Ambermoon - Open Source Remake in Progress

Silver

Silver

Spaceman
Staff Member
Supporter
Joined
February 13, 2014
Messages
9,315
Location
New Zealand
Indie Retro News reports that an open source remake of Ambermoon is in progress.

Originally released in 1993 for the Amiga by Thalion Software, Ambermoon was the second part of an unfinished trilogy and sequel to Amberstar that was only released in Germany. In was an incredible RPG for its time, and featured 3D graphics that were considered revolutionary for the Amiga, but sadly for the company it couldn't save them from collapse.

Billboards1.png


[...]

How to run the game

I got some questions of how to run the game:

You need the original game data (either ADF files or extracted files like Party_char.amb etc).

Put these files next to the downloaded executable file called Ambermoon.net.exe.

If you have not yet, install the latest .NET framework for Windows.

The game only runs on Windows as of now.

Links :1) Source 2) Detailed Info
Click to expand...
More information.
 
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Messages
9,315
Location
New Zealand
Nice have always wanted to play that but am to stupid to get an amiga emulator to work
 
Joined
Oct 31, 2006
Messages
315
Location
Sweden
I always get excited about the potential to improve an old game with new graphics/music/bugfixes or whatever really. Thats why I dig emulators and projects like ScummVM. Things like Daggerfall Unity shows what can be possible.
 
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Messages
9,315
Location
New Zealand
Excellent news. Thanks!

Silver said:
I always get excited about the potential to improve an old game with new graphics/music/bugfixes or whatever really.
Click to expand...
Languages. The game is really easy to translate now, apparently. Reverse engineering has come a long way for the game.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
3,487
Just to play Ambermoon you dont need this, there are ready made packages with WinUA to play it without hassle.
But i guess when it finally works there is the possibility to actually start to improve things.. highres textures, bugfixes, new adventures / graphics and so on? Looking forward to that.
 
Joined
Nov 7, 2006
Messages
350
Very nice game! Contains cute animations on the world map and a deep RPG system. Checking out this gameplay, now I remember, why I got bored with the weird combat realization. :D
 
Joined
Mar 21, 2013
Messages
3,456
mercy said:
Very nice game! Contains cute animations on the world map and a deep RPG system. Checking out this gameplay, now I remember, why I got bored with the weird combat realization. :D
Click to expand...

That gameplay is from Amberstar, the predecessor. Ambermoon has very much improved graphics, but the type of combat is the same, and its perfect! ;)
 
Joined
Nov 7, 2006
Messages
350
They'd need to come to gog or steam for me to play them, but I loved Amberstar back in the decade.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
8,836
Imho its somewhat misleading, as "Open Source Remake" kinda implies that now it's something everyone can play for free.

From what I understand it's just a toolset to make the original game data run. But you would still need to own the game. So it's nothing like Daggerfall or whatnot where developers chose to make the game free for everyone.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Messages
4,699
Kordanor said:
Imho its somewhat misleading, as "Open Source Remake" kinda implies that now it's something everyone can play for free.

From what I understand it's just a toolset to make the original game data run. But you would still need to own the game. So it's nothing like Daggerfall or whatnot where developers chose to make the game free for everyone.
Click to expand...

The reason behind this is the fact, that NOONE in the world knows for sure who owns the rights to the Amber-series in 2020.

I actually was in contact with an old acquaintance of mine who is managing director / shareholder of the Schmidtgruppe which is the last known owner of the Thalion copyrights. They actually produce and distribute slot machines and manage casinos. They probably came into the posession because a former manager (Werner Vens) bought the rights in 1995 and was named CEO until 2005 when Thalion was abolished. My contact was Arne Schmidt who told me about some promising leads to the rights whereabouts but the communication went silent after a planned meeting had to be canceled.

I still feel sorry about that, but I am very positive about one thing: The rights still belong to the Schmitgruppe which won't do anything about it (eg. not releasing the rights or code of Ambermoon to the public) as long as noone offers them something to make it worthwhile. Sad but true.
 
Joined
Feb 20, 2009
Messages
635
Location
Germany
Ah, interesting. Would have guessed it's at UBI, which brought out the "inofficial" thid game: Albion.
But I guess the reason for being just "inofficial" is that they didnt actually have the license. ^^
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Messages
4,699
Sir_Brennus said:
The reason behind this is the fact, that NOONE in the world knows for sure who owns the rights to the Amber-series in 2020.

I actually was in contact with an old acquaintance of mine who is managing director / shareholder of the Schmidtgruppe which is the last known owner of the Thalion copyrights. They actually produce and distribute slot machines and manage casinos. They probably came into the posession because a former manager (Werner Vens) bought the rights in 1995 and was named CEO until 2005 when Thalion was abolished. My contact was Arne Schmidt who told me about some promising leads to the rights whereabouts but the communication went silent after a planned meeting had to be canceled.

I still feel sorry about that, but I am very positive about one thing: The rights still belong to the Schmitgruppe which won't do anything about it (eg. not releasing the rights or code of Ambermoon to the public) as long as noone offers them something to make it worthwhile. Sad but true.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the insights.. very interesting.
Meh, licenses / copyrights should fall back to the public, when they are not used for several years. Same with Ultima and others EA is sitting on.
 
Joined
Nov 7, 2006
Messages
350
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom