Author Topic: Shadow Tower SOM - General Discussion  (Read 44026 times)

Offline Holy_Diver

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Re: Shadow Tower Remake
« Reply #90 on: December 23, 2013, 12:30:18 pm »
If you follow through with this, the most important thing you can do is make sure that the placement of everything is just so. If you don't get this right on the firsts pass, either the whole thing will have to be readjusted as necessary, or redone completely from scratch.

This kind of project is of no long term value unless you completely replicate the original as a historical document. Only after you achieve this end can you even think about preparing alternatives. It would be socially irresponsible and disrespectful of the source material to do anything less.


That said Shadow Tower is the best game to remake first with SOM. SOM is actually based on Shadow Tower, you find much of the artwork is only slight modifications of those of ST. The arm is straight out of ST. The way the maps work likewise.


You shouldn't call this HD. Just Sword of Moonlight - Shadow Tower. The truth is the game would be perfectly presentable if made with the original artwork. Where a remake would be much improved is higher resolution, including widescreen, analog controls, and solid graphics... none of the squirming of the PS1's raster technology. Though admittedly, some of the artwork was a bit crude. The skeletons seem a step backward even from the earlier KF games.

I will personally get around to pulling all of the original artwork off the disc if necessary. Please don't model anything in the game from scratch unless you want to use that model in another game like Rathmor anyway, and as such the result of your work can be an alternative look of the ST mainstays. So consider if you make these models from scratch, don't do them in the style of ST. Do them in an alternative style. SOM's style if nothing else.  If there are already pieces in SOM that are even remotely close for what is called for, use those, even if you only want to think of them as temporary placeholders.


Don't use the AgeTec disc for text. Just don't even go there. In fact you'll thank yourself if you just put short one line descriptions of what is being communicated in each message screen. You needn't even replicate text that includes more than one screen in a row, but if you need more than one line you should. This will make it much easier to manage the script and translate later (a Japanese version with the original text is a must.)

It will be a bigger task than you think. Plan ahead. Don't get bogged down in details. The only thing that really matters at this stage is the accuracy of placement. That is the map tiles (which hopefully line up with ST's tile 2x2m grid wise) and the monsters/items/etc. You want everything spot on. That's the most important thing, nothing else really matters.


I don't see any real challenges in pulling this off extensions wise. Probably the hairiest thing is ring-based magic. But I think the sensible and best way to do that is to tie every ring pickup to a new magic learned (hopefully there are only 30, if not we can figure something out) and then the ring can just be displayed on the two magic lists along side the magic. In order to use two rings like in the original, there will be a Quick Select system in place before you are done, that will let players who bother to learn the system use as many rings as they want simultaneously. The same system can stand-in for quick select item function in ST...

It doesn't make sense to arbitrarily say you can only wear 1 ring, one on each hand, anyway. Why not wear 5 rings on each hand, or more? I would just look at the 2 ring limit of the original as an arbitrary limitation that can be improved upon by a remake. Simple as that.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2013, 01:16:25 pm by Holy_Diver »

Offline Verdite

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Re: Shadow Tower Remake
« Reply #91 on: December 23, 2013, 01:08:21 pm »
When I chose to help Master Taffer I knew it would be a big undertaking to try and replicate the artwork. I have already done alot of work on this project, so I dont intend to scrap what I have made, and what you see in this project is the only artwork I intend to release to the public to use in their games at present. And it does gel with SOM's artwork, if that matters. If I thought I wasnt up to the task I wouldnt have started.

Anyway until I hear from MT again I am not developing anything for this project. Its a good job I didnt take this so seriously.

Offline Holy_Diver

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Re: Shadow Tower Remake
« Reply #92 on: December 23, 2013, 01:27:37 pm »
Where else was it I've seen the word Taff before? :ninja:

Offline Verdite

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Re: Shadow Tower Remake
« Reply #93 on: December 23, 2013, 02:18:02 pm »
Probably from the Thief series. Taff is also a Welsh name

Offline JC Bailey

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Re: Shadow Tower Remake
« Reply #94 on: December 29, 2013, 03:07:40 pm »
Sorry for such a long hiatus, I had to move unexpectedly and just got the internet back on today. The project hasn't stalled at all though, I am still working to finish up the base mapping for the remake (only two and a half more worlds to go). Hopefully I can finish within the next week and then start work on object placement.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2013, 05:49:53 pm by MasterTaffer »
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Offline Verdite

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Re: Shadow Tower Remake
« Reply #95 on: December 29, 2013, 05:28:03 pm »
Good to hear from you!

Let me know what you need, I noticed some objects in ST are quite detailed.

Offline JC Bailey

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Re: Shadow Tower Remake
« Reply #96 on: January 08, 2014, 03:08:33 am »
If anybody has any suggestions, I've been wondering what to do about the story. To be honest, I don't think it was all that great in the original game and wanted to improve it, possibly by adding stuff like item descriptions with detailed lore like in Dark Souls.
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Offline Verdite

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Re: Shadow Tower Remake
« Reply #97 on: January 08, 2014, 08:53:59 am »
Have you played Shadow Tower Abyss? Theres alot of lore in that game that sort of explains why the tower exists and its purpose. It might not be everyones summary but I think the tower in Abyss is the tower from Shadow Tower (PS1) but with a higher budget and revised functionality, like the lifts for example.

Personally I prefered the original ST tower because it is alot more medieval than ST:A's tower. Though the tower in ST:A is almost like a link between 'worlds' so to speak so its design is probably deliberately non conventional.

Anyway it would be nice to either build on the ST:A lore and story or create something similar to it, as like all From games the story leaves alot to the imagination :wink:

Offline JC Bailey

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Re: Shadow Tower Remake
« Reply #98 on: January 08, 2014, 11:17:13 am »
I wanted to play Shadow Tower Abyss, but couldn't get any ps2 emulators to work with it. If you have it working send it to me and ill play the translation as soon as possible.

I think what I'll do is keep the story mostly the same, but add item descriptions via SOM's assess feature and improve the writing in NPC dialogues. Personally, I prefer more direct stories with branching dialogue options in role playing games, but I don't think that would work well in Shadow Tower.
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Offline Verdite

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Re: Shadow Tower Remake
« Reply #99 on: January 15, 2014, 09:54:16 am »
Aside from the backstory found in the manuals of KF and ST, I think that for games that retain the KF style of play, which is more mysterious and allows the player to imagine their 'silent protagonist', the YES/NO function works pretty good and SOM allows for this with the IF (message choice) I personally prefer this approach to choices in games, because sometimes the dialogue options dont match how you would respond.

The critically acclaimed Souls' games work this pretty well I think, because the player affects their game world more with actions rather than words.