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Shining force 1 and 2 remake project for pc - Demo Release v0.0.1

Steve

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That's brilliant. Cheers, @feldc

Really thrilled to see everything taking shape so quickly.
 

feldc

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Another small update, the godot repo is now up. It seems like everything is working, so hopefully I didn't break anything while migrating to github organization setup. If anyone wants to clone the project and start poking through you're able to do so. The one caveat is I don't recommend anyone start contributing code, since I'm going to be making lots of changes to the structure of the project and the scenes. I'll make another post here and on the repo when its a good time for others to start helping tackle code issues.
 

Steve

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Thank you for your hard work, @feldc

Approximately how many months (years?) of development has gone into this project so far? Has the project grown in scope since you first started?

[...] guess I'm out of the loop in regards to Sega's stance on fan projects, always thought they had a Nintendo style cease and desist attitude.

Thinking back, this was very much the case for the Streets of Rage Remake fan project when it was shuttered in 2011 at the request of Sega. I cannot speak to why Sega would allow sites such as SonicRetro.com or the Steam WorkShop to continue hosting modified versions of original binaries, but it would seem there is some discrepancy there. Christian Whitehead's involvement in the Sonic hacking scene and later recruitment onto the Sonic Mania project also feels like a bit of a curveball from Sega.
 

feldc

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Hey @Steve

Approximately how many months (years?) of development has gone into this project so far? Has the project grown in scope since you first started?
There's been just shy of 4 weeks of development (mostly part time), nearing 1 month in a few days. The project hasn't grown in scope yet, I'm still largely sticking to what I initially planned out for the demo.

As for the Sega stance on remakes. From what I gathered Sega of America (that oversees sonic) has a very positive attitude towards fanworks, and as long as you're not profiting from the project its mostly fine*. IPs that are overseen by Sega of Japan seem to get struck down on a seemingly random basis, some projects they don't strike down till they're basically complete, while others are nipped in the bud. No clue how they'd end up treating original Shining Force series fanworks.
 

Lynx

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Hey @Steve


There's been just shy of 4 weeks of development (mostly part time), nearing 1 month in a few days. The project hasn't grown in scope yet, I'm still largely sticking to what I initially planned out for the demo.

As for the Sega stance on remakes. From what I gathered Sega of America (that oversees sonic) has a very positive attitude towards fanworks, and as long as you're not profiting from the project its mostly fine*. IPs that are overseen by Sega of Japan seem to get struck down on a seemingly random basis, some projects they don't strike down till they're basically complete, while others are nipped in the bud. No clue how they'd end up treating original Shining Force series fanworks.


I also add what happened with Alex Kid, where a group of Spanish fans decided to make an Alex Kid fans game and they ended up releasing the game officially with the support of Sega. I suppose if you make a good game and show it to sega and they like it, maybe it could be the case that they will support you.

and if I remember correctly, I seem to have heard that sega is not bothered by hackromes, as long as you recommend the purchase of original games (physical or digital) to use them, they would have no problem with that. (at least there is no precedent that they are not in favor)

about a new game, if what you offer is only the engine without official sega graphics. Then you will not have problems, but if you use their original or modified graphics (modifying something does not make it yours) or using official designs of them even if they were made from scratch it can bring you problems.

but there are few chances that sega will see you as a threat at the current stage of your project. n.n
 

feldc

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what happened with Alex Kid, where a group of Spanish fans decided to make an Alex Kid fans game and they ended up releasing the game officially with the support of Sega...
That's cool to know, I knew about the Sonic mania being Sega reaching out and working with fan creator(s). Didn't know there were other such projects.

I seem to have heard that sega is not bothered by hackromes, as long as you recommend the purchase of original games (physical or digital) to use them ..... about a new game, if what you offer is only the engine without official sega graphics. Then you will not have problems, but if you use their original or modified graphics (modifying something does not make it yours)
This is where my project is on shaky grounds, unlike a lot of those mods or fan project built on top using an actual rom. I'm building out everything from scratch in an engine. I'm also including the official art, music, and fan reworked art, since without that it would hardly be a remake. Just a very focused and niche dev kit for srpgs in godot.

For now I'm just gonna keep going and working on things in the direction I've already been in. If Sega or someone else comes along and has issues with the project, we'll cross that bridge when it comes.
 

lewisje

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I could also recommend you to join a group of discord, which is where there are most often people interested in shining force and there are also people with moderation charges from shining force central who could help you with the issue of your account on that page (maybe someone thought that you were a bot)

This link has expired.
 

feldc

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Update, Asks / Requests, and Discussion Kick offs.

Update


I've finished implementing basically every part of the battle system needed for battle 1, minus a few more minor things I'll wrap up during this week. I'll likely release the demo this upcoming Friday (July 30th). Gonna be spending this following week just play testing and polishing various aspects, till release.

Community Asks / Requests:

While I have everything ready there's a few things that aren't true to the original. I'm currently using the SF2 sound effects (provided by chaoswizard98) instead of SF1, since I haven't been able to find them. Does anyone have a rip of the SF1 sound effects (not the music itself, I have a copy of that that I'm tracking on the github organization).

I also wasn't able to find the death animation frames, the ones you see when an enemy is defeated spins around and disappears on the map. SF1Editor also doesn't seem to export these frames. If no one has these I might just attempt to recreate them myself.

Community Discussion(s) Kickoffs:

After the demo release I'll be writing a fair bit of articles on the github wiki on how users can help this project along (in none code related ways).

One of the ways to help will be recreating the various maps of SF1 and 2. I was thinking of recreating the maps in a tile map editor program like Tiled (other software can be used like aseprite or photoshop). My reasoning is this way other people can re-use the maps (not locked down to my project exclusively) and it makes replacing the tilesets for the maps really simple. In addition this has the nice benefit of easily hot swapping the tilesets in the game simple to do. So you could toggle between the original graphics, or @Erikin84 and @Ivan_Cal reworked artwork while the game is running. Thoughts and interest in this idea?
 

feldc

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Demo Shining force 1 - Chapter 1 Battle 1 Release v0.0.1

Releases page (all new releases will be uploaded here first)

Windows x64: https://github.com/ShiningForceRema...oad/v0.0.1/Windows-x64_ShiningForceRemade.zip
Mac: https://github.com/ShiningForceRema...ownload/v0.0.1/Mac-OSX_ShiningForceRemade.zip
Linux: https://github.com/ShiningForceRema.../download/v0.0.1/Linux_ShiningForceRemade.zip

Side note - I'll optimize the size of the builds on following releases (updating to new versions will likely be in the 10s of MBs range).

Controls

Keyboard support only at this time

a - accept and select
s - cancel (b key)
d - accept (c key use the a key instead mostly)

arrow keys - movement

f11 - toggle fullscreen

tilda ( ` - key to the left of 1 on us layouts) - saves screenshot
screenshot paths for different system (will be reworked to save within the same folder as the exe)
Windows: C:\Users\%USERNAME%\%APPDATA%\Godot\app_userdata\Shining Force Remade
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Godot/app_userdata/Shining Force Remade
Linux: ~/.local/share/godot/app_userdata/Shining Force Remade

Esc - pauses the game

minus - zoom out
equal - zoom in

h - toggle the land effect tilemap information view (mostly for debugging but I left it enabled in the demo build)

Notes / Caveats

Lowe's heal spell - I disabled since it seems like the changes I made recently have made it extremely buggy and I don't have enough time today to fix it and test it to a good degree so I left it disabled.

Egress - Does nothing, since I didn't create anything outside of battle 1 nothing happens when used.

Tile artifacts at different zoom levels - Unfortunately due to the repeating and tightly packed pattern of the floor tiles at certain zoom levels you'll notice weird patterns and artifacting. I do have plans to address this, but I don't have enough time to put in smarter strategies right now so if you notice weird tile patterns just zoom in or out more with minus or equal till everything seems normal. Not an issue with any other type of tiles though.

Movement tiles flashing in spots you can't reach - this is purely aesthetic and won't impact the gameplay (will be fixed very soon in a refactor I plan to do after this release).

Other

Everything besides what is listed in the notes and caveats should work fairly well. If you notice anything strange no matter how minor (I probably missed a lot of small details) don't hesitate to file an issue on the github repo (create new issue link) or post a comment here (you can take screenshots in game with tilda).

I've also used the SF2 sound effects since, I couldn't find a good copy of the SF1 sfx. The sounds also don't sound completely true to the original, seems like within the original game (on the genesis) they did a lot of post processing. I'll eventually modify and add them in as well, but for now what sounds are in are what I have to work with.
 

Keif

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Hey, I found and broke several things - they're posted in the github!
 

feldc

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Hey @monkbarron, I saw the issues you posted. Thanks for creating the bug reports it's a huge help. I've already addressed three of the issues and left comments on the tickets with more technical details related to the fixes.
 

Keif

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I'll read over em in the coming days - glad I can help.
 

feldc

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Project Progress Update

All the issues reported from the demo should be fixed now.

Screenshots will be saved in the same folder as the game.

I've added in controller support (remapping controller buttons will be added at a later point).

I've split up the resources so now when downloading updates you'll only need to download the updated game part and not the music. This decreases downloads from being 100mb to about 10-20mb. I'll also look into adding a way to download updates directly from the game itself so checking the github for new releases won't be needed.

Most of the free time I've had over this past month was mainly spent on building out all the maps for chapter 1 (still a WIP) in Tiled. In addition to recreating the maps, I've added the ability to switch which graphics you're using in the game, while it's running (ex. original, @Ivan_Cal rework, or the graphics upgrade from @Erikin84).

I've also split up the project into multiple repos that other people creating fanworks might find useful.

https://github.com/ShiningForceRemade/SF-Maps - Shining force maps recreated in Tiled with support for Ivan_Cals and Erikin's graphics.

https://github.com/ShiningForceRemade/Assets-Original - Tracking all the resources in their original formats from the original game and fan modifications (ex. art, music, and others).

https://github.com/ShiningForceRemade/Assets - In this repo I'm tracking all the resources but converted into more modern formats and easier to work with in more modern development setup.

I'm aiming to release the next demo (v0.0.2) near the end of September or early Ocotober (depending on my free time this month), and it will hopefully cover everything in the first chapter of SF1. Updates should be much faster after this point since nearly all the features needed for the game will be implemented by this point.

Also if anyone wants to help, recreating the maps in Tiled would be a massive help. You can reach me here or on Discord feldc#0323 and I can help get you up and running with Tiled and contributing.

Tiled map Images

132249316-4baa110c-9c5b-42bc-bdf1-baba15f45f9c.png

132249322-4431b4a6-044f-422f-ad1b-bfd9813a5703.png

132249434-9b07c31b-c804-4c91-94b3-a5c40b4e6def.png
 

Steve

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Incredible work, @feldc

Apologies for the radio silence on my part. Time has been very limited due to the UK school holidays and home renovations. I've been quietly keeping up with your progress and everything is looking incredible. I'm really looking forward to trying out the demo today.

Great to see controller support built-in. Updates from within the client would be a great quality of life feature. I've never heard of Tiled, but I'll certainly look into it.
 

feldc

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I can definitely relate to a lack of free time this past month @Steve.

Also just for clarity while I have fixed a lot of issues and added controller support. The exe build on github and the post before the progress report above doesn't have any of these changes or fixes, it's still the old v0.0.1 demo build from the end of July. So expect issues and less than polished battle animations.
 

feldc

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Project Progress Update

Unfortunately, my free time over the past month was quite limited and I wasn't able to complete everything I wanted for the next build. I'll be aiming to release the entire chapter 1 demo at the start of November.

While I haven't completed the build I have made decent progress on a lot of fronts, and have gotten around to adding a lot of features I mentioned / promised.

Like usual excuse the choppiness in the gifs in game a lot of this behaves significantly better.

Discord Channels

Thanks to Chaoswizard98 and @Erikin84 for creating channels within their discords for this project.

Shining Force Fanworks - now has category project channels with a shining force remade channel

Shining Force Modding - has a shining-force-remake channel

If anyone has things they'd like to discuss or see added to the project either of those channels are good places to post in.

Hot swapping graphics

Swapping between Original graphics and @Ivan_Cal's graphic remake is now possible while the game is running. I also recently found out @Erikin84 graphic upgrade mod has some differences from @Ivan_Cal's rework so I'll add that as a third option. Note - I'll add sprite changes as well when I finish cutting up the resource files. (Original as Default)

Tv0PinG0vx.gif

Filters (Shaders) - Default off

In addition to the swapping of graphics, I've added support for many different kinds of filters you'd generally find on emulators (ex. retroarch).

CRT Filter

This filter is very customizable, with many different profiles available.
For anyone that wants to make their own profile you can open up the godot project and mess with the shader params for different effects no coding experience needed.

Medium effect
Godot_v3.3.4-stable_win64_TctllMtSBB.png
Very aggressive effect
Godot_v3.3.4-stable_win64_kIC1YgK6Eb.jpg

HQ4x

Godot_v3.3.4-stable_win64_PpXJ0bpdWb.png

Note: Willing to add other filters just shoot me a message with the ones you'd like to see.

SF2 and Resurrection of The Dark Dragon Enhancements

View force members (and their stats) from the overworld (a la SF2)., is now supported.

Z4UP4mLovW.gif

WIP - (RoTDD) Pre battle menu, cards, item box, and battle victory conditions (these will be togglable, if you'd prefer a more genesis like experience you can do so).

Controllable Enemies - Default off

Note - Still using the old battle 1 map the new tiled version is done I just haven't gotten around to putting it in.

2yWXx2VSTu.gif

Tiled maps

All the maps for chapter 1 have been built out (available on the sf-maps repo). I've built them on top of the rips done by XYZBILLIU, so they should all be 100% accurate down to the last tile.

Also for the smaller maps I've added extra map space so it works with the more zoomed out views.

Ex. Alterone

FYTa7EDY91.png

Ex. Battle 1 map original and additional map space

yE575mFtte.png

c4acopuPWl.png


Mobile Support

I'm putting this on pause, since I expect when I release the demo there's going to be lots of minor bugs and just minor things I missed. So I'll probably do a polishing / fix pass afterwards and then add mobile builds. I'll also probably drop the demo from the project title since at that point mostly everything should be built out and stable. This is also when I'll start documenting and create repo articles on how to use and extend the framework for your own mods and needs.

Misc

Minor things that are expected that probably don't need gifs or pictures.

* Moving under a roof hides the roof layer for that building, and leaving shows it again.
* Npcs wander around (also I've setup the walk areas to never block your path).
* Transitioning to different locations
* Overworld (non battle) menus
* Talking to npcs
* Chests (WIP - animation)

Help wanted

Also if anyone wants to help this project move along faster, here's some things you can do (none code related).

* Copy over the npc dialogue (JSON scripts)
* Help build out tiled maps for the other chapters
* Cut up resource files from the various graphic upgrades

If anyone wants to help you can reach me here on Sfmods or one of the various Shining Force Discords. Where I can then help you get setup.
 

Lobo

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I keep postponing my commitment to take a look at your work in greater detail, maybe because I'm mostly short of time, but also I seem to forget to do that whenever I'm not.

But I must say this is likely the most impressive project I've ever seen regarding this game! :love:
 

Steve

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This all looks incredible! Amazing work @feldc

Hot swapping graphics and filters: Just... brilliant! What wonderful additions. (y)

SF2 and Resurrection of The Dark Dragon Enhancements: All great! I also really appreciate that some of these features are toggleable.

Mobile Support: I wasn't even aware that a mobile version was on the cards (perhaps it slipped my mind!) - really thrilled to know that it's a thing!

All really impressive updates. Thank you for your efforts!

* Copy over the npc dialogue (JSON scripts): A few years ago, I compiled a full list of all (I hope!) available dialogue in SF1. I can upload a copy if it would be of any help? Example:

6dy3KVb.png
 

feldc

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... I also really appreciate that some of these features are toggleable.

Just as a general note to everyone, I think I mentioned this in one of my previous posts. I'm willing to add any features or toggles to features the community at large wants so if anyone has anything they'd like, don't hesitate to let me know on here, as a github issue, or on discord. So I can track and eventually support it.

Mobile Support: I wasn't even aware that a mobile version was on the cards (perhaps it slipped my mind!) - really thrilled to know that it's a thing!

I think I mentioned mobile support before, but in case I didn't here's the breakdown of the platforms I guarantee I can and will support:

PC
- Windows
- Mac (OSX)
- Linux

Mobile
- Android
- iOS

Anything besides those 5 is up in the air.

* Copy over the npc dialogue (JSON scripts): A few years ago, I compiled a full list of all (I hope!) available dialogue in SF1. I can upload a copy if it would be of any help? Example:

I'd love a copy of that @Steve!

Also I really should have uploaded an example of what I meant to go along with that point.

Example script for the woman inside the church of chapter 1 Guardiana:

JSON:
{
    "meta": [
        /// some special pre dialogue setup if its needed
        /// in this case its empty
    ],

    "script": [
        {
            "Text": "{main_character_name}, I'm sick of feeling helpless! I'm going to ask Varios to train me to be a fighter!"
        },
    ]
}

The text above would result in this line (assuming you're using the default name).
Max, I'm sick of feeling helpless! I'm going to ask Varios to train me to be a fighter!"

So for those of you considering this area to help on, you can help by just copying over the dialogue for a character or npc into one file (it doesn't even have to be in the format above). Or if you're feeling up to it replacing the character names with the special subsituion strings (ex. "{main_character_name}"), naturally I'll help and work with you if you choose the latter.
 

Steve

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Great to see so many platforms supported. Nice one!

Here's a copy of the SF1 script that I compiled a few years back:


Here's a copy of the GBA Resurrection of Dark Dragon script with references to the original SF1 dialogue:


(Neither are mobile-friendly - apologies!)

I'll have a closer look at how I might be able to help with compiling dialogue for use in your awesome remake. (y)
 
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