Damn you HOMM!

Work continues on some of the basic RPG engine infrastructure. Still nothing to see at this point.

So, recently I was doing some research on strategy games. I try to improve my knowledge of some of the more "classic" games as I find they often contain deeper and more impressive gameplay elements than their more recent colleagues. In the process I stumbled across Heroes of Might and Magic. Its kinda embarrassing that I've never played any of the series in my 20+ year gaming history. In fact, teh interwebs are only now illuminating to me the fact that I pretty much managed to avoid the vast majority of good titles throughout my youth! Ahh, if only there had been forums when I was a teenager (well, something more advanced than BBS forums anyway).

Anyway, after reading up on the HOMM series it would appear that several of what I considered to be "innovations" in my project have actually already been done in those games! My initial reaction was to be pretty annoyed with this discovery, but that subsided pretty quickly for a few reasons. For starters, at least it shows that these mechanics do work and can result in a fun game experience. Secondly, while several mechanics from my game have already been used in that series, what I have planned should still be considerably different and stand in its own light (or at least I hope it will). Thirdly, seeing how they did things and the responses from reviewers and gamers will be a great resource for refining my own vision on the basis of solid usability results.

So yeah, a bit annoying, but not that bad after all. Certainly, one of my goals will be to have my title stand out on its own and not be something that people would call "that HOMM clone". If I get some time over the coming months, I may even purchase the latest instalment and have a go to see how it plays.