Anyone who's followed my work in the Civ2 forums on the Heroes of Might & Magic 2 mod knows I'm a big HoMM fan and am always on the look out for similar games (eg Songs of Conquest, Silence of the Siren and Songs of Silence ).. Ubisoft has pretty much ruined the HoMM franchise with the disastrous unfinished releases of HoMM6&7 however thankfully the franchise lives on through awesome fan mods & maps, along with new spiritual sequel games made by other companies (eg the rather excellent looking Song's of Conquest game coming soon). One of these HoMM like indie games I've been following the development of is the rather terribly named 'Fanstratics' which is making made by HoMM3's (many peoples fav in the series) lead designer Gregory Fulton. He plans for his game is be very similar to HoMM3 but naturally be set in a different original universe with new faction lineups. Over the last couple of years he's been emailing out newsletters where he answers fan community questions about HoMM3 & Fanstratics and tells stories. Some of the stories he tells about the New World Computing days in the 90s while they made the HoMM and Might & Magic RPG games are a joy to read (although they can go on for a bit lol). If there's any fellow HoMM fans here maybe you'll enjoy them too...
Here's links to all the newsletters he's sent so far with some pics and some sporadic comments (taken from my posts on other forums)...
Newsletter 1...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter01
Newsletter 2...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter02
Newsletter 3...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter03
Newsletter 4...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter04
Newsletter 5...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter05
Newsletter 6...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter06
Newsletter 7...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter07
Newsletter 8...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter08
Newsletter 9...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter09
Newsletter 10, 11 & 12...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter10
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter11
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter12
Newsletter 13...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter13
Newsletter 14... There's a rather amusing piracy story.
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter14
Newsletter 15... Gotta love the story about "Phil" lol.
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter15
Newsletter 16... Sounds like there's been some setbacks...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter16
Newsletter 17... interesting story about Greg's take on the death of 3DO
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter17
Newsletter 18...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter18
Newsletter 19. Greg reckons Early Access in 2023... hmmmm... righteo.. anyway... there's another 3DO story here where Greg buries Trip and a few other people he clearly didn't think much of lol!
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter19
Newsletter 22...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter20
Newsletter 21...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter21
Newsletter 22... Looks like old man Greg (Mighty Boosh FTW) has got another long story for us about that time he got pizza in 1979... so long in fact this is just part 1 of the story lol.
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter22
Newsletter 23... The 'big' finale to the pizza hut story arrived lol... Man his stories really keep going and going don't they haha.. although he did successfully trigger a lot of nostalgia for me as much like him I remember getting my first 286 computer with no VGA card lol, all the hours I spent tinkering with stuff learning how to edit config sys and autoexec bat to eek out those extra bits of conventional memory some memory hog games like Master of Magic needed lol. Also reminded me of the first time I discovered Might & Magic 3 and then MM4&5 World of Xeen, however by then it was late 90s, so they were less technically amazing but I loved playing them nonetheless.
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter23
Newsletter 24...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter24
Newsletter 25... no stories this time but apparently the next one is gonna be a 2 parter again lol
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter25
Newsletter 26 27. Sounds like Greg is still pretty unwell and not making much progress due to long covid messing with his heart. Got a new story though about his first day at NWC and dealing with "Wario" lol!
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter26
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter27
Here's links to all the newsletters he's sent so far with some pics and some sporadic comments (taken from my posts on other forums)...
Newsletter 1...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter01

Newsletter 2...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter02

Newsletter 3...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter03

Newsletter 4...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter04

Newsletter 5...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter05

Newsletter 6...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter06
Newsletter 7...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter07
Newsletter 8...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter08

Newsletter 9...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter09

Newsletter 10, 11 & 12...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter10
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter11
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter12
Newsletter 13...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter13
Newsletter 14... There's a rather amusing piracy story.
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter14
Newsletter 15... Gotta love the story about "Phil" lol.
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter15
Newsletter 16... Sounds like there's been some setbacks...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter16
Newsletter 17... interesting story about Greg's take on the death of 3DO
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter17
Newsletter 18...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter18
Newsletter 19. Greg reckons Early Access in 2023... hmmmm... righteo.. anyway... there's another 3DO story here where Greg buries Trip and a few other people he clearly didn't think much of lol!
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter19

Newsletter 22...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter20

Newsletter 21...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter21

Newsletter 22... Looks like old man Greg (Mighty Boosh FTW) has got another long story for us about that time he got pizza in 1979... so long in fact this is just part 1 of the story lol.
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter22

Newsletter 23... The 'big' finale to the pizza hut story arrived lol... Man his stories really keep going and going don't they haha.. although he did successfully trigger a lot of nostalgia for me as much like him I remember getting my first 286 computer with no VGA card lol, all the hours I spent tinkering with stuff learning how to edit config sys and autoexec bat to eek out those extra bits of conventional memory some memory hog games like Master of Magic needed lol. Also reminded me of the first time I discovered Might & Magic 3 and then MM4&5 World of Xeen, however by then it was late 90s, so they were less technically amazing but I loved playing them nonetheless.
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter23
Newsletter 24...
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter24

Newsletter 25... no stories this time but apparently the next one is gonna be a 2 parter again lol
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter25

Newsletter 26 27. Sounds like Greg is still pretty unwell and not making much progress due to long covid messing with his heart. Got a new story though about his first day at NWC and dealing with "Wario" lol!
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter26
https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter27

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