The Shining Source

Another plug from me, but this time for something really good.

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!

EDIT: I posted this up on the news and got the HTML wrong for the links, so they don't show up. Could someone please change this for me? Thanks!

Fixed the links for you.

Any comments on these articles are much appreciated - it's one of the longest things I've written in recent weeks, so any feedback would be a big help.

Hi guys,

Both articles look great to me, actually . Ty's article is highly on the technical side while Newts' article is really focused on player experience indeed. I like them both .

It would be really cool if someone would write an article about the SFIII setting too though, and what game designers can learn from the setting . I'm not very familiar with the setting myself though, I'm afraid :s...

Ahhh, SF3 is a beauty, which I might get to play the other 2/3rds of it one day. Both are good, well written articles, congrats to both of you.

What other games will you be doing ? Nights into Dreams ? ( I believe thats the proper title for it).

I'm sure we'll do NiGHTS at some point - I already wrote a quite substantial article on it that I've just remembered to put up. I'll do that later.

We'll also be covering other games. Suggestions please!

Ty's seems to be unavailable.

Here it is

Thanks for your comment, Job!

Still no good. Is this only on my side? It worked for me in the past.

Must be, it works fine for me and I've tested it on two PCs now. :?

For games? Well, if you can get it to run, try Dark Sun:Shattered Lands on PC or perhaps Return of the Dark Dragon?

That last one's a good call - I've got it on the GBA but haven't got it into it in the same way I did, say, Shining Soul II. Ty's played it a little too, so that could be a good one to do. Thanks for the suggestion, Dev

No problem. Especially the concept of adjusting the SHF style to modern times may be interesting. Did they do the retake in a good fashion or have they missed many chances to make something truly great?

You want me to answer now?

I haven't played the original but I think Ty might have done. I'm sure we can get some mileage out of it.

I think we'll also be doing non-SF and non-RPGs, so any suggestions will be considered. Cheers mates!

Okay, in the non-SF department:
- Diablo II
- Morrowind
- NeverWinter Nights
- Fable

non-RPG department:
- Rome: Total War
- Civilization (any)
- Any of the old LucasArts games (Day of th Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Sam 'n' Max hit the road etc.)
- Knight Shift
- Pac-Man
- Perhaps some existing freeware games?

I've played "Return of the Dark Dragon" for the GBA and i actually enjoyed it more than SF1 but i never said anything because i didn't want to offend anybody.   SFII is still my favorite though.