You can generate 5 random Advanced HeroQuest multi-level dungeons and save them to your phone in 10 minutes. This makes AHQ a super-viable 21st century boardgame.
You can exit the text files used to change the dungeon and its contents, you could even have a scifi dungeon.
There is an old Advanced Heroquest
Map Generator for Windows program on BGG which is good. It has low quality graphics, which is bad. The graphics actually work well if you save them to your phone, which is good. The graphic is small, but it prints to full page.
You can take a photo of where your heroes were on the real board, pack up and resume play next weekend. This fixes one complaint about AHQ, the fact that you have to do a lot of table lookup to generate a dungeon, and have to draw a map if you want to go back.
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This is a .jpeg, CTRL-S in the program, and copy to the phone. |
There are 2 kinds of door, the door with the dot is a Secret Door. Traps Look a bit like PacMan. A chest is a square with a black like across.
Stais out are outside rooms, Stairs down are inside rooms.
You can change the tiny images to something clearer but it is a lot of work.
With a program like
Resource Tuner, I have been able to save the images to monochrome bitmaps with
Gimp, (Image>Mode>Indexed and tick the "Use black and white 1-bit palette". Then export as BMP.) and replace them into a new copy of the program. I haven't been able to build the program from the source code, I tried Borland C++ 4.52.
Moths exist in the program and in dark.tab, I replaced "Mould" with "Moths" in hazard.tab and changed the moth graphics, see room#5:
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You can change the graphics |
There is a text file for the monsters and treasure, with numbers that refer to the map.
The Quest for the Shattered Amulett
-----------------------------------
#1
4 Skaven Warriors (40 Gold Crowns)
#2
Fireplace
1 Skaven Sentry (20 Gold Crowns)
#3
Stairs Down
8 Skaven Warriors, 2 Skaven Champions (120 Gold Crowns)
Treasure Chest:
Screech Bug and 50 Gold Crowns
#4
Cupboard: Haeling Potion
If you have graphics software that does "layers" you can add an opaque top layer, and erase as you go for solo play. Probably desktop software.
You can edit the .tab files, "amulett\skaven.tab" has the Monster Matrices from p61 of the manual for example.
Wandering-Monsters
( 1D12
1-2 "2 Skaven Warriors (20 Gold Crowns)"
3-4 "1 Skaven Sentry (20 Gold Crowns)"
5-6 "3 Skaven Warriors (30 Gold Crowns)"
7-8 "1 Skaven Warrior, 1 Skaven Champion (30 Gold Crowns)"
9-9 "4 Skaven Warriors (40 Gold Crowns)"
10-10 "2 Skaven Warriors, 1 Skaven Champion (40 Gold Crowns)"
11-11 "3 Skaven Warriors, 1 Skaven Sentry (50 Gold Crowns)"
12-12 "4 Skaven Warriors, 1 Skaven Champion (60 Gold Crowns)"
)
"amulett\room.tab" has the Passage features Matrix from p13:
Passage-Feature
( 2D12
2-4 Wandering-Monsters
5-15 Nothing
16-19 Door1
20-21 Door2
22-24 Wandering-Monsters
)
There are many .tab files, including Terror in the Dark (with a "Stop the Ritual" variant), White Dwarf Quests such The Changing Faces of Tzeentch, The Dungeon of the Priests of Pleasure, The Quest for Sonneklinge, The Eyes of Chaos and The Trollsayer's Oath. So you have Chaos, Greenskins, Undead, Beastmen, and whatever extra races, room types, traps, furniture, magic and items you add yourself.
For example, you coulkd make a copy of amulett.tab and the amulett folder, then put in deadlier monster matrices. This give you a "Hurt me plenty" Shattered Amulet dungeon for heavily upgraded Heroes. You can edit the "Passage-Feature"matrix in room.tab to have more rooms per corridor, for a busier dungeon.
Gott im Himmel!!! Das Programm ist nicht in Englisch!
To use the program Ctrl-T, and load a .tab file from the tables directory. Different .tab files load different dungeon styles. Alt-E sets the path to Notepad (%windir%\system32\notepad.exe). Ctrl-K draws the map. Ctrl-N draws the next level or says "No stairs upwards!" in German.
"Immer eine treppe abwarts erzeugen" - Always produce an upwards stair.
"Nur eine treppe erzeugen" - Produce only one staircase on the map if checked (This only affects the map, the Monster Liste may have more than one.).
"Nur karten treppe abwärts anzeigen" - Show only staircase down maps.
Ctrl-K "Startwert für Zufallsgenerator" means seed value for the random numbers, so you get a different dungeon for a different number. The number must be 0-32767 or you will get an error (MSc Computer Science, I know a 16-bit maxint when I see it).
The default dungeon is (Ctrl-K) 50x50. 30x30 will obviously give you a quicker game.
If it is too small you may get an error.
Dark Beneath The World (White Dwarf 125) has a Square of Mersha, a 15x15 room, which is supported by the program, as well as Giant Moths. If you fight the moths without fire, you suffer 1-6 wounds, the program rolls the dice for you.