Shining Fanwork: The Legend of Syro (Fan Game)

[Chaoswizard98]

Ever since I first played Shining Force ages ago, I always wanted to make my own Shining game. This has been a life goal and now I am beginning work on it.

New Video Update (11/26/17)
https://youtu.be/ZjUefPPIRoQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Playable Demos (04/15/18)

Spoiler

Arrow keys = move. Z = select, speed up dialogue, continue. X = back , cancel.

Download Link
Beta 1.0.2 (Chapter 1, 6vs66 Challenge Map, and Debug Room):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lTfG94 ... sp=sharing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Requirements to run the game and temporary controls:
The game will only run on a Windows PC and you will need DirectX as well (I believe it will give you a download / install option if you don't have it).
Due to GameMaker's limited sound functionality I can't edit the volume of the music. So if you download and play the game, just be aware that it may play somewhat loudly. (I will be fixing this eventually)

It should run fine even on older computers and I do try to optimize things as best I can. A friend said it ran perfectly on his old Windows XP. Let me know if you have problems running it!

Known Bugs

Spoiler

There are no known bugs but if you do break my game (like if it freezes or throws an error) hit F5 and send the save file to chaoswizard98@gmail.com

Anyways I hope you guys enjoy!
~Chaos

==================
= Story Information =
==================
(Does not contain spoilers)

Spoiler

The story is quite big because there is so much that I want to add. In order to incorporate it all I will most likely have to split the game into 2.

Book 1
After a cataclysmic disaster that nearly destroyed the continent rendering it un-livable, our heros must search for a new land in which they can call home. Enemies and allies are made as the group arrives on the continent to the east.

Book 2
5 years after settling on the eastern continent, a new team of heros set out to explore their new home. Wars begin, and more friends are made as the team explores the continent. A dark mystery unfolds as more is learned about the demons and ancients...

Shining Ties
Expect Shining Easter Eggs

=======================
= Game Engine Progress =
=======================

Spoiler

I decided to use GameMaker for this project because it is incredibly simple to use and very user friendly to people who aren't skilled coders. It should make things (especially level creation) very simple and mainly point and click. Since I would like to make the engine as user friendly as possible, GameMaker seemed like a great choice.

*Note* I'm using GameMaker 8.1 Standard for the engine however GM8.1 is no longer available. I will be porting the game to GMS and GMS2 after I finish the engine so no matter what version you have, you should have access to the engine.

All the code in my engine will be commented so even if you aren't a coder, you can still figure out how to do some slightly more advanced things like add new spells, ect. I will also be releasing a few tutorial videos after the game engine is released for those with little to no coding experience. If you are a coder, feel free to modify the engine however you like.

*This project is something I've been wanting to do my whole life so you can guarantee I'll get this done

PS:
Small SF quirks aside, I only have shops left to add.

[Stordarth]

Hey, welcome to the forums.

Having watched the video, I can tell you're off to a promising start already. Keep working at it.

Just a friendly piece of advice though: I'd consider replacing as many of the Shining Force assets with your own as soon as possible. SEGA have shown themselves willing to shut down games that use their assets (Streets of Rage Remake), and have a particular dislike of fans of the older Force games. Differentiating your engine by using your own stuff will go a long way to protecting you and your work from coming under fire from a Cease and Desist order should they ever happen upon it.

[Chaoswizard98]

Yeah, I was planning on that for the future. Unfortunately I'm not good at creating sprites (unless recoloring counts lol) so I was putting that off till later. Personally I'm quite surprised that Sega is flagging videos on youtube and such, personally I'd be grateful to the fans for the free advertising...

Thanks for the heads up!

[Diego_Didakus]

Very good work!!

[Tor_Heyerdal]

It looks really good so far, dude. I'm impressed. Just out of curiosity, what method are you using for your AI pathfinding? A*, or something else?

[Diego_Didakus]

Yes, chaoswizard and tor heyerdal, you two guys should have a good conversation about how to program yours projects

[Chaoswizard98]

Thanks for the support guys! I appreciate it!

@Tor_heyerdal, I used A* for the AI path finding. While it cycles through the function that calculates it's movement range (I actually used Dijkstra's algorithm for this part since it gives you the nearest tiles first) it also checks it's attack range at each tile to see if there are any players it can attack and adds that tile's X and Y value to an array. After the movement range is all calculated, if the array has numbers in it, it will pick the first or last one (I forget which it's been a while lol) and path find to that location where it runs the battle function.

Enemy AI isn't limited to warriors. Archers and spear centaurs (as well as any attack range for that matter) is built into the system. Since I didn't bother setting up an enemy archer sprite yet it isn't in the demo.

[Corsair]

Oh. hey.


The other guys will probably have my hide for saying this, but all the work I've done for the Community Project is Creative Commons licensed so you're free to make use of it, as long as I'm credited. You'll have to shoot Stor or MXC a PM to get access to the subforum to actually see all of the stuff, but I have done a fairly decent number of sprites, portraits, and backgrounds that are free to use.

Here's a small set of samples:

Spoiler

Of course, my only focus right now is on that project, but if you want some minor edits done (palette swaps and the like.) just ask me.

[Tor_Heyerdal]

Yes, chaoswizard and tor heyerdal, you two guys should have a good conversation about how to program yours projects

- DiegoMM

Well, I'm just a self-taught highschool dropout. He's in college, majoring in game design. I may have more to learn from him than he'd have to learn from me. I do have a unique perspective on things though, I guess. We shall see.

@Tor_heyerdal, I used A* for the AI path finding. While it cycles through the function that calculates it's movement range (I actually used Dijkstra's algorithm for this part since it gives you the nearest tiles first) it also checks it's attack range at each tile to see if there are any players it can attack and adds that tile's X and Y value to an array. After the movement range is all calculated, if the array has numbers in it, it will pick the first or last one (I forget which it's been a while lol) and path find to that location where it runs the battle function.

- Chaoswizard98

It sounds like you've done a very similar system to what I've done with my project. Definitely not the same, but similar. Instead of having it add the attack range while it's calculating the movement range, I have it so that it checks if there are any enemies standing within the movement range (acknowledging every "hit" in the sweep with a switch), and then after it's finished generating the movement tiles, it then does a second sweep of all the movement tiles that did end up getting placed, adding the attack range in every direction around those (acknowledging every "hit" in the sweep with a switch). After that, it does a fairly lengthy threat calculation on every target that got acknowledged (got their switches turned on), and tries to move to that target. If every possible attack point on that target is occupied by other sprites, then it turns off that target's acknowledgement switch, and recalculates threat on the remaining targets that are still acknowledged. If all potential targets turn out to be unattackable, then it moves as though there was never a target in range to begin with.

Of course, my only focus right now is on that project, but if you want some minor edits done (palette swaps and the like.) just ask me.

- Corsair

Well, I can definitely handle minor edits myself (and, most of the time, thoroughly enjoy doing so), but collecting the initial, unedited graphics is a huge pain. I don't suppose you have archives of unedited, high quality, original sprites, and tiles, and such, do you? If so, I'd love to have access to that (and when I say "original", I don't mean "originally created", I mean "from the original games"; in case that wasn't clear :P).

EDIT: Also, those graphics look incredible, Corsair. If that's the level of awesome that people here are used to seeing with the community project, then it's no wonder people have been bustin' my balls over some of my edits. xD Super well done.

EDIT: I just want to add, I think it's too bad that I can't get a video of my project up (even if I did, I'd keep it set to private), because my computer can't even run my project without lagging, let alone actually record it. It's SO SLOW. My project is extremely processor heavy for a game that's running on 11 year old software, and I have a really shoddy processor. lol. I've seen it running on my buddy's laptop though (which is not very good by today's standards, but still wrecks the crap out of my system), and it ran like a friggin' dream. It was very encouraging to see.

[Chaoswizard98]

-Corsair
o.o Those are freaking awesome! Ill have to check those out, thanks!

-Tor
Yeah your method seems very similar. I tried to simplify mine as much as possible, so I test if a space has an ally there before I test for attack range from that tile. If it's true then I skip the attack range test and save my computer a small bit of memory. The only way the memory save would even be noticeable though was if you had a terrible computer or if you had 1000 enemies and allies in your map and had a move range of 100000 or something lol.

As for the map tiles, I am working on a massive SF2 tile set. I'm starting mainly with the original tiles, but I've also been adding some custom ones as well. Mostly just minor edits such as color changing and spinning things around. The Viking town has some unique house designs so those will likely take some work. (And the ship needs a dragon head on it >.< I'll probably just re-skin a gargoyle or something lol)

Once I finish it I'll be sure to release it!

And if anyone ever has any questions on how to code something let me know and I'll see what I can do to help!

[Tor_Heyerdal]

It's starting to look like 2014 is turning out to be "Year of the Homebrew Shining Force Demo". lol. This is what? Three projects now that have revealed actual progress in the last few months? It's like people have been waiting so long for this sort of stuff, and now we have like, this little explosion of demo releases. It's fantastic. If this project is as much of a lifelong dream project as mine is for me, then I see no reason to expect that Chaoswizard98 won't follow through with this project, and as such, I suggest that this ought to be stickied. This project may have only just revealed itself to us, but I think we can all agree that it's an extremely impressive first glimpse which (I think, at least) is just as promising as the other stickied projects in this section.

[Caedmonball19]

This is looking very promising. Great work Chaoswizard!

Tor: I agree with your 2014 assessment. I had someone a while back ask me if they could use my chibi sprites for another project. Hopefully that one comes to fruition as well.

[Chaoswizard98]

It's starting to look like 2014 is turning out to be "Year of the Homebrew Shining Force Demo". If this project is as much of a lifelong dream project as mine is for me, then I see no reason to expect that Chaoswizard98 won't follow through with this project.

I'm fairly new so I only really know of yours, and the community project lol. As for a life long dream, it started when I was around 6 years old and I played shining force on Sega Smash Pack 2. I wanted to know what happened next so I wanted to make a sequel. I didn't know that the Gaiden series or SF2 existed at the time.

Since then, with various programming homework projects, I began to interconnect all the stories I came up with into 1 universe. A few of the main characters that I re-used in several assignments (A few of the starting characters in this game) have some pretty wild backstories. For about 4 years I've been developing the world and now I'll be bringing it to life in this game.

Right now the battle system is only lacking 2 things. Magic and items. (I would add leveling but I built that in already, I just didn't have the stat formulas so I left the gains at 0). My next step will be to add magic. Before I start working on that though, I'm going through the entirety of the existing code and optimizing it, making it as simple as possible.

Speaking of magic, does anyone know where to find SF2 Magic sprites? So far I've only found those from SF1.

This is looking very promising. Great work Chaoswizard!

Thanks for the support! My goal is to make the engine as close to the original SF games as possible. I want to also make the code as simple as possible so that once I'm done, others will be able to make SF fan games with ease. (I'm using GameMaker 8.1 for this project so that should simplify things such as map making and adding playable characters / enemies for those with less coding experience).



Edit: I just opened a binder that was filled with a bunch of my old stuff I made when I was little and I found my old Shining force 2 game plan LOL. Apparently I wanted to add the ability to dual wield lances XD

[Tor_Heyerdal]

it started when I was around 6 years old and I played shining force on Sega Smash Pack 2.

-Chaoswizard98

Way to make me feel really, really old. xD

Speaking of magic, does anyone know where to find SF2 Magic sprites? So far I've only found those from SF1.

-Chaoswizard98

Yeah, I'd actually be extremely interested to know this too. So far, I've just been ripping the spell graphics myself. Which is, of course, a great, big, tedious job of tedium. lol. So if there is such an archive somewhere (in high quality .png, preferably), then I want access to it probably about as much as you do. lol.

Thanks for the support! My goal is to make the engine as close to the original SF games as possible. I want to also make the code as simple as possible so that once I'm done, others will be able to make SF fan games with ease. (I'm using GameMaker 8.1 for this project so that should simplify things such as map making and adding playable characters / enemies for those with less coding experience).

-Chaoswizard 98

Naturally, I also want my project to be as close to the original game(s) as possible, but there are some ways where it just *isn't* possible. Like the fact that I'm using 16x16 pixel tiles instead of 24x24 pixel tiles because of the limitations of RM2K3 (and every other version, for that matter). Sometimes I wonder if there would be some way to hack the editor into changing the tilesize to 24x24, but I doubt it. As far as I'm aware, the actual coding for the editor is all in Japanese, and it would probably have to be changed in literally hundreds of places. So I guess I'm stuck with 16x16. But that's okay with me. It didn't bother any of us when the series used 16x16 tiles in the Game Gear versions, right?
And I doubt very much that my code will be very simple, but I'm leaving all of my "Comment" commands in place so that other people can try to reverse engineer it if they want.

I just opened a binder that was filled with a bunch of my old stuff I made when I was little and I found my old Shining force 2 game plan LOL. Apparently I wanted to add the ability to dual wield lances XD

-Chaoswizard98

Okay... That's hilarious. xD I can see why a kid would think that would be cool though. A child would be likely to either not understand or not care about the immense impracticality of such a feat. :P I probably would've thought that would be badass when I was little too. lol.

[Chaoswizard98]

Way to make me feel really, really old. xD

Your only 3 years older than me lol.

For the magic sprites, (since the Caravan tool renders them kinda strangely and I'd rather not spend hours on a crazy puzzle lol) I will probably end up ripping them myself via turning off all the layers except magic and screen recording it. Then I'll frame by frame grab all the unique positions, remove the background color, and recolor it using the color palate from the caravan tool to fix the transparency.

In theory it should work, (and it would be quicker than solving a giant puzzle!) however it may have minor scaling issues. I may or may not be able to fix that.

there are some ways where it just *isn't* possible. Like the fact that I'm using 16x16 pixel tiles instead of 24x24 pixel tiles because of the limitations of RM2K3

So RPGmaker can only use 16X16 sprites? I could see that as being a significant limitation. So far my only limitation with GameMaker is its audio functionality. Wave files have a bunch of functionality but any other file (including Wave files that were converted from mp3) have almost none. This means I cant change the BGM music volume without external editors. Hence the "set your computer volume to 20%" warning. I cant use BGM in Wave format either due to their huge file size. I wouldn't want to have a long load time or lag or memory issues.

As for the Double lance idea I had when I was 6, I must have figured that "hey the knight has 2 hands". Having 2 +40 weapons would be a little over powered. lol

[Tor_Heyerdal]

Your only 3 years older than me lol.

Wait, what? So that thing existed when I was nine? No way. Damn.

For the magic sprites, (since the Caravan tool renders them kinda strangely and I'd rather not spend hours on a crazy puzzle lol) I will probably end up ripping them myself via turning off all the layers except magic and screen recording it. Then I'll frame by frame grab all the unique positions, remove the background color, and recolor it using the color palate from the caravan tool to fix the transparency.

Yeah, I'll be doing more or less the same thing for the more intricate spell animations. For the simpler animations (like heal/blaze1), I'm actually sequencing out the animations manually.

So RPGmaker can only use 16X16 sprites? I could see that as being a significant limitation.

No, the sprites are strictly limited to 24x32. It's the tiles that are limited to 16x16 (maybe sprites and tiles are the same thing in GM (never used it), but they're separate in RPGM).

This means I cant change the BGM music volume without external editors. Hence the "set your computer volume to 20%" warning. I cant use BGM in Wave format either due to their huge file size. I wouldn't want to have a long load time or lag or memory issues.

I can't change the volume on things either (except in certain situations) because I need to have it remember BGMs so it can play it again, but when RPGM "remembers" a BGM, it doesn't remember what volume it was at, and just plays it at 100%.

As for the Double lance idea I had when I was 6, I must have figured that "hey the knight has 2 hands". Having 2 +40 weapons would be a little over powered. lol

Yeah, but kids love OP-ness, eh? =P

[Chaoswizard98]

No, the sprites are strictly limited to 24x32. It's the tiles that are limited to 16x16 (maybe sprites and tiles are the same thing in GM (never used it), but they're separate in RPGM).

Sprites are the visual pictures that you see in game. Whether they be tiles, backgrounds, or objects.

A tile has a sprite, a depth value, and an X / Y value.

A background usually contains a very large sprite. (although many just call this a background)
Tiles are made from backgrounds. They are the result of cutting up said background into equal pieces.

An object usually contains a sprite (unless its invisible or a controller object ect.) amongst other things.

At least that's what we learned, I had an 80 year old professor teaching game design so... you never know lol.

About your sound problem, can't you tell it to play at X volume though? For BGM it is usually the same volume every time it's heard. You could in theory test for the name of the music and set it's volume based on that. Unless you have no way of testing for names, or no play music at X level option. If (music1){ play at X volume} Else if(music2){ play at Y volume}

[Tor_Heyerdal]

Sprites are the visual pictures that you see in game. Whether they be tiles, backgrounds, or objects.

A tile has a sprite, a depth value, and an X / Y value.

A background usually contains a very large sprite. (although many just call this a background)
Tiles are made from backgrounds. They are the result of cutting up said background into equal pieces.

An object usually contains a sprite (unless its invisible or a controller object ect.) amongst other things.

That's all well and good, and makes perfect sense, but RPGM just simply doesn't treat any of those things that way. lol. Sprites come on a sprite sheet, tiles come on a tile sheet, and "objects" are called "events". An event consists of a sprite (for the visual form it will take in-game), which can be either a sprite or a tile, and a self-contained script that will run when that event is interacted with, as well as a trigger specifier for how it will be caused to run the script. Events are placed on top of tiles, and tiles have two layers, with events acting as a third layer.

About your sound problem, can't you tell it to play at X volume though? For BGM it is usually the same volume every time it's heard. You could in theory test for the name of the music and set it's volume based on that. Unless you have no way of testing for names, or no play music at X level option. If (music1){ play at X volume} Else if(music2){ play at Y volume}

It can play BGM at volume level X, but it cannot play *remembered* BGM at volume X. Only play remembered BGM, just period. And that puts it at 100%. And I have to have it remember the BGM and play the remembered BGM at the beginning and end of each animated attack sequence. Also, RPGM has no way of testing for names. There's no such thing as a "string" in RPGM. At least in 2k3 or under. There may be in the newer versions.

[Chaoswizard98]

That's all well and good, and makes perfect sense, but RPGM just simply doesn't treat any of those things that way. lol. Sprites come on a sprite sheet, tiles come on a tile sheet, and "objects" are called "events". An event consists of a sprite (for the visual form it will take in-game), which can be either a sprite or a tile, and a self-contained script that will run when that event is interacted with, as well as a trigger specifier for how it will be caused to run the script. Events are placed on top of tiles, and tiles have two layers, with events acting as a third layer.

Sounds like you have WAY more restrictions than I do. Good luck lol.

As for the sound, every time you "remember BGM" couldn't you just save a variable "music_name" instead? Then just call that back and test for the "music_name" state in a nested If else statement?


For SF2 Spell sprites, I'm working on ripping them via puzzle method. The screenshot method proved too difficult due to the spell's alpha value changing... I'm almost done with the bolt spell lol. After I finish them all, I'll post a download link.

[Tor_Heyerdal]

Sounds like you have WAY more restrictions than I do. Good luck lol.

Thanks. And yeah, I'm pretty sure that's probably the case.

As for the sound, every time you "remember BGM" couldn't you just save a variable "music_name" instead? Then just call that back and test for the "music_name" state in a nested If else statement?

Hmmm. Yeah, I suppose so. Seems like a lot of effort to turn the volume down 5% though. lol. I think it'd be easier to just adjust the mp3. lol.

For SF2 Spell sprites, I'm working on ripping them via puzzle method. The screenshot method proved too difficult due to the spell's alpha value changing... I'm almost done with the bolt spell lol. After I finish them all, I'll post a download link.

Can you not isolate the spell animations onto a black background by turning off all the other layers in the emulator? If the background is pure black, then the alpha values shouldn't really matter (which is what I've been doing).