Might and Magic III (DOS)

Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra
Developer: New World Computing Publisher: New World Computing Platform: DOS Released in US: 1991 Released in EU: 1991 Released in TW: 1992 This game has unused areas. This game has a hidden developer message. This game has hidden developer credits. This game has unused items.

This page is rather stubbly and could use some expansion. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue this article?

Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra is the third entry in the Might and Magic series.

Unused Maps

"It's a Secret"

Map 105 is not a map that most players would see during the course of their journey through Terra. This is because it seems to be a developer map, or possibly a "joke" map, full of strange and interesting things.

The map is arranged in a haphazard way, forming a maze ripe with guillotine blades, Bubble Men, Carnage Hands, and a few Phase Skulls. There are also two levers which don't seem to do anything, several doors and portcullises, breakable walls, and several endless piles of treasure which randomly give your party some of the best equipment in the game. The most interesting area, however, is the room to the north which houses several golden thrones… one for each member of the game's development team at New World Computing, who each have words of encouragement, interest, or something completely random to say. Also of note: You cannot use Lloyd's Beacon (a waypoint warp spell), Time Distortion (a warp-to-exit spell), or save the game, here.

To access the map, load a save file in a hex editor and change the following values:

$2B2E - 01 01 ; Player coordinates value
                Changes the player's X/Y coordinate to X01 Y01 (near the Mirror)
                SUGGESTED, but not always necessary
$2B30 - 69    ; Maze ID value
                Places the player on map 105 ($69)

To leave the map, either use the Magic Mirror to teleport to another location or open the menu and ask Mr. Wizard for help (at the cost of all of the party's gems).

• 

  Looks like someone forgot their warp codes.

• 

  Never-ending treasure! Most piles contain 1,000,000 Gold/0 Gems and a random usable item of high quality but four of the six in the throne room give 100,000 Gold/0 Gems and two items, each go.

• 

  One of the two levers. Looks legit.
  Causes energy damage when bumped into and physical damage when used.

• 

  The other lever. It's a bit snarky, when activated.

• 

  Jon Van Caneghem (Director and designer)

• 

  Allen Treschler (Playtesting)

• 

  Scott T. Smith (Playtesting)

• 

  Paul Rattner (Playtesting)

• 

  Eric Newhouse (Playtesting; Credited in the TurboGrafx-16 version, but not the DOS version)

• 

  Louis Johnson (Art Director, Artwork)

• 

  Eric Hyman (Game Design, Additional Programming)

• 

  Todd Hendrix (Sound)

• 

  Bonita Long-Hemsath (Artwork)

• 

  Dave Hathaway (Playtesting), This person hurts your party by causing 5 HP of damage each character.

• 

  Douglas Grounds (Additional Programming)

• 

  Richard Espy (Playtesting; Credited in the TurboGrafx-16 version, but not the DOS version)

• 

  Mike Clement (Programming; Uncredited)

• 

  Mark Caldwell (Programming)

• 

  Andy Caldwell (Additional Programming)

• 

  Ronald Bolinger (Game Design, Technical Writer, Clue Book Writer)

• 

  Benjamin Bent (Playtesting)

• 

  And finally, the completed map.

(Source: Dark Linkaël)

Unused Items

Z Item 23

The item 97 is called "Z Item 23" which is not used. Probably a test item.

(Source: Dark Linkaël)

Regional Differences

The Taiwanese release of the game had a lot of changes. The game is now fully translated to Traditional Chinese, a phonetic notation Chinese IME has been added, and some options were changed.

In the original release of the game, the SETUP program provides several graphics options, including VGA/MCGA, EGA(Low/High), Tandy and CGA. The Taiwan release "replaces" CGA with Hercules Graphic Card support, a high-res monochrome graphics standard common in Taiwan at the time for its usefulness in Chinese-language word processing.

"Replaces" was in quotation marks because it's actually implemented non-natively via MM3A.EXE - when it detects the game has been set to CGA, it will display the following text:

COLOR GRAPIC SIMULATOR FOR MM3
(C) 1992 SOFTWORLD
P.O.BOX 28-34,Kaohsiung,Taiwan, R.O.C.
BBS TEL:(07) 384-8901
    TEL:(02) 788-9184 

This program is designed to convert CGA graphics to Hercules on-the-fly! If you don't run it and boot MM3B.EXE directly, the game will boot in CGA mode normally.

Incidentally, SIMCGA is also compatible with this game and works perfectly with the English version, but readability of Chinese text will be compromised.