Moogie posted some new videos of Tatakai over at Shining Force Central. They show a good range of gameplay, as well as various features that were implemented. Definitely worth checking out!

You can watch the videos on the Shining Force Central YouTube channel, and drop some feedback in the topic at the SFC forums.

Source: Tatakai – Mascot Force video topic

Since many testers are eager to get developing their own MODs, development has begun on the Tatakai editor, called Tateru.

View updates at the Tateru homepage at http://kyonshi.co.uk/ikitclaw.

Updates soon with screenshots. I plan to make Tateru a free release instead of monitoring and testing it, since it relies mainly on pre-existing Windows components.

Here are the accompanying notes directly from IkitClaw:

Tatakai v1.4 has now been released. See the site for more info at http://kyonshi.co.uk/ikitclaw

Includes:

• More from Moogie’s MOD
• Flying heroes & monsters
• Better town menu system, incorporating the item chest for item storage.

Work on Tateru should commence soon, maybe to get the application core together. This should make it easier to build Tatakai MODs without headscratching and fixed-length string editing !

Huzzah !

PS: For users with WinXP SP2 and the evil Windows Security Centre, the blocked content on my page is in fact just a mouseOver TABLE background colour change – I left it in to show how silly the WSC is.

Tatakai test release v1.3 has just been uploaded and testers have been notified.

Amongst other things, the new Tatakai has :

• experience for friendly magic – an overlooked feature has been added
• attack action always default selection – avoids accidental stay orders
• individual hero, monster and item SFX
• more flexible image definitions
• introduced town files making each town specific
• variable levels of monster AI

The structure of the resource files has been reworked, and individual town files have been added. I’m currently working on a richer town customisation, allowing shop stock to be set, and eventually have town walkabouts too !

Issues concerning display settings and changes still persist – I need to learn more about the variations behind DirectDraw…

If you want access to the beta as well, feel free to check out the Project page for more info :).

Edit: The Tatakai site has had an update as well. Feel free to check it out at http://kyonshi.co.uk/tatakai/

Tatakai website

Development team: ikitClaw – developer (see site for tester list)

Development language: VB6 + DX7

URL of most recent release: Download on request – see site

Most recent update/newsworthy happening: Main game engine finished – AI, EXP & Combat open to discussion – adding graphical & sound extras. Tatakai now distributed with Moogie‘s MOD.

Other comments: Tatakai is really just waiting for some of the testers to get back with suggestions or comments. The site’s ‘Design’ section contains specifications of AI, EXP & combat functions. Also awaiting some decent MODs by other authors.

Newts says: It seems this project has come on leaps and bounds in the past few months. The prospect of a customizable Shining battle engine sounds very promising, and obviously with Moogie on board it should all be as accurate as possible. With the game engine now fully complete, it sounds like we could finally have a fully finished, fully playable SF fangame on our hands :)

Tomorrow it’s yet another very impressive fangame, Peter Van Dalen‘s Shining Force: Dark Resurrection. Don’t miss it!