The Shining Source

This evening I uploaded the first in my series of articles designed to help you create beautiful music for your Shining fangame. This one focuses on direct recording, with future articles on tracking, MIDI recording and hopefully some compositional theory too!

You can find the article in Shining Aid > Articles, or simply by clicking this link.

I’ve fixed a few minor bugs with the site today, and broken a few old things in the process:

• Downloads — I’m working on setting up a proper download system, but until then all of the old downloads are defunct. The files are stored in “old-downloads” for the time being, but once the downloads section is working again I’ll be moving things around.
• Projects — Old project files are now stored in, surprisingly, “old-projects“. Now that we’re using WordPress, you’re able to add pages to your project via your control centre. I’ll be updating the site tutorial to show you how to do this.
• Offline Blogging Clients — I fixed a small bug in one of the plugins, so now you can use offline blogging clients to write news posts and worklog entries. (In case you’re wondering, I’m using “Windows Live Writer” to create this entry :P)

I’ll be making more changes over the next few days, so be prepared for a few minor hiccups. I’m also in the process of fixing up the old news articles, but it’s extremely boring and tedious so it will take a while.

Thanks for all the feedback so far, and here’s to an excellent 2007!

After a week (and a bit) of downtime, TSS is back and ready for business! It’s not just a new coat of paint either, as the whole site has been remade to be friendlier and easier to use. The old articles are back in Shining Aid, and we’re also accepting new content. If you’d like to submit an article, you can read our submission guidelines.

As a result of these changes, main site accounts now have new passwords. If you get an “already registered” error when registering, send me a PM and I’ll send over your password. If you have a project you’d like to share with us, either send me an email or private message with a few details and I’ll get right on it.

We’re also on the lookout for new projects to add, so if you have something you’d like to share please see the section entitled “Join Us“.

A more detailed list of changes follows.

Read more…

Ty and I have just posted joint blog articles about the tremendous Shining Force III, analysing it in some depth from two very different perspectives.

Ty’s “Game Design Lessons – Shining Force III” is a really interesting look at some of the important lessons we can learn from SFIII that apply to all games, not just Shining fangames. There are some really good points here that game developers would do well to heed.

My article “Player P.O.V. – Shining Force III” is more player-focused, and tries to deal with how SFIII engages and immerses its players in the world.

I think both articles have some interesting points to make, and I hope you agree!

After aaaaaaages of silence, we finally have an update again. Two new projects have been added and two new users as well.

Say hello to solmyr and Jibe! ;)