The Shining Source

Hi Everyone,

A couple of weeks ago I started work in Game Maker to recreate Shining Force 2.

It's a game I love and have enjoyed playing many time. I've had fun too messing around in the Caravan alot too so thought I would take it to the next level.

After starting I found that this was already happening and ChaosWizard88 is doing a fantastic job and his own story!

I'm sadly not that creative but thought I would make something that was more of a tool like the caravan. So have editors for maps / characters / items / spells / dialogue etc that can all be edited ingame.

I have already made what I like to think is a good start.

- Movement is done and the basic AI using A* pathfinding.
- Cutscenes are in there too with the dialogue entries.
- The first menu is visually there but only Attack and Stay work at the moment.
- Most of the battle sound effects are in there too.

I haven't started on the editor side of it yet as just working on the battle basics first but not too far off.

I don't think I can put a video on YouTube as I read they get taken down. Not sure if anyone is interested but if so I could maybe put one for download on dropbox or if there's anywhere better?

Thanks for reading my post if you got this far.

Oh hey another GameMaker project!
It sounds like you're off to a good start keep up the good work.

Regarding Youtube, you shouldn't have to worry about the video getting taken down. From what I can tell, that whole issue was resolved ages ago.

If you ever have any questions on how to go about implementing certain things let me know!
Looking forward to seeing your progress!

Hey ChaosWizard!

Love your Legend of Syro, it's really awesome and loving the new enemy! The wolves look very cool.

I was a bit worried that you thought I might be copying or trying to jump on the bandwagon and relieved to hear you don't think so.

Sounds like you're very busy with your college work so maybe save the questions till after you have finished. If you are releasing your source code would be very interested to see how you have gone about it. I bet our codes are completely different. (mine is probably very messy in comparison lol)

Thanks for the advice on YouTube, I've put up a video. It still needs alot of tweaking but hopefully in the right direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Ax3L8vxsg

Great to hear from you and good luck with the rest of your project, looking forward to seeing the updates and playing the next release.

Great work - it's always nice to see new projects! From the looks of the video it's progressing nicely and already looks pretty polished. Looking forward to seeing more!

Thanks very much Ty.

I've not posted much but have a new video which is purely on the Map Editing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcTzDq9WHeM

There still alot to do on it but hopefully looks good and in the right direction.

I did a bit more on the main game (battle scene messages and timing) but couldn't wait for the editing bit so put that on hold for a bit. Probably should have started with the maps first anyway.

I came up with a name for the project too. The Nasca Ship. Hope it's not too cheesy or boring.

I noticed that you got your music to fade in / out. I know GM doesn't support fades for mp3's so I was just curious what format you were using or if you found a way around the system. GM's sound functionality is quite limited so it drives me nuts lol.

And yeah, I do plan on releasing my source code when I'm finished, though I'll have to port it to the newer version of GM since 8.1 is no longer available for download. Really there's only 1 major issue with porting and that is that they changed the way maps work so my move and attack ranges don't run correctly. I'll get that sorted eventually when I focus on porting the project.

As far as the name goes, you could always think of it as some sort of ancient world modification device since the ancients were super advanced anyways lol. The Nazca ship does have a ton of unknown components to it

The map editor looks nice though a zoom feature might be nice so you can see more of the map at once.
Looking forward to more of your progress!

Hey Chaoswizard, good to hear from you.

I'm using WAV's, they seem to have alot more control and you can set the volume which is handy. I might be wrong but I think it can fade with MP3 as I was using that first. This is the code I'm using on Studio. Can't remember if it's in 8.1 or not though.

audio_sound_gain(LevelMusic, .5, 200)

I'm looking to change to OCC though and have everything external. That's my plan for the whole project, all the graphics and music.

I'll think you'll like Studio once you make the move. It's always really daunting though isn't it to make big code changes. Hope it goes okay.

It does sound like we are using quite different systems to get a similar outcome. Mines all using an object for characters and enemies and checking against the distance. Everything uses a variable called "Tile" so should scale okay if people don't want to use 24 by 24.

Glad the name is okay and makes sense. I do love all the ancients stuff in it. Hopefully the project won't crash like the Ship did lol.

Awesome, happy to hear it looks good. Liking the idea of the zoom. I need to adjust the code a little as it's drawing the map based on the view size. Would be very cool though. I've put it on hold for a bit though and I recreated the intro. Took most of the week to sort that but then be able to like the intro to the maps and then to the game fingers crossed.

How's everything going with Syro? Really looking forward to see the wolves in action. 

Ah that makes sense. I actually ran into memory issues with WAV files early on so I didn't use them for BGM.

As far as studio goes, it has some nice features but there is 1 thing that drives me insane. In 8.1, if I start up the game, it loads within seconds. In GMS, I have to wait for the thing to compile for a  minute before finally giving me the loading screen. When you have to constantly reload the game (for things like HUD display layouts) it becomes painful lol.

I have a tile size variable in mine as well, though it isn't really noticeable yet.

Syro is going good. I just haven't had much time to make an update video or post anything because of how much work I've had these last few weeks. I'll see if I can make one soon.

I know that they've done alot of enhancements for GMS, so maybe you won't get the same memory issues with WAV on GMS. This is where I am a bit of an amateur, cause if it's working and the FPS is good then I assume all is well. I do need a bit clean up at some point to make sure everything is removed when not needed and all variables are actually used. I'm sure there's a few that aren't.

That is a truly painful experience on the compiling. Especially the first one. The first test and first save always take alot longer than the others.

Glad to hear it's going well. I know the feeling. I wish I could spend more time too but things get in the way. On the other hand it's also good to have a balance.

I'll keep an eye out for a YouTube. Good luck with it all.

I've got a new video up on the progress.

https://youtu.be/FuBiD7_FFN4

Also Chaos Wiz, I came across the same problem fading in an out now I'm using OGG format. It must just be WAV that support it properly. I noticed audio_sound_gain still works though as long as you set it to 0 in argument2. So what I've done is put it in a step. You could use an alarm too though I guess.

audio_sound_gain(sndMySound, audio_sound_get_gain(sndMySound) + .01, 0)

That will gradually increase it. You can minus it to fade out too.

I've added the zoom in the YouTube, thanks again for the suggestion. Think it works well but might need to think about cursor speeds when zoomed out.

I figured it was just WAV that supported fading. It's a shame really that GM doesn't allow for fading with all sound formats.

I noticed that your 'select' sound has a click that plays after it. I had the same issue with some sounds early on, fixed it by opening the file with a sound editor and cutting out the blank space at the end.

Just curious, what is your gamespeed set to?

Nonetheless, everything is looking good so far!

It is a shame definitely, I don't think WAV is all that popular either compared to MP3. I set up a class though to handle both music changes and room changes so it does the fading for both at the same time and rate. Probably a better effect than if I used the standard function.

Will have to look into that thanks. I did try and trim them but probably didn't do a great job lol.

My room speed is 60 but all the timing use room speed so hopefully will be able to manipulate later on for speeding up battlescences. (Aura level 4 or Boost)

Liking the progress with the head shakes. Did you use surfaces for that? I haven't played around with them but they sound really good. I'm hoping to do the battle effects with them.

I was also thinking it would be good to add in the relationship thing from Shining Force 3. Optional but it was a part of 3 I really enjoyed. Made me play quite differently too.

Glad all is well with Syro and your class. Sounds like a huge amount of new content since the last update. : )

I can always send you the fixed sound files or any other assets if you want them.

Regarding room speed, 60 is definitely much better than the default 30 as you have more flexibility for things like menu panning, animations, and dialogue speed settings. I originally started at 30 then I changed it to 60 after finding out that max dialogue print speed is capped by the room speed and 30 just wasn't fast enough.

As far as head shakes go, I didn't use surfaces for those. Basically what I do is draw the sprite in parts using draw_sprite_part() and just change the x or y of the head part in the step event. Shudder is similar though I use draw_sprite_scale() and simply change the y value slightly via step event.

Surfaces are better for things like the minimap, battle HUD, status page, and other non animating things. Basically what a surface does is it essentially creates a temporary sprite for you to use. For things like the battle HUD where you'd loop through every HP / MP 1 at a time drawing the bar, (again, this would be every step of the game) a surface allows you to run the math once, then you just draw the surface from then on. Saves having to run the for loops and all the text draws which should help prevent memory issues. It's also great because when you pan the surface, you don't have to worry about adding a "+- Pan" to the x / y values of everything in the draw function, just the surface.

The friendship system from sf3 is definitely a commonly requested feature and would be fun to see at one point. I've never played sf3 so I'm not 100% familiar with how it works, but from what people tell me I could see it being a fun implementation.

 

Thanks very much that would be awesome. I can wait though till you release your game though. I'm still a very long ways off. Just finished the Battle graphics import menu. Still have stats, magic, items, music, messages, changing tilesets, positioning characters, minimap to go lol. Then towns and NPC's after. I was also thinking about 2 player and possibly simple networking maybe.

It does make a massive difference at 60 doesn't it. All the graphics in general look alot sharper. I built a function for printing dialogue, when you pass a space or $ character into it, it line breaks or pauses.The witch in the intro has random pauses and says two or three lines depending on the text. I didn't know there was a standard GM function for printing dialogue for this though. It also generates the mouth opening animation and the talking sound effects.

Of course, that's a great way to do the shakes and shudders. I'd actually forgotten about those in the game! They're nice effects and great story telling tools.

Thanks for the tips on Surfaces, I don't use them for the health bars and MP bars but that is a fantastic idea. I was going to use it for when the character flashes white after being hit as you cannot blend white. There is also a disappearing graphic when a character is killed but I'm still a bit stumped on how to do that one. At the moment I have it as a fade out. I was in two minds about if I should draw the map to a surface but decided against it as the cursor and characters move the screen all the time. I thought I could do lots of separate surfaces but then thought it's easier to just draw what is shown at the time. Guess I'll have to see if it runs any performance issues. I'm on a very low spec laptop without a graphics card so hopefully should pick up any issues.

For me it was the best thing in SF3. The story is great too but it added a new layer to the game. There's lots of FAQs, that I'm sure explain it better than I can. It focuses on two characters at a time. So if they attack the same enemy they earn friendship exp. When they do that 10 times they level that up to Partner. So now when they are next to each other they get a bonus. If it's a swordsman they get +5 attack, warrior +5 defence, archers increased critical chance etc. They can level it up in the same manor for the next level Friend and then Trusted. The final level is randomly given and quite tricky to get but that is Soulmate and it's really worth it as it ups the range by 1 of the stat boost. It changes the graphic overhead to a heart. Normally it's a sword, shield or staff. It was a very nice feature and would definitely work well in any other Shining Force game.

How's progress?