Heroes of Might and Magic II port available!

wildonrio · 12-09-2008, 12:44 PM

EDIT 6/30/2009: Please see the post below for information on a real port of Heroes II coming to iPhone.

EDIT: Upon further inspection, I don't think this port is for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Someone gave me this link from a forum of people discussing porting Heroes II to the iPhone/iPod Touch and I just assumed it was for that platform but it looks like it's for Windows (which doesn't make sense since Heroes II was written for Windows). Anyway, a port would be nice if anyone is up to it.

Alright guys, I don't know about you but I LOVED this game when I was a kid. After playing TapDefense I suddenly remembered Heroes II and longed for an iPhone/iPod Touch port. Well after one minute of googling, I found someone who ported it. Problem is, you need a jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch, something I have avoided. But wow, this could change everything.

Can someone with a jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch try out the port and tell me if it's any good? A YouTube video would be awesome, if possible.

Here's the download link. And here's the release notes on this build:

Posted By: revvy
Date: 2008-11-20 05:36
Summary: New fheroes2 development build released It's been one month since the last build release of fheroes2, and here are the changes since then:

* AI in battle! You can now enjoy epic battles against monster armies scattered across the map.
* High resolution improvements - more map viewing, less scrolling.
* Day and month events
* Movement distance calculation improvements
* Environmental sound and music fixes
* Digging for the ultimate artifact
* Actions for many more map locations, including Xanadu, abandoned mines, graveyards, pyramids, Magellan's Maps, hill forts, foundries, artesian springs, whirlpools, and more
* Working hero trading screen
* Many graphical fixes (froth around moving boats!)
* Much, much more!

fheroes2 is becoming closer and closer to the complete Heroes of Might and Magic II package with every release, but we can always use more help! Coming up in the next few months, expect to see changes relating to localization, further improvements and bug fixes in battles, more work on magic, and castle battles. Until then, go ahead, give it a whirl!

-- The fheroes2 team

jdm · 12-09-2008, 07:23 PM

As it happens, I wrote that announcement, and no, fheroes2 is not a port to the iPhone. In fact, I can't even envision how such a game would work; it seems to me that the interface is simply too big to be able to fit the necessary information onto the iPhone screen. I'm a pretty poor one to pass judgement, however, seeing as I've never used one before

If you want to toss some thoughts around, however, I'm happy to entertain the idea and see if we, the fheroes2 team, can do something about it in the future!

fury · 12-10-2008, 01:35 AM

If I knew what kind of game it was, I'd be more able to toss some ideas. I checked out fheroes2, but it doesn't run without the game data, and I don't happen to have the original. Are there any free maps available to demonstrate?

I don't think a big interface needs to be shrunk onto an iPhone screen - there are many ways I can think of to come up with creative alternatives. Tapping to view details of an enemy or structure, as is done in TapDefense, for example, will bring up the details in place of the bottom toolbar, and slide back out of the way when deselected. Anyways, that's just one of many. I'd need to get a feel for Heroes before I can provide any meaningful analysis

jdm · 12-10-2008, 02:01 AM

Unfortunately you also need all of the game assets (art, animations, etc) to be able to do anything with a map if I sent you one. This page has a bunch of screenshots which show the majority of the gameplay. Heroes of Might and Magic II is a turn-based strategy game in which you send your heroes around the map to collect treasure, do battle with monsters, and so forth.

wildonrio · 12-10-2008, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by fury

If I knew what kind of game it was, I'd be more able to toss some ideas.

Fury,

Heroes II is essentially an RPG, but is basically the funnest game I've ever played and I never get into RPGs. If you're interested, drop me a PM with your email and I'll email you a copy (since Heroes II is abandonware, it is free to distribute.)

Originally Posted by jdm

As it happens, I wrote that announcement, and no, fheroes2 is not a port to the iPhone. In fact, I can't even envision how such a game would work; it seems to me that the interface is simply too big to be able to fit the necessary information onto the iPhone screen. I'm a pretty poor one to pass judgement, however, seeing as I've never used one before If you want to toss some thoughts around, however, I'm happy to entertain the idea and see if we, the fheroes2 team, can do something about it in the future!

Jdm,

I know this is a little off topic from iPhone discussions, but I have some questions about your fheroes2 project:

1. What exactly is the purpose of the fheroes2 project?
2. Since Heroes II is already Windows based, what exactly are you porting?

If we can answer these questions, maybe we can spark some more interest in an iPhone port.

jdm · 12-10-2008, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by wildonrio

Jdm,

I know this is a little off topic from iPhone discussions, but I have some questions about your fheroes2 project:

1. What exactly is the purpose of the fheroes2 project?
2. Since Heroes II is already Windows based, what exactly are you porting?

If we can answer these questions, maybe we can spark some more interest in an iPhone port.

fheroes2 is a complete rewrite of the game and editor in an open source, portable fashion. Yes, Heroes II works on Windows, but it doesn't work well - music can be glitchy, CD audio almost never works, the resolution is limited, etc. We're adding the abilities to play on any OS that supports SDL (ie. Windows, Linux, MacOS, and more!), plus supporting both 32 and 64 bit architectures, and allowing higher resolutions (1280x1024 and greater).

I saw originally that you questioned the legality of the project. I'm not a lawyer, but to my mind, since we're not distributing any original game content, all we're doing is adding value to the original publishers. There is more reason than ever to buy a copy of the game, because it's no longer limited to old hardware or operating systems.

wildonrio · 12-10-2008, 01:45 PM

Originally Posted by jdm

fheroes2 is a complete rewrite of the game and editor in an open source, portable fashion. Yes, Heroes II works on Windows, but it doesn't work well - music can be glitchy, CD audio almost never works, the resolution is limited, etc. We're adding the abilities to play on any OS that supports SDL (ie. Windows, Linux, MacOS, and more!), plus supporting both 32 and 64 bit architectures, and allowing higher resolutions (1280x1024 and greater).

I saw originally that you questioned the legality of the project. I'm not a lawyer, but to my mind, since we're not distributing any original game content, all we're doing is adding value to the original publishers. There is more reason than ever to buy a copy of the game, because it's no longer limited to old hardware or operating systems.

Yeah I deleted my question about the legality once I did a little research and found out that Heroes II is abandonware

. Great news!

When you say that you are rewriting the code in an open source, portable fashion, does that mean it should be fairly straight forward to make an iPhone port as well? Since it's abandonware, you could make a free version and submit it to the App Store, which has attracted over 300 million downloads in the past 5 months...a great place to showcase your work.

jdm · 12-10-2008, 02:11 PM

Well, it would theoretically be as straightforward as porting any other SDL application to the iPhone. Currently, there's an SDL implementation for the iPhone in the SDL 1.3 repository, which is at an early preview quality. Then there's the whole matter of actually coverting the gameplay to be iPhone friendly, which is probably quite a bit more challenging.

fury · 12-10-2008, 05:19 PM

I don't have any experience in video game coding (AI, graphics, 3d work, etc), but one thing I do have a knack for is the interface. (I have the iPhone itself to thank for that, really) If somebody can get the code working on the iPhone, I'd love to take a crack at making the interface work for touch control.

wildonrio · 12-11-2008, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by fury

I don't have any experience in video game coding (AI, graphics, 3d work, etc), but one thing I do have a knack for is the interface. (I have the iPhone itself to thank for that, really) If somebody can get the code working on the iPhone, I'd love to take a crack at making the interface work for touch control.

Did you get a chance to play the game?