Tips & Tricks for Konung 1

0) There is a Tutorial and Multiplayer over LAN!

It's not mentioned in the GOG shop page or anywhere. Navigate to the folder where Konung 1 is installed.
- Run TUTORIAL.EXE for the Tutorial mode.
- Run LAN_KONG.EXE for Multiplayer mode.
- Read readme.txt for differences in Multiplayer and for detailed control scheme.

1) The English version on GOG is missing two music files which causes the game to freeze after a while.

Solution 1a) Launch the game and completely disable Music in the main menu. Download the soundtrack and play it with a music player on repeat.

Solution 1b) Install the Russian version.

Solution 1c) (NOT TESTED) Download the game soundtrack (included in the GOG version you purchased). Convert all files from MP3 to OGG.

Track 01.mp3 -> Track01.ogg
Track 02.mp3 -> Track02.ogg
...
Track 12.mp3 -> Track12.ogg

Then place these files into the Game Folder, into MUSIC folder. Replace the previous files.

2) Running the game on Windows 7 (x64).
You launch the English version on Windows 7 x64 ... and nothing happens.

In reality, the konung.exe did launch and stays active in the background, but the game window simply does not appear.

A quick fix is open up your task manager (Ctrl+Shift+ESC) and there should be KONUNG.EXE running. Kill it.
Now launch the game again and it should work.

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If you want this to stop happening, installing the DirectX 2010 runtime package helped me, so maybe it will help you too.
- Download this file: http://files.gog.com/support/Directx_Jun2010_redist.exe
- Select any folder - it will extract the actual installer there.
- Navigate to the folder you selected, run DXSETUP.exe and install it.

After this, restart your computer. Konung should launch properly now and you shouldn't need the task manager trick anymore. Note: The Russian version worked properly even before I installed this redistributable.

3) There's a widescreen mod, but ONLY for the Russian version of the game.

I managed to run the game with English menus, dialogues and character/inventory screen on the Russian version with widescreen patch (screenshots included). However the main menu is distorted and all descriptions (in the status bar on the bottom of the screen, and for example the character backstories) stay in Russian. They are most likely contained within the konung.exe file so there's nothing I can do about it.

If you wish to play this half English half Russian hybrid with widescreen, I recommend that you install both language versions of the game. The steps are as follows:
- Install the English version of the game.
- Navigate to the Game Folder, copy the whole Game Folder and paste it in the same location.
- Now you should have two folders: Konung and Konung - copy. Rename the copy into KonungEN or something similar, this will be your English version.

- Uninstall the English version of the game. The copied folder we created will remain on your computer.
- Install the Russian version of the game. Now you have both versions installed.

To run the widescreen, we will be using the Russian version.

- Download https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/1652-konung-legends-of-the-north-resolution-fix/ - pick the "konung_widescreen_v2_co.7z" file.
- In the 7zip archive, there will be many folders with different resolutions. Pick the one you want. For example, I will be using 1920x1080 resolution folder.
- Open the folder you picked, copy all files and paste them into your Game Folder.

Now we have a working Russian version with widescreen. Time to restore English.

- Open the 7zip archive again. Go to the resolution folder you picked and note down the filenames of the files other than konung.exe. I picked the 1920x1080 folder, which has these files:
Intr192r.res
MENU192R.RES
NEWH192R.RES
SAVE192R.RES

- Navigate to your English installation, find these files and copy them elsewhere:

INTR800E.RES
MENU800E.RES
NEWH800E.RES
SAVE800E.RES

Also make a copy of these two extra files:
QUEST_E.RES
SOUNDS.RES

- Rename the copied files to the filenames you noted down:

INTR800E.RES -> Intr192r.res
MENU800E.RES -> MENU192R.RES
NEWH800E.RES -> NEWH192R.RES
SAVE800E.RES -> SAVE192R.RES

Also rename the QUEST_E.RES -> QUESTR.RES
Don't rename the SOUNDS.RES file.

- Copy these 6 files into the Russian installation. Replace any original files.

Now we have Russian game with widescreen, with English dialogues, sounds, character/inventory screens and menus. The final step is to restore English videos.

- Navigate to your English installation, copy the whole Video folder and paste it into the Russian installation. Replace any original files.

You can now launch the game. The main menu will be distorted, you have to place your mouse cursor in the area to the left of the main menu buttons.
Alternatively, if you can handle the main menu in Russian language, use the MENU192R.RES from the 7zip file, and it won't be distorted.

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Apparently the widescreen modifications were made using a tool called Olly's Debugger (OllyDbg), which is an assembler-level tool. Someone who knows how to work with assembler might be able to compare the contents of konung.exe file from the Russian version from GOG with the modified konung.exe files from the widescreen mod, and then they might be able to reproduce the mod with the English konung.exe version. Good luck.

4) Using (unofficial?) language packs

While GOG only contains English and Russian version, it seems Konung 1 was available in various other languages - Czech, German and Polish afaik. To use them, simply copy the language files (and rename if needed) from these translations into your Game Folder. I have confirmed that files from Czech version work with the GOG version.

Czech translation was based on the English version of the game, so I simply installed the English version, then copied these files into my Game Folder:

INTR800E.RES
MENU800E.RES
NEWH800E.RES
SAVE800E.RES
QUEST_E.RES
SOUNDS.RES
and the whole Video folder.

Since Konung 3 arrived here at gog recently, i noticed that the main criticism about this game is the camera being too close to the player. I checked it and can confirm that this really is an annoying issue. I checked the steam page and found that there is an unofficial fix that not only adds native widescreen support but also allows the camera to be zoomed out twice as far, what makes the game MUCH more comfortable, in my opinion. There is only one problem: The patched file obviously only works correctly for the (russian) steam version of the game. Though you can (technically) use the patched files on gog, you immediately notice that some texts are in russian language and the characters in game become invisible. That, obviously, makes the patch unusable for the gog version.

If anyone knows about a gog version of the patch or a documentation how to modify the EXE file to fix the zoom behavior, I'd be highly interested in that! I think that would definitely add value to the game.