Also, my idea for the right column is to show a min-map and info on current character. Kind of like how you could access that in Shining Force, but in this case it’s always visible.

Anyway, here’s a quick screen of how it looks so far:

So far there’s a scrolling map with front and back layers, transparency and full collision detection. Nothing too amazing, but it works, and that’s the main thing at the moment.

The next step is getting some proper animation going, and then maybe some menus and things to investigate.

Seriously though, I kept working on Spark, but it wasn’t going where I wanted it to. So I scrapped it and started over. This time using actionscript. I’m much happier with how it is progressing now and I’m planning to have a playable game out by the end of this year. Maybe a few more game updates as well.

Picture Time!

Below is a very early screen grab of the latest tileset. It’s nothing particularly fancy, but hopefully fits with the Shining Force 2 style.

There are still a lot more transition tiles to do, as well as animating the water and adding little touches to make it more interesting, but it’s getting there.

There are two other maps in the works, but this one is the most colourful and complete at the moment.

Boring Developer Stuff

Yeah, now it’s time for more boring screenshots, but this time of some development tools and engine features.

First up we have a really simple directory listener. It runs in the background and watches a directory for changes. When there’s a change, it broadcasts it to any listening client. Why is this useful?

With a little bit of tweaking, the engine can listen for these messages and then reload resources that have changed on the fly. This makes it much easier to see how tilesets, maps and animations look without having to restart the game.

Next, we have the built in console. If you’ve played Doom, Quake or similar, you’ll know what this is for. Again, it’s about making it easier to see changes without having to restart or recompile.

So far the console is only really useful for listening for debug messages, but in the future there will be commands for checking what objects are currently active, what’s in the database and more.

As with most things, there’s some effort up front, but in the long run it should pay off.

Old Graphics, New Graphics

I’m sure you remember the wonderful graphics from the original demo’s. If not, let’s have a little refresh…

In order: Wooden Sword, Wooden Spear, Wooden Rod, Short Sword and Medical Herb. I doubled the size for visibility’s sake.

Here’s what they currently look like.

It’s the first bit of pixel art I’ve done for long time, but I think it’s an improvement on the originals.

I’ve always liked the style of Shining Force 3, so that’s what I was aiming for here, whilst trying to keep the old Shining Online style.

Any comments or criticisms are welcome

Actually, that’s not really true. It was started a long time ago, and is sporadically worked on. Maybe one day it will be finished. Maybe.

After reading an old review of the Atari ST demo of Shining Online, I looked through my old emails to revive some fond memories. Here’s some old feedback from when things were just starting to get interesting.

The hardest part is getting started

how can i play this game (shining online),i mean what should i do after i download it

…wrong game

Dude! Any chance of getting some tips on designing character sets for rpg 2k? They dont seem to work for some strange reason!

At least they apologised

I DONT MEAN TO BOTHER YOU OR ANY THINg (IN FACT I DONT KNOW IF YOU EVEN UP DATE THIS SITE AND MORE) BUT IDED LIKE TO KNOW WHAT U USE TO MAKE THIS GAME I DONT KNOW HOW TO PROGRAM SO I AM LOOKING FOR AN EDITOR IF YOU WANNA KEEP IT SECRET THATS OK TO

Short and sweet

I hate you

And finally…

When we were starting out, it seemed like a good idea to ask people what they wanted. Here’s my favourite survey result:

Name : Obright and Bowie

Age :87

Website : www.thiswebsiteisajoke.com

System:
1] PC

Specs:
ITs big an hairy much like the shining online game. But unlike the shining online game my computer is Good

Do you think a fan made SF game is a good Idea?
Yes

Do you think online options are important?
Very Important

Which Shining Sites do you visit regularly?
This one because its SOOOOO dam good

Comments
I would like to see the makers of the game as the easy bosses so we can kill them and they will never make any more games

You can’t buy fans like that

The biggest problem on it is getting the server and client to communicate in a way that isn’t a complete nightmare to update. For a while the server was miles ahead, but now the client side is starting to take shape and the server code is looking like a mess.

The good news is that things are getting done. The bad news is it’s taking a lot longer than expected. It’s a combination of a few tasks being much bigger than estimated, and also a lack of motivation to tackle them. I’ll be making sure the next milestone is more fun.

Terrible Programmer Art

As noted in previous entries, there are two different gameplay modes in Shining Online: online and offline.

Here’s what the offline title screen looks like at the moment. It was a 60-second job in Paint, so it will be changed eventually…

Selecting “New Game” takes the player to the “New Story” screen, where they can select from a list of installed stories to play. After that, it’s up to the story author what happens. Intro sequences will be supported, as will the trademark Shining Force character naming screens.

A break

I’ll be taking a few weeks break to go home to England, so there won’t be any progress for a little while. 

Same as usual, really