I’ve decided to go ahead and open the first in a series of three competitions for the SFMMO project. The first, this one will focus on the creation of tilesets for the map editor. The second will focus on the creation of maps using those and the default tileset, and the third will involve the creation of sprites and battle animations.

Because the map editor does not need to be finished for people to start working on tilesets, I am holding this competition early. When the map editor is finished it will be trivial to create your new tileset from the tiles you have already created. Like any competition, there are rules, which are as follows.

Rules

1. Each tile must have the dimensions of 90 x 90 pixels.

8. The colors used should an RGB notation available. Example: #DD5678 or rgb(128,64,64)

Timeline & Registration

The contest will end on February 5th, which is two months from today. Registration is not required, but if you would like other people to know you are working on a tileset, you can reply to this post by saying so and you will be officially tracked as having been entered.

Team entries are allowed, but the winning team, if it is a team, must decide among themselves who the prize will be delivered to and state that to me upon notification of winning. If no decision can be made, one of the team members will be chosen at random to receive the prize.

Judging

Judging will be done by all of you! A poll will be created and will be open for one week. The tileset with the most votes wins. In the event of a tie, Moogie will have the deciding vote.

Prize

I have three prizes available for the three competitions. A copy of Shining Force I, complete with instruction manual and case. A copy of Shining Force II, complete with instruction manual and case, and a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com. The winner of this contest will have their choice in prize. The winner of the map contest will have their choice of the remaining two, and the winner of the sprite contest will get the remaining prize.

If anybody would like to donate more prizes, or volunteer to pay for shipping costs to the winners, then more prizes may be able to be arranged for runners up, and maybe even 3rd place. Please PM me if you have something you would like to donate as a prize.

Thank you and good luck!

Going further with the Mage example, a character who has the mage archetype will have one of four elements they are attuned with. This will be something which is not changeable and the benefits it affords the character will stay with them as they change classes and grow stronger as they level.

The four elements that the Mage can be attuned with are Fire, Ice, Wind, and Earth. Having a particular element will grant them the use of their classic spell, such as Blaze for Fire, Freeze for Ice, Blast for Wind, and Quake(new) for Earth. In addition, they will also gain a passive benefit as well. Fire Mages will gain a bonus to damage. Ice Mages will gain a mana regen. Wind Mages will gain additional movement and speed. Earth Mages will gain a percentage based damage reduction and bonus resistance to elements. All Mages will gain 50% resistance to their own element. As they level, their classic spell will gain new abilities. Fire will add an immolate effect. Freeze with lower enemy speed and accuracy. Blast will lower defense and resistance. Earth will lower movement radius to 1 for one turn.

You may be asking yourself, “what about bolt?” That’s a good question. Bolt will be a class based spell (Wizard +), available to all Mages, assuming they choose the right class.

The other class tree’s will have their own set of archetypes available, but they probably wont’ all have four, and may have as many as one for specialized classes available only late in the game.

Class abilities

Each class will be part of a class tree, where there is only one choice at the root. Continuing with the Mage, the root (basic) class will be called “Mage”. From there, upon promotion, a character can choose between two paths to further specialize. In the case of the Mage they will be “Wizard (Nuker/Area of Affect)” and “Summoner (Area of Affect/Support)”. Each of those classes will be promotable to two further classes each in order to even further specialize. The “Wizard” will be promotable to the “Sorcerer (Nuker)” and “Enchanter (Area of Affect)”. The “Summoner” will be promotable to the “Warlock (Support)” and “Evoker (Area of Affect)”.

Each class will have six levels. A character can be promoted to the next class as early as class level five, but completion of the sixth level is encourage for the massive upgrade in power and passive benefit that will carry on to the next class that would be lost forever otherwise. Leveling all characters to their sixth class levels will be the only way to optimize power.

Class experience is earned by using abilities during battle. This is opposed to character experience which is shared equally among all characters at the end of a battle. Class levels will grant new abilities and passive bonuses but character level will determine the level and power of those abilities. Each character will have a maximum of four active abilities, just like in the original Genesis games. In the case of the “Mage” archetype, one of those abilities will always be their classic spell. Each class will provide three more active abilities and three passive ones. Some class trees will have archetype sets that give passive bonuses so their classes will provide all four of their active abilities.

Currency
Let’s talk about how the currency will work in the game. I am removing gold! I am instead replacing it will a new currency called Shining Points. Or SP for short. Instead of getting a fixed amount of gold every-time you kill an enemy, you will receive an amount of SP every-time you finish a battle. The reasons for this are twofold.

• To make money worth paying attention to out of battle: Because frankly, unless you are looking for trouble or your leader keeps dying, have you ever worried about money in a shining force game, specifically 1 or 2? You can usually always buy whatever you want. Usually. You should get more for your money than just “what upgrades can I buy in the next town?” You should be able to have real choices of things to buy and goals to save for.
• To make money not worth paying attention to during battle: Have you ever killed a monster and thought “enough with the exp and level up bonus, get to the gold already?” I didn’t think so. It’s a waste of text, and a waste of time, and it needs to go!

Resurrection
So if you can’t get money without finishing a battle, how am I supposed to pay to resurrect people mister smarty-pants? Easy, it will be free! Not only free, but automatic as long as you have a church in your headquarters (more about headquarters further down). Isn’t the most fun part of the game going to the church between battles and holding down the A/C button to resurrect dead force members? I didn’t think so. It’s a waste of time and it needs to go. It’s not like you are going to lose the game so what’s the point? The fun should be in the strategy, not making sure you have enough cash to revive people.

Egress
I might be stirring up the apple cart here but the egress spell, and angel wings are going to be removed. CALM DOWN! That doesn’t mean you can’t quite a battle, it just means you don’t have to wait for your leaders turn to do it anymore. However, egressing won’t bestow the same benefits it once did. You won’t gain character experience when you egress but you will keep class experience and gains. You also won’t get any SP. Because the game won’t be linear and I plan to have random maps generated, there is no need to grind the same battle over and over again, just defeat it and move on to the next random map. Egressing should only be an option for when you need to leave in a hurry or don’t’ feel like finishing, not something to be abused for grinding.

Headquarters
Your force will have a force level which can be advanced by completing either a certain number of random battles or defeating certain boss fights. The higher your level the bigger headquarters you can have (assuming you pay to upgrade). It will kind be like buying a bigger house in the Sims^tm. Depending on how large your headquarters is you will have a certain number of slots to fill in with things like churches for auto rezing your people, or a blacksmith for making weapons, or an alchemy table for making herbs, etc… There will be mini games for the professions and you can sell your goods on the auction house to other real players, and if Moogie is generous, maybe even a tie-in with the SFC shop!

That’s it for now, there will be more updates in the future so check back often. You can also check my signature on the SFC forums for a link to the latest blog post and news on the project.

If anybody posts a comment asking for the code or details about how it works, I’ll post another article explaining it.

I have an SF1 map loaded up right now at 2700×2700 pixels with Jaha loaded in at 90×90.