games was the reduced engine and art requirements more-so than any aesthetic. I do not know anything about game programming, but I could deduce how to layer a bunch of 2d assets on top of each other to produce visuals. I could even sketch out some quasi-decent art in paint.

I would have to hit the books on how to work with a 3d world. Incorporating passable 3d art assets is well beyond my artistic ability.

Is the point of this project to enable people to build new MM games? I've played them all several times. HUGE FAN

Usually with projects like this the immediate goal is to make the games playable and portable.

Yes the end goal is to allow very flexible tools so that people can create and share their own quests/assets/campaigns/worlds

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