Heroes of Might and Magic in the Browser: Long, Difficult and Unbearably Interesting
summary
A browser-based playable recreation of Heroes of Might and Magic III is implemented by parsing original binary maps with a custom converter, rendering with three layered HTML canvases that draw cached tiles and y-sorted sprites while storing per-object draw functions, and running A* pathfinding on flattened grids optimized with bit shifts and power-of-two sizes. The project targets ~256×256 maps with up to 9,000 objects, includes AI and combat in a working demo, and describes concrete optimizations such as 50% faster tile access and Promise-based microtask sequencing for animations.
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chapters (35)
- 0:00Introduction
- 2:20Browser challenge
- 3:22Game architecture
- 6:10Parsing original maps
- 9:02Data tools
- 10:28Performance issues
- 11:52Texture caching
- 13:37Rendering theory
- 16:23Render tree optimization
- 17:24Animation in JS
- 19:51Animation systems
- 20:53Data storage
- 23:40Array data separation
- 26:30Optimizing shifts
- 28:57Grid map structure
- 30:03Interfaces
- 31:50Game logic
- 32:54A* pathfinding
- 34:02Event handling
- 35:50Static vs dynamic
- 37:14Mixins
- 38:40Debugging
- 39:44Skill development
- 41:52Resources
- 42:51Live demo
- 44:18Q&A: Legality
- 46:06Q&A: Community
- 47:12Q&A: Engines
- 48:38Future plans
- 49:31Challenge
- 50:16Q&A: Testing
- 51:50Q&A: Complex games
- 53:20Q&A: Workflow
- 54:23Q&A: WebAssembly
- 56:37Q&A: Porting games
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