Ballad of Thuriana: a Shining Force inspired Tactical RPG

[jdoolin]

I added a new map that will become the 2nd battle map, and birds!! It won't be long before I'm working on combat.

Birds!

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[jdoolin]

I've been working on Ballad of Thuriana for over a year now. Not solidly, as I didn't work on it that much last summer. I spent the summer thinking about my development process, reading books on game design and implementing some proper design procedures. It was well worth the time away from the project, as it has improved the project immensely. But in that year I've focused all of my energy on only the Exploration aspect of the game. Moving through towns, entering buildings, looting chests, talking to NPCs, tilemap format, designing items and equipment, user interface and such. And birds that fly away when you get too close.

But the core of a Tactical RPG is, of course, the tactical battle system, which I can finally say that I'm now working on. I figured out a way to use the Tiled map editor to define my battles directly in the map files, including enemy and party placement, victory conditions and more. I implemented the turn system, which is based on the Agility stat. It's testing well. I'm calculating the movement range of the characters based on a "Move" stat like Shining Force and terrain. I'm not yet using terrain effects, but as you can see it's properly calculating the range of walkable tiles. My character movement isn't restricted by it yet, but I'll probably work on that next.

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[jdoolin]

I've gotten a lot done in the last few days.

-Movement is now restricted to the character's range, but the ranges aren't affected by terrain yet

-HUD is working, though the Terrain effects are still just hard coded text. I have to define all the terrains and values yet. HP/MP preview panes dynamically size themselves according the HP/MP values

-Added the battle Action menu. I haven't decided how I'm going to approach this. It is theoretically possible to only present the Attack or Magic actions if there is a target in range or the character has magic. Still need to animate it coming onto screen. The "Defend" option is the only one that works, as it ends a character's turn.

-A simple glow/highlight shader that shows the currently active character when the Action menu is up

-Creating the Attack range tiles and displaying them. In fact, this is all that happens when you choose the Attack option

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[Karai17]

Whoa, this is super cool! I <3 the original Shining Force on Genesis, never played the sequels. Is the art original or did you find it somewhere? Definitely gonna keep an eye on this project.

[jdoolin]

Whoa, this is super cool! I <3 the original Shining Force on Genesis, never played the sequels. Is the art original or did you find it somewhere? Definitely gonna keep an eye on this project.

Thank you! And while I'm at it, thank YOU for your contributions, especially STI.

I purchased the main assets from an artist on itch.io (Final Boss Blues) but he's doing a lot of custom work for me too.

If you liked the original Shining Force, you should try Shining Force 2. It is the one most like the original. Better in some ways, actually. Shining Force CD was really good but since it's a remake of the GameGear games, it has no JRPG style exploration like the first two games did.

[jdoolin]

I've gotten a good bit more done since the last update. It's what I call "Examine" mode, where you press the Cancel button during a character's turn, which presents the player with a cursor and the ability to view the stats of enemies and allies. One button gives a quick HP/MP stat and another button brings up full stats. It's something Shining Force did.

Next I'm going to work on targeting and maybe even mini-maps.

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[jdoolin]

Here's one that shows full details. Well, not quite full. I still have to add a way to see items and magic.

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