It’s all a work in progress, but if you’re interested in trying out a “new” game in the spirit of the Source, then be sure to visit:

http://www.shiningsource.net/forum/?topic=1127.msg9727;topicseen#new

I also added a few screenshots to the Shiny Sword  project page and on  the forum here:

http://www.shiningsource.net/forum/index.php?topic=1125.0

BABS 3 is officially in development. It will be a heavily re-engineered and refactored version of the BABS 2.5 engine, which should allow people to make much more interesting games without a lot of additional effort.

Things BABS 3 will support for sure include:

– A vastly improved SMEE editor, with a more intuitive interface (I might throw in a resolution increase too).

– Support for arbitrary tile sizes and resolutions (so finally you can use those neat 42×42 tiles for your Hitchhiker’s Guide fangame ;)).

– Improved performance and responsiveness of the overall toolkit.

– Severe enhancements in the roleplaying department. This will evolve as I work on it, but for sure I’m going to add interactive dialogues and a personality engine. The latter will ensure that the responses of NPCs  will match the way you roleplay (so no more mr. NPC Nice Guys when you start behaving like a murderous idiot :)).

What it will for sure NOT include:

– Kickass graphics (there are other games for that).

However, I might write out a graphics contest or two to improve the visuals of BABS 3 and its corresponding game. These contests will include some kickass prizes and I’ll let you know more about it in due time.

BABS 3 will also get its own game, which actually is the main reason why I’m working on BABS 3. Also, it will remain open source and supported by the lads here at the Source (yes, that includes me too, despite my near-decadal hiatus :P).

If there are any things you’d like to see, or you’d like to help in the graphics department, feel free to let me know by posting on one of the forums!

Good news, everyone!

The Java source code from the latest version of B.A.B.S. has just been released. You can find more information on this version of B.A.B.S.  here. It’s the most complete version to date, and features plenty of campaign levels and battles for you to play with.

If you’d to contribute anything (source, images, music or ideas), feel free to drop by the forum and say hello :)

Anyway, here’s the good stuff: Download the source code here.

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!

The bug involved sprites not being placed on new positions during map switches, which caused strange behaviour to the point of crashing. This did not happen on the initial map however. Either way, it’s solved ;).

In addition to that, I implemented a string parser which allows entities to trigger flags or text to be shown only when a certain flag is set. I still need to make documentation for this though :).

• Improved spell support
• Added Heal 1-2, Blaze 1-3 and Bolt 1-2
• Added support for 4 spells per character
• Implemented a VERY basic AI.
• AI will walk randomly within range and then attack whenever possible. You can enable it for any entity by setting “(entitynumber).ai=1” in the accompanying entityfile.
• Battle talk option
• Optimized Smee tile editor
• Improved import tileset and load new tileset features.
• Right mouse button can also hold a color now.
• Fixed the messy SMEE GUI on startup
• Enhanced hit point display in combat
• Additional battle backgrounds and land types :)

You can already see the screenshots below and the download link waay above. It’s still more or less a beta version, so any feedback is certainly appreciated!

I hope you guys will like it :)

Making screenshots of AI tends to be rather hard, but I can show you some stuff from the spells:

Choose different spells, and with different spell levels using a temporary (and ugly) interface ;)

Torture thy enemies with fire straight from the Paint Shop Pro clipart library (which in fact is worse than the Abyss)!

Stay tuned for a beta release containing these features. The engine gets along nicely all in all, but I really do need some more testing and bug reports in order to get the stuff reliable :)

Here’s a listing of what I added (among other things):

• Added a battle talk option like in Shining Force 3. Events can be hooked up to talking opponents.
• Optimized Smee tile editor
• Improved import tileset and load new tileset features.
• Right mouse button can also hold a color now.
• Added bucket fill to the tile editor.
• Fixed the messy SMEE interface bug on startup
• Improved the spell support
• Added Blaze level 2 and Bolt level 1.
• Added support for huge range and huge area spells (see screenshot).
• Made some very poor spell animations ;)

Thought this would be an interesting sight to see :P

Anyway, I can most certainly use help in the mapping, spritemaking and animation department, as I’m very short on graphics.

Also, I’ll be gone from tomorrow until Sunday, so if I happen to be silent, that is probably the cause :)

Updates from 2.01

• Added Walkabout map support. You can now link battle maps to walkabout maps and vice versa!
• Added a rudimentary zone editor in SMEE. Press ‘5’ to switch to the zoning mode. Selecting different tiles on the right will change the active zone number. Zones with a number greater than 0 will be represented in Smee with a special cross mark. The current tile indicator displays the active zone number.

• Added some basics for the events system. Every zone can be linked to an event through some code in the accompanying scriptfile. The only working event right now is a Map Switch, which can be coded in a script file like this:

  
zone.(number).type=mapswitch
zone.(number).target=(mapname without the .smf extension)


  Note that zones and events only work in walkabout maps at the moment. Support for them in battle maps might arrive later on.

• You can’t only switch maps now, but also have different music with each map. Just edit the “general.music” flag in the scriptfile.
• Fixed a bug where maps were slightly misaligned after map switches or loading
• Fixed the Resize tool (thanks to Zylokh for noticing this one!).
• Slightly improved the error output of both programs.
• Did some small code cleanup.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Zylokh, Elvenfyre, Peter van Dalen and Ranges (even though I haven’t had much time tofix the bugs he reported yet) for their ongoing support :)

I hope you’ll enjoy the program! I’m still quite short on tiles, maps and sprites, so if you like, feel free to make some and send them to me :D

Just replaced the BABS 2.0 release with a BABS 2.01 release. It only has two changes, but I think they’re quite vital!

First of all, I added support for linking multiple battles together. Finishing your first battle will lead you to the next map as defined in the (mapname).scriptfile file :).

I decided to release this right away, because this feature sort of enables you to make ‘Tatakai’-like games, where one battle follows up another. Support for town and walkabout scenes will follow later, but expect that to be highly Shining Force 2-like :P.

With that being said, I am hereby going to launch a contest!

I would like you guys to make your own battle scenes, which means the following:

• Make a full map with SMEE (the map editor), either using the existing tileset or using your own!
• Fill in a proper entityfile that contains the participants of your battle.
• If you like, feel free to use custom sprites and battle animations. Ripping them from somewhere else is fine with me too, but let me know where stuff came from!
• Custom music is allowed too, just send a single midi file along then :)

Put all your custom files in a .zip archive and e-mail it to djgroen@science.uva.nl

The contest closes at March, 10th because I really can’t wait much longer to release the next update :P.

All decent maps will make it to the next BABS release, and the winning battle map will be featured in the actual SSC game! :D