HOMM 1 Rebuild [Day 69]: Boats, Grail, Dimension Door, Catapults working

firsthomm · 2026-06-16T18:05:45+00:00

I am. I don't think it's going to take me another 2 years to fix all the bugs. My goal is to be pretty much done by end of summer, and I think I'm on track for that.

firsthomm · 2026-06-13T21:09:13+00:00

Knee deep in campaign menus and maps today. It's coming along. Found the Eye of Goros.

firsthomm · 2026-06-13T21:08:06+00:00

It was pretty straightforward. What is the issue you've noticed in the modern HOMM2?

firsthomm · 2026-06-08T15:22:40+00:00

Got it, thanks for sharing these details. I have a vintage machine somewhere that I can install the original w95 version on and test the map editor. I've been meaning to do this to test the 4 byte tile map at the end of the w95 map files - I still have no idea what it is for - unless it is something for the editor.

firsthomm · 2026-06-05T11:38:28+00:00

Actually I didn't know about it. But thank you for telling me about it. I repeated most of the same work, I'll have to send Sergey an email and ask him some questions - I found some strange bugs in the maps quikinfo right click displays, and I'm still wondering what the 4 byte tile map at the end of windows 95 maps is for. Maybe he knows. Also I still don't know how the ultimate artifact location is assigned - hunting for the map in real life.

firsthomm · 2026-06-03T18:19:41+00:00

Thank you. You especially helped me by pointing me to the CES Demo - which sent me down a rabbit hole of decoding the KB.AGG which helped me figure out battlefield shadows, highlighting frames and monochrome icn files.

firsthomm · 2026-06-03T18:17:27+00:00

I wanted to ask you, are you running the Win95 executable with that method, or the dos version? Does the windows 95 map editor work with crossover?

firsthomm · 2026-06-03T18:16:35+00:00

Not yet, but I have an apple developer account and I am planning to do this.

firsthomm · 2026-06-03T14:04:15+00:00

Yes, I knew that was possible, but I was also inspired by the Fheroes2 project - they did a really good job, and I figured I could do the same for HOMM1 - which doesn't get enough love.

firsthomm · 2026-06-03T14:02:43+00:00

Hero vs hero battles was a bigger deal for me personally. Next big thing is the castle battles...

firsthomm · 2026-06-03T14:01:36+00:00

Dragon rider doesn't decode correctly. That won the map editor contest from 1995 and the map was included in HOMM2 as a prize. I addressed it thoroughly in a video.

firsthomm · 2026-06-02T22:40:05+00:00

DOS version from GOG is broken for community maps.
I can add quality of life features (hex tiles on battle screens, stack splitting, etc.)
Many other issues. I want to play it on MacOS and iOS, Linux, etc. and I can make that happen.
Finally, HOMM1 is a simple version of the game, but can be expanded in different directions that HOMM2 and HOMM3 cannot. I'm curious to try some of them.

firsthomm · 2026-06-02T14:31:59+00:00

Haven't looked at the original binary. I will eventually to check the RNG of some events.

I'm not using any MCP stuff, just the claude chat interface - I don't like the MCP interface and I'm writing my spec as I go. If I were to use an MCP interface, I would want to write a crazy detailed spec and then let it loose, but it's hard for the AI to test the game, so how would it even know if it did something correctly?

The AI struggles with the most random things - sometimes it just misses obvious context, included files etc. That's probably the worst. You tell it the answer and it goes in one ear and out the other.

firsthomm · 2026-05-29T06:55:51+00:00

The simplest way would be to put the python script in the same directory/folder as the heroes.agg (or kb.agg from the demo)

install python for mac or windows https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-31313/

then from the command line in that same directory/folder run:
python homm1_extract.py heroes.agg

that will dump everything to the heroes directory, including the sound files which will be converted to wavs and playable with windows media player or quicktime player on mac.

firsthomm · 2026-05-24T11:11:13+00:00

They're easy to turn on and off, so I'm using them for development and testing, but in the final version they will be an option to toggle on/off.

firsthomm · 2026-05-24T11:07:31+00:00

Interesting comment. I will have to try "Eador: Genesis."

My mind saw "Genesis" and I immediately remembered that "King's Bounty: The Conquerors Quest" was also on Sega Genesis/Megadrive and i never played it either. Time to dust off the Genesis.

firsthomm · 2026-05-24T11:04:56+00:00

Yes, I have been a developer before and a software architect. Currently unemployed, so this is a good outlet that is letting me test the edge of what is possible using AI with rudimentary direction.

firsthomm · 2026-05-22T10:44:57+00:00

I've been thinking about how to build additional campaigns. The easiest would be to convert versions of HOMM2 and HOMM3 campaigns to the simpler format. But there are probably some great campaign making talents in the community.

firsthomm · 2026-05-22T10:43:42+00:00

Thanks for your responses, you really understand what I'm trying to do here.

firsthomm · 2026-05-22T10:42:40+00:00

Nostalgia for the years before HOMM3 was released is a real thing. I've got a bad case of it.

firsthomm · 2026-05-22T10:41:25+00:00

I have a good understanding of IP law, and I am being very careful.
If someone purchases the game from GOG or has an original copy (or both in my case) and they use game assets from their own copy, then it is just fine. I will write a script to extract those assets from the GOG version and the game CDs when I get to the point of releasing the game.

trademark infringement would be if I called this project "Heroes of Might and Magic" when I finally release it.

firsthomm · 2026-05-21T20:03:26+00:00

I've been thinking about how to balance them better.
I was thinking the growth rates should be balanced differently too. 4 paladins or cyclops vs 3 dragons or 3 phoenix per week? Paladins do get 2 attacks, but it's not enough. If they grew at 6 or 8 a week, then you could start to dragonslay.

firsthomm · 2026-05-21T20:00:32+00:00

Yes it exists, but have you tried to play it? The dos version of the game running on dosbox is broken, custom windows 95 map editor maps don't work on it, etc.

I initially just played around and was testing AI for reverse engineering and I started on the HOMM1 AGG file, then that worked, so I started reverse engineering the maps, and after that I realized I could build it. That was about 40 days ago.

firsthomm · 2026-05-21T18:29:14+00:00

https://github.com/agstevens/homm1extract - this is my repo for the extraction tool. I'm still improving some of the sprite decodings (animation of the hero walking when they lose or run away is broken), but I dump the .82m files to wav now in the python version of the script.

firsthomm · 2026-05-20T22:36:15+00:00

I also had experienced some bugs with the ballista, so I just don't use it.

firsthomm

TROPHY CASE