Posted March 11, 2022
high rated
Here ya go, folks.
I find myself kind of picky with my games, especially artistically, and I find concepts like "underused capacity" can severely damage a game's enjoyment factor for me. Stuff like the jagged polygons on small scenery items in Dishonored, texture repetition in Heretic, useless (outside of speedrunning) roll function in Ocarina of Time, or potato faces in Oblivion. All things that the Devs could easily have implemented into the flow or polish of their final product, that don't really add to the experience.
The graphics of Might and Magic 1: Secrets of the Inner Sanctum are one of these. Ripped from the Apple II version, by all appearances, and with their colour range squashed to EGA standards and CGA four colour limitations, the DOS version of this game looks... kind of crap, compared to pretty much every other version out there, even the earlier Apple II version. So I took it on myself to do something that shouldn't work, and patch the graphics of this version.
Sadly I am not a hacker, so I was forced to rely on the good graces of others, particularly the long-suffering cleverness of LagDotCom over on the Dungeoncrawlers discord, to build tools for me to access the files I need, and reverse engineer all the formats the game used. We learned an awful lot about the way the game stores data, etc.
Long story shorter, I was able to build replacement graphics for every image used ingame. We couldn't hack the exe, I tend towards a "Originalism except where the original was a terrible decision" mentality, so don't except MM2 level colour ranges, or heavily expanded detail, but there should at least be a better feeling of atmosphere and cohesion in the result.
Here's the link for those interested in livening up their playthrough of the frighteningly old game:
Link to page on DungeonCrawlers.org
Thank you beyond thanks to Grifter, for networking me with these great people, Zooperdan, for hosting the files most graciously, and of course most of all to LagDotCom, for being willing to take a frighteningly fruitless and esoteric project onto his already belaboured plate at my bequest. And now that that's fixed, it's time for me to start playing the game! XD
I find myself kind of picky with my games, especially artistically, and I find concepts like "underused capacity" can severely damage a game's enjoyment factor for me. Stuff like the jagged polygons on small scenery items in Dishonored, texture repetition in Heretic, useless (outside of speedrunning) roll function in Ocarina of Time, or potato faces in Oblivion. All things that the Devs could easily have implemented into the flow or polish of their final product, that don't really add to the experience.
The graphics of Might and Magic 1: Secrets of the Inner Sanctum are one of these. Ripped from the Apple II version, by all appearances, and with their colour range squashed to EGA standards and CGA four colour limitations, the DOS version of this game looks... kind of crap, compared to pretty much every other version out there, even the earlier Apple II version. So I took it on myself to do something that shouldn't work, and patch the graphics of this version.
Sadly I am not a hacker, so I was forced to rely on the good graces of others, particularly the long-suffering cleverness of LagDotCom over on the Dungeoncrawlers discord, to build tools for me to access the files I need, and reverse engineer all the formats the game used. We learned an awful lot about the way the game stores data, etc.
Long story shorter, I was able to build replacement graphics for every image used ingame. We couldn't hack the exe, I tend towards a "Originalism except where the original was a terrible decision" mentality, so don't except MM2 level colour ranges, or heavily expanded detail, but there should at least be a better feeling of atmosphere and cohesion in the result.
Here's the link for those interested in livening up their playthrough of the frighteningly old game:
Link to page on DungeonCrawlers.org
Thank you beyond thanks to Grifter, for networking me with these great people, Zooperdan, for hosting the files most graciously, and of course most of all to LagDotCom, for being willing to take a frighteningly fruitless and esoteric project onto his already belaboured plate at my bequest. And now that that's fixed, it's time for me to start playing the game! XD
Post edited March 11, 2022 by drake.raider
