Heroes of Might & Magic 3: Horn of the Abyss Addon v1.7 with Factory faction released!

What a nice way to bring in the new year! The team behind the popular Horn of the Abyss addon for Heroes of Might & Magic 3 have just put out their biggest release yet! The mod already contained the cool pirate Cove faction but now they’ve added a new steampunk Factory faction and a new campaign even with story cutscenes! But if that’s not enough they’ve managed to add airships into the game and even got legendary Heroes of Might & Magic series musician Paul Romero to help them finish the new music tracks originally started by Docent Picolan who sadly passed away.

More info: https://heroes3wog.net/horn-of-the-abyss-v1-7-with-factory-was-released-full-changelog/

Download: https://h3hota.com/en/download

Towns:

Trailer:

Mystical Conquests (Retro 4X Civ, MoM, AoW, HoMM like game)

Have found a interesting up & coming 2024 retro fantasy turn-based 4X strategy indie game called Mystical Conquests that has a very classic Master of Magic like feel plus a bit of Heroes of Might & Magic thrown in too, however the author actually lists Civilization, Age of Wonders and Final Fantasy Tactics as it’s main inspirations. Naturally the game contains all the usual 4X fantasy strategy genre hallmarks of exploring a world map filled with lairs & treasures, building & developing cities, researching new technologies, fighting battles with heroes & armies of creatures, item crafting and spell casting too. The 8bit style graphics and sound give a very nice retro feeling, and the system requirements are accordingly low. If you feel curious about testing & giving the developer some feedback, there is a playable demo available on Steam.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2108270/Mystical_Conquests/

Civilization 2 – Heroes of Might & Magic 2 Scenario Mod Release

After 4 years of work the day has finally come! The Heroes of Might & Magic 2 total conversion mod & scenario created by MetroPolis and Blake for Sid Meier’s Civilization II MGE has been finished and released! Inspired by Tom2050’s amazing HoMM3 mod for Civ3 we hope to create the most HoMM2 like experience within the limitations of the old Civ2 engine. Almost every part of Civ2 has been changed making this possibly the largest Civ2 MGE total conversion mod ever made! It’s 20 years too late but we did it anyway haha! Check out the pictures, video, downloads and full release details below, and if you’re new to the project then check out the old dev diaries below to see how we made this mod! 🙂

Dev Diaries:
Dev Diaries 1-3 were posted HERE
Dev Diaries 4-6 were posted HERE
Dev Diaries 7-8 were posted HERE
Dev Diaries 9-10 were posted HERE

Taken from ReadMe file:
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Civilization 2 – Heroes of Might and Magic 2 Scenario Mod (MGE)
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Author: MetroPolis and Blake00
Version: 1.0 07/10/2023
Scenario Homepage: https://blakessanctum.x10.mx/Mods/Civ2HoMM/
Scenario ModDB Page: https://www.moddb.com/mods/civilization-2-heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-mod
Scenario Release Forum Thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/685938/
Old Scenario Dev Forum Thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/6127/
Demonstration Video: youtu.be/g1V7_hjmjD0?list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY

Screenshots:

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Contents:

1. About
2. Requirements, Installation & Play Instructions
3. Known Issues
4. Addon Pack & Future Plans
5. Factions
6. Hints & FAQ
7. Version History
8. Credits
9. DOWNLOAD

Civilization 2: Heroes of Might & Magic 2 mod – Dev Diaries 9-10

Regular visitors to my blog may have seen on my What Is Blake Playing Right NOW? page that I’ve been quite busy with Civilization 2 modding as part of the HUGE new WIP Civilization section and youtube series I’ve been working on for ages.

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Because I’m a huge Heroes of Might & Magic fan the biggest project of them all is a HoMM2 total conversion mod and scenario for the great classic game Sid Meier’s Civilization II MGE created by Metropolis and me! Inspired by Tom2050’s amazing HoMM3 mod for Civ3 we hope to create the most HoMM2 like experience within the limitations of the old Civ2 engine.

PREVIOUSLY:
Dev Diaries 1-3 were posted HERE
Dev Diaries 4-6 were posted HERE
Dev Diaries 7-8 were posted HERE

Dev Diary 09 – New Azure Dragon, Neutral Cities & HoMM1 Addon For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
In the ninth dev diary for the Civ2 HoMM2 mod we replace Matt’s dragon with a mighty Azure dragon, add a 7th neutral faction city, and begin work on a future HoMM1 addon.
https://www.moddb.com/mods/civilization-2-heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-mod/news/azure-dragon-neutral-city-h1-addon

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FINAL Dev Diary 10 – World Map, Factions & Extra Graphics For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
In this final tenth dev diary we finish up by showing some of the scenario world map, the factions, and some special alternative graphic sets
https://www.moddb.com/mods/civilization-2-heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-mod/news/world-map-factions-extra-graphics

Civilization 2: Heroes of Might & Magic 2 mod – Dev Diaries 7-8

Regular visitors to my blog may have seen on my What Is Blake Playing Right NOW? page that I’ve been quite busy with Civilization 2 modding as part of the HUGE new WIP Civilization section and youtube series I’ve been working on for ages.

.
Because I’m a huge Heroes of Might & Magic fan the biggest project of them all is a HoMM2 total conversion mod and scenario for the great classic game Sid Meier’s Civilization II MGE created by Metropolis and me! Inspired by Tom2050’s amazing HoMM3 mod for Civ3 we hope to create the most HoMM2 like experience within the limitations of the old Civ2 engine.

PREVIOUSLY:
Dev Diaries 1-3 were posted HERE
Dev Diaries 4-6 were posted HERE

UPDATES:
Dev Diaries 9-10 now posted HERE

Dev Diary 07 – New Diplomacy, Dragon Launch & Animating High Council For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
In this seventh dev diary for the Civ2 HoMM2 mod we take on the 3 final frontiers of Civ2 editing and change the diplomacy screen background, spaceship construction sequence, and grand council video advisors with cool HoMM2 content. In the case of the council I had to create animating versions of HoMM2 hero portraits!
https://www.moddb.com/mods/civilization-2-heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-mod/news/diplomacy-dragon-launch-high-council

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Dev Diary 08 – Custom Font Colours & Better Backgrounds For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
In the eighth dev diary we add custom font colours into Civ2 and completely overhaul all the ugly old GUI backgrounds.
https://www.moddb.com/mods/civilization-2-heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-mod/news/font-colours-better-backgrounds

Silence of the Siren (HoMM like scifi game)

Silence of the Siren appears to be a Heroes of Might & Magic like game in a scifi universe which is a very cool idea! I remember someone did a scifi version of HoMM called Spaceforce Captainns years ago which didn’t quite nail it so hopefully these guys do a better job! The screenshots look pretty cool and the videos show that they’re using the hybrid 2D pixel art in a 3D world Songs of Conquest style trick that looks much cooler in motion! Have wishlisted!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2147380/Silence_of_the_Siren/

Heroes of Might & Magic 3 Castle Town 3D Remake in Unreal Engine 5

For those poor souls who’ve been waiting since 2019 for me to finish my huge Civ2 Heroes of Might & Magic 2 scenario which is quite possibly the largest total conversion mod ever made for Civilization II I’m sorry you’ve been waiting so long, but I’m a man with a million projects on the go haha, however I’m pleased to let you all know that I’m in the final testing now and am finally so close to finishing and releasing this thing so stay tuned! 🙂

In the meantime let me show you something else awesome I just found! If you were a young person playing Heroes of Might & Magic did you ever dream of walking around the castles and seeing the people and creatures going about their business? I certainly did and was saddened by the slow decline in ‘life’ in the castles across the series as HoMM1 had all the creatures outside their dwellings animating away adding so much life and personality to the factions but by the time we got to HoMM4 castles were just lifeless buildings with nothing more than flags moving & lights flickering. HoMM5 brought back some life to them with 3D animation but still no creatures and HoMM6&7 were just paintings with cheap animation. Well someone out there obviously had a similar dream and decided to recreate the awesome HoMM3 human knight Castle faction town in full 3D in Unreal Engine 5 with people walking the streets and just stunning graphics. The video below is truly amazing! Just imagine if a future HoMM game had a castle screen like this! Hope it’s creator does some of the other faction castles too!!!

25/04/2023 UPDATE – have also recently found a 3D Inferno castle remake for a few years ago that’s pretty cool too..

The rise of the 2D pixel art in 3D hybrid games (The Last Night, Songs of Conquest, & Octopath Traveller)

Over the last decade we’ve seen a resurgence of indie point & click adventures games that mix low res VGA like pixel art graphics with modern coloured lighting effects (which perhaps I’ll do a separate post on some time) however in more recent years I’ve started to notice this fascinating new genre emerging where 2D pixel art is placed in 3D environments with freaky modern lighting, texture & particle effects combined with ‘camera tricks’ such as forced perspective, zooming and side to side scrolling creating a powerful 3D parallax scrolling effect (using a almost fixed angle camera otherwise from the side they’d look like pieces of paper moving around lol) leading to some utterly awesome retro but not retro looking games. Let me know if you’ve found more games out there like these 3 using these retro/modern hybrid tricks!

One of the first to really catch people’s attention was the trailer for The Last Night, a cyberpunk Flashback like platformer game that looks truly amazing! Sadly it still hasn’t been released yet due to some controversies and finance issues but apparently it’s still alive in 2022 so fingers crossed it gets over the line one day!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/612400/The_Last_Night/

I’ve already posted about this one previously but I’m super excited about the new Heroes of Might & Magic style fantasy turn based strategy game called Songs of Conquest that looks utterly awesome too! They’ve gone into early access and all the feedback is sounding really good so far.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/867210/Songs_of_Conquest/

Songs of Conquest (Heroes of Might & Magic like game)

Sadly thanks to Ubisoft butchering the franchise, us Heroes of Might & Magic fans haven’t had much to celebrate over the last few years other than some cool fan projects. However some similar game series like Disciples and King’s Bounty have recently received new chapters and now there’s another new similar game that a lot of HoMM fans are excited about called Songs of Conquest!

It’s pixel art can make it’s screenshots seem simple but when watching a video of it you can really see the games’ beauty with lots of gorgeous animation and lighting effects. Tactical battles also look interesting with different height-maps. The game has finally gone into early access on steam resulting in lots of gameplay videos out there so here’s a good one from the eXplorminate guys that I enjoyed. I’ll also stick a quick trailer below too!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/867210/Songs_of_Conquest/

New King’s Bounty II Footage!

Well it’s been 2 years since I last posted about the up and coming King’s Bounty 2 game. This Heroes of Might & Magic like franchise (HoMM actually spun off from the original KB back in the day) has seen some great titles over the last decade or so thanks to being resurrected by 1C in Russia and offers a really fun and more RPG focused experience compared to HoMM. This new sequel has changed things quite a bit compared to their other KB games and is going in quite a realistic and darker Witcher themed direction.

It’s finally about to be released soon and the latest trailer footage is looking very nice. Unlike the earlier footage that had people worried it was just a human fest there’s still plenty of monsters and ‘other worldly’ terrains from the looks of things. Lots of tough choices to be made too. Am excited to try this one!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1135300/Kings_Bounty_II/