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The year of peak might and magic

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113 points cybersoyuz | 2 comments | 18 Jul 25 17:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.006s | source
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ferguess_k ◴[18 Jul 25 21:06 UTC] No.44609830[source]▶
As a side (but arguably related) topic:

Is there any webpage or book or any media that analyzes the technical aspects of a game? Take HOMM3 as an example -- what are the most difficult technical problems and how did the developers solve them? What are the algorithms that run aspects of the game (e.g. how is path-finding implemented? How is AI implemented?)? What is the architecture of the engine? Does it have a scripting engine and if so how is it implemented?

I like post-mortems but mostly are given by designers, directors, not programmers -- and even by programmers they did not go very deep like "John Carmack" type deep. The "Black books" by Fabien came into mind but these are few and far between.

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1. nottorp ◴[18 Jul 25 21:48 UTC] No.44610184[source]▶
I don't think anything in the Might and Magic series was ever a serious technological advancement on par with id software's early work.

They're some of the greatest games ever made, but it's the design, not the code.

Come to think of it, same thing goes for most games that make the greatest game lists.

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2. pennomi ◴[19 Jul 25 14:23 UTC] No.44615699[source]▶
That being said there are a couple technological marvels out there (maybe just not on greatest game lists). Teardown, for instance, has an unfathomable number of voxels that make everything in the world simulated.