Hello,
we’re happy to announce release of VCMI 0.88. The main new feature of this build is a working adventure AI. It still plays very poor and can’t compete with human player but it’s pretty much complete and functional base for further development. For the first time we have a working AI and it wasn’t easy to achieve. Significant improvements to the AI (both adventure and battle ones) are to be expected in future releases. Another significant new feature is a window allowing selection of default resolution. It’s available through system settings window — to open it click the button “HIGH” under “Select resolution” label.

We have done a number of bugfixes - about 40 issues have been resolved. Please check the changelog below and bugtracker for the list of resolved bugreports.

Check items implementation status for the full information about which map objects, town structures, skills, spells, artifacts, creature abilities and victory conditions are supported.

[size=117]Download Link:[/size]

• Windows package (Win32, 5.1MB, ZIP Archive)

Packages for some Linux distros are available as well:

• Ubuntu 11.10 — 32 bit or 64 bit (Deb, 6.2MB)
• Debian Testing/Sid — 32 bit or 64 bit (Deb, 7 MB)
• Source (1.2MB, tar.gz)
  Please visit this wiki page for installation instructions for Linux.

Installation:
Extract the package into your main Heroes folder. If you have older version of VCMI, you have to overwrite it.
WoG 3.58f is required. We recommend using English version, though VCMI should also work with other language versions. If you want to make your H3 installation English, extract this package into Data/ subfolder.

Save format has been changed, savegames from previous versions won’t work with 0.88.

VCMI supports 800x600, 1024x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, 1280x1024, 1440x900, 1600x1200, 1366x768, 1680x1080 and 1920x1080 screen resolutions. To switch default resolution:

• in system settings window click “HIGH” button and select resolution (available only in game);
• or type “resolution” or “r” into the console and pick one (works in main menu).

As for now custom resolution is only applied when the map is started. Also, the main menu works only in 800x600 resolution.

Since VCMI 0.85 a new creature card is used. If you don’t like it, the old one is still here. The config/settings.txt file has been extended with a new option, for deciding whether to use the new window or the classical one (the “classicCreatureWindow” entry). This setting can also be switched during the game by typing into console “switchCreWin” (case matters!).

Acknowledgements:
Many thanks for all testers and developers who contributed to this build, especially new team members.

For the general information about our project look here. Our project isn’t really playable now, but it gives you an idea of progress we have made so far. We’re hoping that you’ll like it.

Since VCMI 0.74 we have deployed separate bugtracker. Please report bugs using this form. Check this page for list of known bugs and details.

We hope you’ll help us develop the project - details are available here. VCMI is an open source project licensed on GNU GPL 2.0 or higher. Our SVN repository with all the sources is available here.
You can look for help in building and developing VCMI sources in the development board.

CHANGELOG
0.87 -> 0.88

• added an initial version of new adventure AI: VCAI
• system settings window allows to change default resolution
• introduced unified JSON-based settings system
• fixed all known localization issues
• Creature Window can handle descriptions of spellcasting abilities
• Support for the clone spell

Full changelog is available here.

VCMI Team

It is nice to see a newest version ^.^

full changelog is up to 0.86
please update it with the two new version changelogs

Done. Thanks for the heads-up.

So for the record, and for people just now discovering this, this project is still up and running? Still working toward it’s goal?

a quick look at sourceforge.net/apps/trac/vcmi/timeline shows that the project is alive and kicking

That is the best news I have heard in a very long time. This is easily one of my favorite games of all time and I’m very glad to see other people still care about it too. Is it currently playable? or close to playable? Sorry if the answer to my question is obvious I’m having a little trouble navigating this place…

it has a few bugs and i think the devs are working mostly on AI now, but the game is quite playable, especially if you wanna do some bug hunting

Yes, it should be pretty playable indeed. And the 0.89 is going to have very long feature list!

The AI is not a main goal, the goal is to complete the original game. Just some issues annoyed me and first AI implementation was insufficient to make it play well.

Amazing. How long do you think it will take to finish the rest of the game?
And also are we currently able to use the script to add mods?
In particular I’m interested in creating custom towns and creatures.
I know how to make the artwork and images for them, but I’m real iffy on coding, so if anybody else is interested I could use some help.
And if there is a specific section on the forums for this let me know so I’m not cluttering this page up.

Making game 100% identical to H3 will take a while but I think that we’ll have all notable H3 features in a year or two.
We don’t have scripting or possibility to add new towns\creatures right now but these features are in our to-do list.

Check this subforum: forum.vcmi.eu/viewforum.php?f=15
In short - go on. Currently there is no way to add something in game but it is already possible to replace existing content.

Alright Awesome. Thanks for the help.

More precisely if you change config files of VCMI for towns and recompile with increased town limit (it is a number in the code currently not in the config) you would be able to get new towns you provide (including all graphics) as starting town or random town in already existing VCMI.
Most of adding more of the same is supported by engine itself but some important values aren’t exported to config files. Note that some features are really hardcoded so with only changing data files and a few numbers in code you would be able to provide only new town which have buildings common to all towns (mage guild upto 5, city hall up to capital, market, tavern, creature generators for 7 creatures and their upgrades, nothing more granted), because how town-specific buildings work is really hardcoded (you would need to modify more than a few numbers in code).
Adding creatures to VCMI is almost tivial as it seems only hardcoded thing is count of all creature types (all is accesible via vcmi config files, you only need change one number in code).
But adding more creature types with some limits is already possible in ERA (community driven succesor of WoG) if you use Amethyst plugin (plugin is program running on top of ERA adding a functionality for it) so you need mostly put Amethyst on top of ERA and provide data for it to add creatures to todays heroes.
If you want you may team with me so I would work on easier technicals (the harder ones are already accessible) and you would only work on graphics to provide some creatures to ERA (PM me about)

back to vcmi topic: I suggest at least exporting most constants from global.h GameConstants.h to new config file GameLimits.json if you don’t want sophisticated mod mechanism yet.

We have a number of topics for technical discussions, but you post in the others and create chaos.

Constants were moved to GameConstants.h quite a while ago.

I would be more optimistic, there are little significant features left. Pretty much everything related to original game is at least started. I hope that 0.9 will be poor, but more or less complete release.

Is there any extracted list of what’s missing?
vcmi-status document lists only:

Adventure Spells:
Visions 	0
View Earth 	0
Disguise 	0
View Air 	0

Combat Spells 	:
Quicksand 	0
Land Mine 	0
Force Field 	0
Fire Wall 	0
Earthquake 	0
Chain Lightning 	0

Campaign:
Saves between missions	0
Moving heroes between maps	0
Support for bonuses:	
Hero corssover	0
Starting hero	0

(and it takes a while to filter this from tons of done features:) )

Is it everything?

That list misses a few things like multiplayer support or moat/gate in sieges. There are many bugs too.

Have a look here: TODO list.

And of course a whole lot of minor features, like tooltip for heroes in combat.