Despite it being nearly six years since the last release of Shining Online, work is still continuing.
Actually, I think I just frightened myself a little by working that out.
The current plan of action is to complete much smaller milestones at a faster pace. Instead of trying to finish the whole game in one go, little sections get worked on and (internally) released.
Today marked the completion one of these milestones, so it’s time for a little progress update.
So far things are coming along nicely. There’s been a few major “real life” things keeping me away from the keyboard, but the project still has momentum.
There’s nothing playable just yet, but I’ve got some of the basic game structure together. There’s been a few experiments with weather and time effects that turned out well.
The real challenge now is to get something playable up as soon as possible, so the gameplay can be tweaked and made fun. The first step is getting maps working, followed by having some animated sprites moving around on the screen.
Tiny Updates
Seeing as everyone else on the planet seems to be blathering about Twitter, I signed up for an account. Now you can get tiny progress updates without having to read too much.
Quick Stats
Seeing as the new mantra is “start small”, there’s not a lot to show right now.
-
- 23 source code commits
- 3,000 lines of code
- 3MB of raw image resources
- 92 pages on the project wiki
See you in another six years ;)
Aura4 dropped me an email a few days ago to let me know that his Shining Force remake project has been updated. This released contains some bug fixes, along with improved AI.
Take a look and see if you can beat the new improved enemies :)
Download it here.
It’s not a demo I’m afraid, but a tiny glimpse at what’s going on with Shining Online. Despite being pretty much silent for the past year or so, we’re still working on it. It’s very slow going, but if all goes to plan there’ll be a lot more action next year. I’m sure I’ve said that every year, so no promises ;)
Anyway, below is a little screenshot of the current Shining Online website. We’re using a wiki to keep our notes and ideas together, which also acts as a complete reference of the game world. The light version of the main site will go live in the second quarter of next year, and after that updates should be a little more frequent. Hope you like the design!
[Click for Bigger]
Forum member Aura4 has been hard at work creating a remake of Shining Force 2. All that effort has paid off, with the first demo being recently released on Ye Olde Blah.
To get things running, you’ll need the following bits and pieces:
Windows XP:
Windows Vista:
I’ve managed to get it working without having to install the LIVE redistributable, but your results may vary.
Anyway, download the demo here.
(Don’t forget to check out Elvenfyre’s updated Shiny Sword demo too!)
How can this be?
I’ll tell you how: Grimmm determination.
Devlyn gave me a heap of support 3 years ago to release this, but I didn’t step up and add the bits I wanted added when he became the busy man he is. Anyway I finally got the motivation together to do it, mainly thanks to the posts of the boys giving me a reason to smile.
Download under 2mb, unzip and play straight away! Discover the village of Lycadell and 3 battles with your team of 7 against 8 unique monsters. Listen to the groovy 16bit sounds we’ve developed over the years. Laugh at how when you heal yourself you appear twice on the screen. Laugh at lots of things, really… like how earning over 100 experience points at once doesn’t level you up. But nevermind about that, it does work to the necessary degree!
You’ll need Java 1.5 or later I believe, you can get it here:
http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp
Please leave me comments in this forum thread: BABS 2.5, Lycadell Campaign. Bugs, Comments, Updates : )
Any feedback is welcome.
Download it by clicking here!
