HeroQuest
|
This article is partially complete. This means that all known information is here, but there is still more information that needs to be discovered and/or reverse engineered. If you know some of the missing information, you can help the ModdingWiki by adding this info yourself. |
| Levels? |  Editable |
|---|---|
| Tiles? | Editable |
| Sprites? | Editable |
| Fullscreen? | Editable |
| Sound? |  Not editable |
| Music? | Not editable |
| Text? | Editable |
| Story/cutscenes? | Not editable |
| UI/menus? | Editable |
| Demos? | Unknown |
HeroQuest for DOS was developed by 221b Software Development and Published by Gremlin Graphics Software Limited in 1991.
Is the earliest computer implementation of the HeroQuest board game published by Milton Bradley Company in association with Games Workshop in 1989 (europe/Australia) and in 1990 (US/Canada) where you take the role of four heroes, a Barbarian, a Dwarf, an Elf and a Mage that must dive deep into the dungeon of the Witch Lord to defeat his army of monsters and finally confront his magic. It consists of 14 quests (the DOS game includes the first expansion with 10 additional quests) where you fight, search for traps or secret passages, and collect special items, and gold that you can spend between missions to buy more powerful equipment.
The base mechanics are mostly the same as the boardgame (moving, attacking, defending, searching, performing magic) with some changes to enhance the gameplay on the new media (see link section).
Tools
The following tools are able to work with this game.
| Name | Platform | Archives | Levels | Graphics | Music | Sounds | Text | Saves | .exe patch | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Codec by Shelwien from Encode.su | Windows | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Language and Sprite/Graphic files are LZ compressed |
| UNP by Ben Castricum | DOS | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Edit | EXE are compressed with EXEPACKER |
| Imagej | Multi | No | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | Java Image editor that can import and export RAW files |
| Westwood Font Editor | Windows | No | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | Font resides in intro.exe and quest.exe and they have to be manually exported/imported |
| Engie File Converter | Windows | No | Read | No | No | No | No | No | No | Quest map viewer |
File formats
The following file formats are used by this game.
| Filename | Format | Details |
|---|---|---|
| QUESTxx.BIN | HeroQuest Quest Format | Binary files that contains Map, Monster, Traps layouts and Quest mission text |
| *.BIN | HeroQuest Strings Format | Binary files with in-game text in five languages (ENGLISH, GERMAN, FRENCH, SPANISH, ITALIAN) and EQUEST.BIN with quest names. |
| *.EGA | Raw EGA data | Full-screen images (320×200) and sprites RAW 4bpp |
| *.VGA | Raw VGA Image | Full-screen images (320×200) and sprites RAW 8bpp |
| QUEST.SAV | HeroQuest Savegame Format | Savegame file created by QUEST.EXE |
| QUEST.CFG | HeroQuest Config Format | Configuration file created by HERO.EXE |
| *.EXE | HeroQuest EXE File | QUEST.EXE contains Program-related text and the EPILOGUE, INTRO.EXE contains the INTRO panels text. |
| GAME&FX.RLD | HeroQuest Music Format | Archive for Roland Sound effects and Music |
| GAME&FX.ALB | HeroQuest Music Format | Archive for Adlib Sound effects and Music |
Research credits
- The decompression program was done by Shelwien from encode.su forum
- TheRuler from the OldGamesItalia translation and modding project mapped the format of the BIN and the savegame files.
Links
- OldGamesItalia.net forum discussion about the game where everything started (in Italian), with research and development on the project by TheRuler.
- Comparison forum topic on Ye Olde Inn with all the gameplay differences between the computer game and the board game, by kurgan.