HeroQuest
v2.08i, by Gerwin Broers 1-2007
Notice: This game is always under construction and with this release still lacks certain desired features, such as spells, detailed character inventories and certain trap related actions. Read version.txt about what is done and what is 'planned'... If you find anything obviously wrong in the program and you are able to describe in which situation it occurs, on what system, you may e-mail me about it.
Images and hyperlinks will only be available when viewing this document (hquest.htm) with your internet browser.
1. Information
1.1 General info
HeroQuest is a turn based computer game in a fantasy setting, Inspired by Milton Bradley and Games Workshop's board game 'HeroQuest'. You can play it with 1 to 4 players on 1 computer; furthermore you can create your own quests in the editor, without ever running out of miniatures. This program was written in the c++ language and relies on the solid and free Allegro game programming library. Credit goes to Bob for the FBlend fading routine and Jamis Buck for his dungeon generating methods. Share and enjoy this game, do not modify it except for the quest-files and datafiles. Use this program at your own risk.
1.2 HeroQuest on the Internet
You can find the latest version of this game on Gerwin's Homepage under downloads. This website also offers many additional quests, submitted by several Heroquest fans. This game also has a project page at allegro.cc. For all other things about the HeroQuest boardgame it would be best to go to Dewayne's HeroQuest site. There currently is no internet-multiplayer option in the game.
1.3 Technical issues
This game should run fine on any Pentium PC using Windows 95/98/ME/XP/NT/2000... It requires Direct-X 7 or later and a hi-color graphics card. A soundcard and a true-color graphics card are recommended. Some advanced options can be set by modifying hquest.cfg, you can also safely choose to delete this file in order to reset the highscores. hquest.qpf contains all prefab object properties, used for the editor and the magic dungeon. This program was verified clean of any viruses. If for some reason the game complains about missing data files please check if the folder structure of the game is intact. FBlend fading routines are suspected to malfunction on the latest 64-bit systems, in that case set "fblendfading = 0" in hquest.cfg.
1.4 Controls Reference
In the dialogs:
-select/toggle [leftclick, enter, space, underlined character]
-back/cancel [esc]
-cut,copy,paste [ctrl+x,c,v]
In the game:
-move [arrows,leftclick]
-target [enter,leftclick]
-select target [arrows,leftclick]
-cancel targetting [backspace,leftclick]
-end turn/skip [backspace,rightclick outside map]
-show object info [rightclick]
-zoom on map [+,-]
-open door [o]
-exit to mainmenu [esc]
-exit to windows [alt-F4]
-menu controls [arrows,enter,tab,hotkeys,mouse]
-move console and statistics window [drag with leftclick]
-scroll console text [pgup,pgdn,mouse]
-jump to manual (this text) [F1]
-jump to briefing dialog [F2]
In the editor:
-select tool [1,2,3,4,tab]
-draw with current tool [leftclick]
-properties, cut, copy, delete [rightclick]
-browse selection [pgup,pgdn,home,end,mousewheel]
-set content generator level [insert,delete]
-jump to manual (this text) [F1]
-jump to filters dialog [F2]
-jump to quest properties dialog [F3]
-swap usual enemy locations [F11]
-save a screenshot [F12]
2. Gameplay
2.1 Quests
You start a game by choosing a quest from the list or by starting a Magic Dungeon game. A quest contains one or more chapters with maps and other game information. When a quest is loaded you can choose the heroes that will be assigned to this quest. The maker of the quest has switched on the default players for this level. If all players are switched on by default it will probably be very hard to complete the quest with only one hero. After choosing the heroes for the quest, a mission briefing is displayed. The objective can vary from killing a monster leader to finding an exit etc.
2.2 Original Gameplay Basics
HeroQuest is turn-based, every successive hero and every visible monster gets their turn. A turn consists of 1 series of movement and 1 action, both need to be utilized wisely. You move around by [leftclicking] on the desired destination with your mouse or by using the [arrow keys]. An action can be triggered with [enter] or [leftclick] at any time during the turn.
The number of moves available is originally determined randomly by 2 six sided dice. Alternatively the computer game defaults to using a specific number of moves for each hero. Next to that you can allow your hero to walk his remaining moves after using his action. You will notice that by these rules the game plays somewhat faster. These and other interesting settings can all be accessed through the options panel (2.12).
Example:
A player controlled barbarian walks four tiles, he is now close to an orc and a chest. The barbarian can either choose to move adjacent to the orc or next to the chest. The barbarian can then use his action to attack the orc or open the chest and collect the contents. He wisely chooses to attack the orc first: He moves close to the orc and targets him by hitting [enter] or [leftclicking]. The orc turns red and information about the orc is displayed. Hitting [enter] or [leftclicking] again will confirm the attack using combat dice. After this action, succesfull or not, the barbarians turn ends. The next turn will focus on another hero, until each has gone in their sequence and then any visible monsters.
2.4 Combat
HeroQuest attacks are decided using six sided dice called "combat dice". During an attack you need the dice to produce skulls; during a defend you hope for the right shields. A dice has 3 skull faces, 2 "white" hero triangular shields and 1 enemy circular shield. When a hero defends, every white shield blocks a single enemy skull, leaving EACH skull that has no shield to counter it to inflict damage and remove a point of life (body). Monsters normally have a harder time defending since they have a smaller chance to throw the proper shield; however, an option is available to allow the monsters to use "white shields" to defend instead. Skulls are the same to heroes as they are to enemies. As could be expected: every hero or monster reduced to zero body or mind will die and is removed from the game. When a character dies his keys and gold will be added to the killers inventory. By these rules monsters can also gain gold and keys. The wizard, however attacks with magical combat dice, which can not be defended against - they either succeed or fail. Magical attacks reduce the targets mind not their body.
2.5 Furniture etc.
Besides heroes and monsters the maps contain furniture and passive characters. Often these objects just block your movement, though some are useable. You have to move your hero adjacent to an object to find out: if you can target the object you can use it. The result of using such objects varies, yet in many cases you can guess the supposed purpose: Crates and Barrels usually contain random treasure cards, treasure chests often contain gold, hatches will give access to an underground passage, the stairway will allow you to retreat a hero, etc.
Using any such objects will count as your 1 action per turn (the only exception is the hatch/teleport).
2.6 Walls and doors
About walls, one can be brief: they block your movement and line of sight. Doors usually don't block your movement, unless they are locked. You can recognize locked doors by their color: Red or Blue. Keys can be found in corresponding colors. If you posses the right key you can open the locked door, after which they are open to everyone. Another type of special door are the secret doors, they work like normal doors but can hardly be distinguished from a normal wall.
2.7 Character Attributes
Character attributes are displayed on the right of the screen. The fields are walk, offence, defence, mind, body, experience, gold and keys. Walk stands for the amount of adjacent cells that a character can move into during a turn. The walk value turns red if the character has already used his action during the turn. Offence and Defence relate to the amount of dice used when fighting an enemy. Offence can either be physical (red) or magical (blue) dice. A physical attack will damage a characters body, reducing their life. It can be blocked by using defensive power. A magical attack will damage a characters mind. It can not be blocked! Experience has no 'real' purpose other than to rate the performance of this hero so far. It is also illustrated by a small medal on the characters portrait. A bronze medal for 50 exp, Silver for 100 and Gold for 200. After finishing a quest every hero's experience is evaluated and he might get a place in the Hall of Fame.
2.8 Upgrading Attributes
A hero can use gold to purchase items in the shop. There are two shops in the game: the armory to improve a hero's physical attacks and the alchemist's shop to improve a hero's magical attacks. Both can by reached by clicking the gold value in the briefing screen before starting a quest, provided of course, that you have gold to spend. Next you might encounter a merchant somewhere along your quests. After upgrading the character's attack or defence, the new additions can be distinguished from the old values by the size in the indicator bars.
2.9 The Default Heroes
Although the heroes can differ in each quest, you will often be playing with one of the original HeroQuest heroes. These are the Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf and Wizard. The Barbarian excels at close combat. His striking power is feared by all his enemies, and his durability also enables him to sustain more blows than any other hero. The drawback to the Barbarian is his lack of intellectual development, making him extremely vulnerable to magical attacks. The Dwarf is a more balanced warrior, his primary advantage is a good defence against physical attacks. A drawback of his small and sturdy appearance is his slower movement. The third hero is the Elf scout. He is more swift than any other hero and only a few monsters can outrun him. This mobility enables him to skirmish-attack his enemies. In combat the Elf is a decent opponent against every enemy, even his endurance concerning magical attacks is quite good. The Wizard does not fight his enemies with earthly weapons like the others, he uses magical attacks instead (blue values instead of red). These attacks can be extremely effective against opponents with poorly developed minds like zombies and mummies. The Wizard's physical strength is limited so he must try to avoid counter-attacks.
2.10 Multi-Chaptered Quests
Quests can consist of several chapters, each with a different map. When finishing the first chapter one is debriefed, and then briefed for the next chapter. This transistion has the following effects on your heroes: Body and mind are restored to full, whilst body and mind powerups are kept. Powerups for walk, offense and defence are kept. Each quest chapter the heroes start without any keys by default. Any hero that has died in a previous part of the quest will be replaced by a fresh recruit in the next chapter.
2.11 Playing the Magic Dungeon
The Magic Dungeon gives you full freedom to wander through 20 dungeon like levels. Contrary to normal quests you can move both up and down between its levels by finding and using the stairways. Another difference is that only one hero can be chosen to descend into the dungeon. The Levels are randomly generated each time you start a new adventure, after that they remain structurally the same. Yet, when returning to a previously explored level fresh new enemies will have arrived there. Make sure your hero is upgraded sufficiently before descending deeper into the dungeon, the deeper levels are told to be inhabited by ever stronger foes.
2.12 Options Panel
Accessable by the menu screens is the options panel. Note that enemies with individual names or at least 50 experience are not considered usual, they are determined as special characters instead.
Enemy Range:
When an enemy gets to distant from a target he will stop pursuiting it.
Sound Volume:
Affects all sounds in the game, set to zero for no sound.
Multiple enemy turns:
In the boardgame only one chosen enemy gets his turn.
Swap usual enemy locations:
Swaps locations of usual greenskins and usual undead, makes less predictable quests.
Enemy white shield defence:
Gives all enemies better chances for defence, making them tougher to defeat.
Usual enemies have 1 life:
Like the European boardgame (changes usual Fimirs, Mummies and Chaos Warriors).
Pass other heroes:
The boardgame lets every hero decide who may pass him at any moment.
Target other heroes:
When playing with other people one can choose to attack competitive heroes.
Predefined hero walk value:
Walk a preset amount of tiles instead of throwing two dice before each turn.
Move before and after action:
The boardgame states one should either move before or after an action, not both.
Strip keys after each chapter:
Any keys found in a quest chapter can be either kept or removed in the next chapter.
3. The Editor
3.1 General
The in-game quest editor is fully functional, all possible objects and their properties and scripts can be modified. It works in 4 tool-modes, click [tool] or hit [tab] to switch these modes. After that just paint with that tool as you desire. The editor leaves little room for error, just make sure: 1. All four heroes must be placed somewhere 2. It is ugly to leave furniture over a wall (obviously) 3. The default Quest objective is kill all monsters, in this case monsters should be placed somewhere. After trying some simple stuff you might want to change the properties of (1)objects and (2)the quest. Object properties can be modified by right clicking the object. Door and wall properties are changed simply by clicking on them. Quest properties are found by accessing the menu and selecting 'map filters' and then 'quest properties'.
3.2 Filters
A short summary of all filters available in the edit-menu:
Quest Properties - Change general properties of the quest you are editing.
Classic Dungeon - Sets the map to the original boardgame layout.
Generate Dungeon - Randomly generates a dungeon map with passages, rooms and doors.
Outdoors Dungeon - An outside variant on the dungeon generator.
Generate Content - Randomly populates a map with heroes, enemies and furniture.
Greyscale Export - Exports a grayscale gif-image of the map, useable for a nice printout.
Show Coordinates - Some scripts require coordinates, this filter shows them.
Remove All Doors - Removing many doors can be annoying, this makes it easier.
3.3 Making Special Characters
When you choose to modify the skills of an enemy it would be fair to inform the player on this by making it a special characer. Do this by giving that enemy an experience level of 50, 100 or 200 so a bronze, silver or gold medal will appear on its portrait. You can also rename the enemy. Renamed or experienced (at least 50exp) enemies are never swapped locations like regular enemies. Heroes can also be customized, You can make an orc act as a hero if desired by just changing his side to hero etc.
3.4 Object Scripting
A little more complicated is the use of scripting, though these will enable you to give the quest some nice suprises. Select the desired script in the properties dialog (after which you might need to update the dialog by clicking prev+next) and set the parameters and the text. Some script-types are yet under construction: scripts with a '#' prefix won't work.
The parameters are:
repeatable - set to allow the script to be used several times.
pic 2 - set to make objects look different after the script.
sound - set a sound to play.
map x/y - often defines what tile is targetted by the script.**
text line 1 and 2 - text to display: Adding a '!' mark before the text will force it to appear in a private message box instead of the console.
** 'give x, amount y' scripting: the meanings for x are:
0 walk tiles
1 offence dice
2 defence dice
3 life points
4 mind points
5 experience value
6 physical offence dice only
7 magical offence dice only
8 restore lost life points
9 restore lost mind points
** 'end game type x' scripting: the meanings for x are:
0 victory
1 defeat
** all trap scripts x/y key:
x=0 physical attack throwing y dice, defender throws defence dice
x=1 physical attack throwing y dice, no defence
x=2 physical attack does y damage, defender throws defence dice
x=3 physical attack does y damage, no defence
x=4 magical attack throwing y dice, no defence
x=5 magical attack does y damage, no defence
3.5 Multi-Chaptered Quests
As written in paragraph 2.10, Quests can be made up of several chapters. In the game these chapters have to be played in the right order from the first to the last. The Original Questbook, as included with the game, is an example of a multiple chaptered campaign: Each quest has the total amount of chapters set to 14, while they have their own chapter number set to 1 up to 14. Their file extension is also adjusted to this chapter number, chapter 1 needs '*.qst', chapter 2 needs '*.q02' etc. The last demand for all chapters to work properly is the place where the quest files are stored: they need to be placed in the root of the 'quests' folder or, even better, placed there inside a folder with the exact same name as the quest files (example: 'quests\original\original.qst').
3.6 Notice
Many things are possible... and many things are not. Re-making the official quest-book quests with all features remains a primary goal. still, reading the quest book many quests introduce their own individual events and objectives. Like rescuing Sir Ragnar after which he should act as an allied character, or gargoyles that sleep until triggered in some way. The game needs special support for all of these events, and currently it lacks support for a lot of them. Just be patient and watch for future releases.
3.7 Tips
- In the game and in the editor you can use shift and the number keys [1,2,3...] to access some debug functions and cheats.
- Right click on any text-edit-box to access the windows clipboard, or use [ctrl+c] copy, [ctrl+v] paste, [ctrl+x] cut.