It’s been a while since The Engine of Chaos was released, but Chaoswizard98 has been hard at work on improving it in just about every conceivable way.
Here’s a few of the changes that will be in the next version:
Windows are drawn relative to screen position now to make changing internal resolution easier. tile_size is now a variable, so you’re not limited to 24×24. Setting a character to start at level 20 will automatically figure out their level 20 stats based off of level scheme.
Support for shaders, AI / Story flags, swapping control from Max to Bowie, having more than 1 party (SFCD party split), limited quantity shops, dynamic menus (once an event is made (such as ‘promote’) you can plug that option into whatever menu you want), More decisions other than Yes/No (Truth / Lie, ‘maybe’, ‘warrior / mage / healer’, whatever you want really).
Chaoswizard98 dropped by Ye Olde Blah with some pretty big news – he’s sharing the engine that powers The Legend of Syro!
I feel that the engine is finally complete and stable enough to share with everyone. Now before you go and download it, you should know that the engine itself is still a work in progress. There are a LOT of scripts and objects which is to be expected from a more complicated game such as SF, and as such it’s easy to get lost. Especially since I don’t have everything fully organized right now.
The other thing you should note is that I don’t have any sort of tutorial for the engine just yet. I’ll make a few tutorial videos down the line once I have everything organized, but for now, I’ve included the entirety of Chapter 1 of my game so that anyone who wanted to poke around and try to figure out how everything works can do so.
The project requires GameMaker Studio in order to load everything, but even if you don’t have it installed you can poke around the script files in the scripts directory. There’s a lot of things in there, such as:
All of the cutscenes from the most recent demo
AI scripts (including the different behaviours, such as moving to a location or following a target)
Interactive features like the church and shop
Battle status effects, item usage and more!
It’s well worth looking over, and if you have Game Maker Studio you’ll be able to make your own Shining style games!
If you have a copy of GameMaker 8.1 (or GameMaker Studio) and some spare time, The Legend of Syro could use your help!
I have a beta build available of the engine for anyone who has GameMaker 8.1 or GameMaker Studio. From what I hear, GameMaker Studio 2 comes with GameMaker Studio 1, so theoretically GMS2 users should be able to use it as well, but as I don’t have it myself, I can’t confirm that.
If you have access to GM 8.1 or GMS and want to take a look at the project file, shoot me a PM with your version of GameMaker and I’ll send you the link.
Be sure to let Chaoswizard98 know if you’re able to help out!
It’s always exciting to see new project updates from The Legend of Syro, and this one is a real treat! There’s a tonne of new features (see the changelog) and lots of polish.
From Chaoswizard98:
This was a huge quality of life update and much of the core code has been changed. If I could get a few people to test it out, that would be great! As always, let me know if you find any bugs.
This update contains all of Chapter 1, a ‘Control Enemies’ cheat, the 6vs66 challenge map (Good luck! you’re going to need it!), and my Debug Test room which contains some new spells for you to mess with (Quake and Summon). Chapter 1 aside, all other features are accessed via the ‘Options’ portion of the main menu.
If you haven’t tried the game before, I highly recommend giving the demo a thorough playthrough. It’s extremely polished and has a great Shining Force feel to it. As always, be sure to leave some feedback in the forum too.
