itch.io

It's possible, but it's not as simple as that.

There's limited mouse+wasd but it's mainly for developers to use, and not recommended.

Thanks for words of encouragement!

Thanks! I don't get much feedback. I really appreciate it. I'm trying to make this stand out more these days. I have schizophrenia now, and it's helping me a lot with professional polish and business ideas, but it's a hindrance too. I now have SSI in the US so I have a little bit of financial backing that I never could get from things like Patreon. It should allow me to keep going if schizophrenia doesn't get the best of me. Bad days are hard.

I think I really need to make an update on this site and the others to let everyone know how everything is going.

Thank you for these kind words and attention. I hope I'll be successful in this in the end :)

Thanks! Right now I'm working on making shields work with the engine data. As far as things that don't require data go, they're all part of the engine/extension work. I'm a bit overwhelmed with life right now, but sleeping less and putting hours into this stuff whenever I can. Please stay in touch, and consider supporting my work on patreon and Michael on SubscribeStar.com (a new thing I'm trying to get setup.)

P.S. I like the look/sound of your experimental project! I hope you tried all the movements I could list. I have a feeling many don't read or try it or figure it out themself. I've written it all down since so there hopefully isn't any surprises. I think these movements should be standard in all first-person games so that we don't have to get used to them like you say.

I don't know if anyone will see this, but RE "There will be a new devlog post here, with the big Update banner once everything's in place." I have everything ready, I'm just waiting for some private feedback. If I don't hear from anyone over the weekend I'll go ahead and publish what I got.

First King's Field, now Armored Core (by way of Virtual-On) keep it up!

I think there are some tutorials somewhere for the basics, but really you shouldn't have difficulty just feeling your way around it. Don't hesitate to ask for help. That's where I think most who would would get stuck and give up. I can't really write documentation or tutorials, that's really something users ought to do for themselves, among themselves. It's just not a good use of time for tool developers. I.e. it's one of things anyone can do really. And really anyone using SOM should be thinking of ways to contribute. As for more advanced stuff, I can tell you how to accomplish anything that's possible, or make something possible that's not, if you have an impressive project. Really for advanced use you have to be willing to talk to someone.

RE downloads, I know I already sent you this (swordofmoonlight.net/ex/diy/) (sorry itch.io can't mix text and URLs in one post!) but just in case any readers have the same question, that's what you need. This is the only real mod that I know of, being my own. If you find anything else you'd need to be careful about being sure it's compatible before doing something with you work, since you might lose it. Make backups often of anything you intend to keep. If you want to make original 3D art then I recommend this (github.com/mick-p1982/mm3d/releases/tag/win32-dec-2021) system I'm using with my project that the MM3D models are formatted for. And keep up-to-date with patches I publish because it's a work-in-progress.

Sure, by all means please spread the news. I do think most are aware of it (Sword of Moonlight) probably. The Dark Souls games do pull a lot of people into King's Field orbit, but I don't believe it's taken seriously after that. It's funny how much Souls fans revere From Software, but don't give thought to its Moonlight Sword legend that's occupied the space were other companies might position a company mascot.

I'm really focused on making something very pure here. It's not a fighting game. I see it as more an art series.

Edited: Just for everyone, while I'm here posting, the demo this dev-blog post is heralding is coming along. I hope it's ready in this month (April) I'm really busting my hump. I have a feeling it will be a squeaker if so, and I'll take some time off to polish the demo and update it with a patch later in the year. It's shaping up really well and the color is very good. (I was recently forced to reckon with the lighting to factor the bright lights over Nola's house into what I had so far. I realized the default color in most areas has reduced contrast, and that's part of the reason KFII can seem chalky, but I was able to correct for this so it will be more vibrant like KF.)

Thanks for weighing and offering encouragement. I really appreciate it!

I fully intend to be doing this (still) in a few hundred years, god willing. KF will be the first--and last--modern 3D game. Don't be a stranger!!

My adapter is 60hz too. Unless it's rendering two screens/windows and Win+G is counting them together, I think 120 may be a coincidence and sync is disabled instead.

Win+G key combo says it's running at 121hz on my 60hz system. It's maxing my system fans which become loud. I think it's not frame limited at all, which I'd expect from Godot being popular. 120hz being double 60 is probably a coincidence. Anyway, it looks like it should run better, being so simple as it is.

I'm impartial. You asked me why I wrote what I did so I told you. I don't even know you from Adam. I only want to help.

I don't mean to be insulting but I mean to shake you up or make it clear I understand if you're responding like a weaselly bureaucrat would.

There's no opt-out option for that field. If you fill out that page (to indicate the game uses a gamepad for instance) then it automatically fills out that field, which then puts it in the information box (like it or not.) Just use your brain and ask if every game on that page actually had somebody intentionally set them to say they last 3 seconds.... only Rock Scissor Paper lasts 3 seconds... think about it before you speak.

I didn't set it, but I would like to request an option to omit it. It didn't used to be in the information box. I think it doesn't apply to a lot of games, and I suspect most games that have this set didn't do so intentionally. It's the default setting if you fill out that page, but it's probably gray initially until the Save button is pressed. (It might be a new thing because I don't remember ever seeing it in the information box before today.)

Edited: Based on the description it sounds like somehow it's a measurement of how long people played it in an actual session, and I'd assume a "session" is a sitting, and not "Time it takes to reach an objective (complete a level, a run, etc.)".

No one plays a game for "a few seconds" this is just a category that indicates games that don't work with your desktop app. You shouldn't advertise this on game pages like mine ( https://swordofmoonlight.itch.io/k ) under the expanded box, nor should this ( https://itch.io/games/duration-seconds ) page even exist.

EDITED: What you SHOULD do is use this as an indicator to help people navigate these games in your app, run them outside your app.

Many comments over here ( https://swordofmoonlight.itch.io/k/devlog/252682/shield-and-counterheavy-attack-... ) in this dev-log.

"Credits" are somehow converted into money in the real game. There are all sorts of strange things to find. It's all based on the data on the PlayStation disc. Whatever you see is probably in the original game but you can't get to it, or more likely this mask is the one you see placed in the wall beside the water cave.

There are so many features to implement. For example, this demo won't include another zone until I can get around to making SOM seamlessly "stream in" the data without loading screens. SOM works more like Shadow Tower in that regard. Things that seem simple aren't. Like for shields there's probably about 30 to 50 large scale details that have to programmed. Looking at it it looks simple but the devil is in the details, as they say.

Edited: Oh yes! Thanks for joining up with Patreon. I really hope it takes off. I hope others notice these comments and are less shy to take part and see others joining up with Patreon and so feel more confident. I'd like to be proven wrong that no one believes in King's Field. My hopes so far have been pinned on people who don't even know about it because significant interest and support from King's Field fans hasn't happened so far.

EDITED: Matching the footstep sound to the ground surface and changing up the acoustics will be in the finished (first) version. Although I'd really like to reproduce the PlayStation's sound system because that's probably the only way it will ever sound like the original. It actually has acoustics too, but I think KF2 only uses a generic reverb effect. For some reason the reverb is crazy soupy too. I don't know if that's normal or how it's configured. Probably the latter. But I think it's consistent across the entire game.

Not PlayStation King's Field... I can't be certain about the PS2 game, but generally speaking KF games take all power away on attack.

"Also could try set walking to drop foot prints from what ever boots you are wearing. Would not be to hard to add."

Believe me it would be very hard to add. You guys get a distorted view of game development by using the likes of Unreal and Unity :)

(Edited: FWIW this basic shield system, etc. took at least 120hrs I estimate to complete.)

P.S. I'm suddenly receiving a lot of comments in the past few days, after none for 200 days... do you know why that might be? Just a coincidence? In any case I left a comment here ( https://itch.io/post/3401711 ) because I found that game/demo via your recent posts when itch.io notified you joined. In reply to your post there, you can help with SOM and this project as long as you can find a way to contribute.

Someone once told me if I'm going to revive King's Field with Sword of Moonlight I should call it "Queen's Meadow". This sounded absolutely wrong to me (I took it as telling me I had no right to develop King's Field with the "King's Field Making Tool") but I take it there's a connection to this title? (Edited: I mean its name. BTW I'm glad if anyone ever tells me that again I can tell them that name's taken!)

P.S. https://swordofmoonlight.itch.io/k is a King's Field project if not just a coincidence. Queen's Meadow looks amazing BTW!

Edited: It occurred to me you may have been asking about adding a new item to KF2? Or at least I may have misunderstood because I'm too close to the technical side of it. We can work out something later.

Actually that's a really good idea that hadn't occurred to me. Generally speaking the original animations don't look so great at 60fps and with the way things work, they're very basic, and the arm is distorted so it's like a monkey arm (really short bicep, really long forearm) but it may change in the middle of the animation a little bit because it's soft animation, whereas SOM has to use a rigid animation system for its arm so it can snap equipment to sections of the arm effectively. Before the project is done every arm animation will have to be redesigned from scratch and the arm remodeled and proportions corrected and I haven't decided if I want to use a different (less generic) model based on whatever body I choose for Aleph for VR (I'm starting with the KFIII model for him but don't know if his cuffs there would be best for an arm model.)

Please consider joining the Patreon if you aren't one of the two who joined yesterday. I'd really like SOM to appear less pathetic, by show of popular support. I think Patreon is good because it forces people to get real by doing something more than texting online at least. It's a measure of something more real and I imagine it has a snowball effect in terms of people sitting on the fence being skeptical who don't understand the scope of the effort.

Yes, press Esc until it says the mode is 2-A. I'm envious if you can play "uninverted", I've always wondered if it's more natural, but I've never been able to do it. Last week I made 2-A the default out of the box for now, previously it was tank controls. As for using face buttons, I really think that's a bad idea so I don't like to talk about it. You'd have to start by editing the Ex.ini file to remove the custom functions from the face buttons, but currently dashing and activation are fused to the same button, so you wouldn't get very far. I recommend using the practical control scheme. Someday I may make it possible to disable activation with the dash button so it be put out of the way, but I'm more interested in adding a weapon holstering feature so you can use your hand/attack buttons to "activate". I mean it's not worth giving up analog control???

P.S. I'm glad you're asking probing questions, I was hoping from the beginning (now 200d ago) there would be discussion to help to provide supplemental information for those interested. Especially because the control scheme really goes way deeper than anyone would suspect.

That's how maps work by default. It's a cheat to pull the map up that way. But it just shows you the map in the Use Item screen like King's Field does it. Before the project is finished It will be possible to bind any item (incl. maps) to a button like pressing Start to use an item in KF. But I don't know if it's good to officially support a real-time map. That feels like one of those things modern games may provide that shouldn't be on the table. But you can use the Alt+Alt+M system to turn it on and it will be remembered after you turn the game off so you never have to do it again. Or bind it to buttons like in this demo.

Well, I actually develop/maintain Sword of Moonlight, so that's the name that makes the most sense! The automap is an original feature, as are the regular maps, however they were limited to using them as an item in the game, whereas you're remarking on this clickable pop-up display that's a new enhancement, as is the smooth experience and solid visuals.

SOM is about continuing King's Field, so it makes perfect sense to further it along its natural trajectory instead of trying to limit it for some misguided rationale (that seems crazy to me but it's something I often hear, that it should be frozen in amber, I find people's reactions strange more often than not) and as for this project my goal is to preserve the art and scenario in terms of its essence. As for the rest it goes by whatever is default for Sword of Moonlight.

SOM has an automap system but it doesn't fill itself out as you go, although that would be a good addition. It's the funky looking map. The reason it's funky is the tiles need to be assigned 3x3 icons but right now they're all the same icon so you just get a sense of the shape of the map from it. You can turn this on with Alt+Alt+M but I call it a "Rescue" in the INI file because I don't think it enhances King's Field, but it's easy to get lost on maps, especially those made by novice game developers who don't appreciate how essential landmarks are to making 3D spaces navigable.

If by "KF1" you mean the sample game that comes packed in with SOM, sure I'll eventually add this to its arm model. I'm not sure when I will get around to it. It only has 3 attacks that I'd have to design counter-attack animations for that hopefully work with all kinds of weapons (it uses the same horizontal swing for Crescent Ax as for katana so it may prove difficult.) I'm slow to do upkeep work on the pack-in models, it's hard being the only person interested in developing SOM.

P.S. These extended "attack" features are just shaping up. They're going to become much more refined and elaborated over the course of the next few years or so. The Action button is fully mature by comparison, if anything it's doing too many functions, I wish that some of it could be offloaded onto the hand/attack buttons, but that will require a way to holster weapons so hands don't always swing them. The counter-attack isn't a novelty, it will be a primary way of doing sword fights that are more true to life, or true to movies. Controller vibration is coming soon and it's going to be integral to playing the game instead of just an effect. It's going to be how you can respond to situations faster than is possible by waiting for something to appear on screen and consciously responding with your controller and waiting for the response, which is all very slow and impossible, so vibration will be key to overcoming this technology/physiology loop latency problem. KF is abstract so you can think of the vibration as an abstract representation of your character's senses.

Edited: Thanks for responding BTW. You're the first legit responder. I'm always surprised how flat my work lands online. I don't know why people don't engage more and seem skeptical if anything.

The Make Primary function wasn't working before, but did now, but why then does the form have a "New email address" box AND an "Additional Email Address" box if the first box does nothing?

Hi, I reported this months ago and some other stuff and never received a response from your staff. Now I have to change my email address because my ISP is discontinuing it, so it will no longer work next month.

Everyone, please also support/advocate my King's Field effort over here: https://swordofmoonlight.itch.io/k (It's been lonely so far!! KF is cursed!)

No offense but that's more physically impossible than the page's changing on its own, one way or other. In any case, I wouldn't worry about it until you hear more accounts like it. (How could someone change formatting selectively on your page editor screen?)

Edited: For the record I think now that those parts in the text would have been formatted with italics. It seems like somehow the tags got substituted.