It’s been a while, but Ken Hilf recently updated Shining Force PC, a promising looking Shining style PC game. Although there are no new maps to play with, there are some big changes behind the scenes. The map editor is much improved and now supports maps up to 255×255 tiles, as well as brush sizes and other tweaks. It also sports a new Quake style console that makes it easier to perform some common tasks. such as filling an area with tiles or creating a new map.
From the site:
So, it’s been a while since I’ve done any updates on SFPC. I’ll admit, things definitely slowed down for a while, what can I say, I needed a break (or two)! Despite the lack of posts, I have gotten a lot of work done over the past few months, though the bulk of it was not really video or blog post worthy. This release represents the sum of the year’s changes so far, which includes lots of bug fixes, a major revamp of the movement code for performance reasons, and some new editor features and engine enhancements.
There’s no new gameplay map to try, hence the lack of a video. The main draw of this release is the enhanced editor, which includes several features which should be a big deal to anyone interested in making maps. Press the Home key to toggle between Play and Edit modes.
It’s great to see updates from a really promising project, and it’s well worth downloading the updated demo and trying things out.
Read More: SFPC – August 2011 Update
You may have heard of a little game called Minecraft which is apparently quite popular these days. It may be a all the rage, but how could it be made better? With Shining Force textures, of course!
Mythra13 has released a texture pack for Minecraft that makes everything more Shining style, so now you have no excuse for not recreating the entirety of Granseal in block form.
This texture pack includes plenty of changes, including dirt and grass textures, as well as a rather cool Max skin for the main player. Check out the forum topic for more screenshots and videos of it in action.
Source: [16X] [1.7] SHINING FORCE V1.3
Note: We originally attributed this texture pack to another Minecraft user who was taking credit for the work of Mythral13. Our sincere apologies to Mythral13 for this error.
Shining Force Centra’s Mandrew posted some information about his new Shining-Style MMO project:
The goal is to create a browser based tactical RPG in the style of the shining force games for the Sega Genesis. As the leader of a powerful army, called a force, you’ll travel the world fighting enemy hoards, discovering lost treasures, and fighting epic boss battles. You’ll be able play the game with your friends by chatting, trading in the auction house, and fighting both with or against their forces.
You can read more about the project at the SF MMO homepage. There’s information about the game world, as well as how the class Shining Force mechanics (such as gold and resurrection) will work in an MMO setting. There are also some shots of the WIP map editor. Definitely worth a look!
Source: Shining Force Central – SF MMO site/blog launched
Shuni from the Shining Force Central Forums has posted some exciting news:
Anyway, i’m currently working on something I would call a toolkit to creating shining force game using actionscript (Flash). I’ve offered my help for the community project but a lot of things are going on regarding the Game Engine there so I’m not sure I’ll be useful, and even so maybe some other people might like this.
I’ve got a solid tile engine running and i’m working on the things that matters most, the tools that goes with it, namely a map editor / animation editor / item database etc …
The project can be found at Google Code (shining-fluff-devkit), and contains some important bits and pieces for Shining developers including:
- System and text fonts
- Game state management
- Tile maps and sprites
- Menus
- …and much more!
An example project is also available so you can see what the engine is capable of, and even at this early stage it is looking impressive! It’s well worth checking out if you want to make your own Shining game.
Source: Shining Force game development toolkit
Yesterday saw Shining Force Central updated with a brand new redesign. Not only does it look fantastic, but there’s a lot of updated content to be found too.
It’s great to see that Shining fans still have reasons to be cheerful, and it really shows how strong the fanbase is. Now stop reading this and check out the new design!
Shining Force Central
