Do you know FF VI : Shadow of Life ?

FF VI: Shadow of Life is the codename of the most serious european RPG-Making project. The project has been launched by Cedric Montet (aka Kaduss) in 1999, and has been restarted two times from the beginning to do better. The story takes place 100 years after Final Fantasy VI. This second opus is very different from the original with better graphics, better screen resolution, better sound quality, better gameplay...

Today, Shadow of Life (Sol) is one of the most important project on the world wide web! More than 40 persons work on it, and everything is made by the team (no readymade programs, music, graphics…). From artworks to editor’s programation, from the composition of the soundtrack to 3D animatics, you can follow the development of Sol on their website : http://www.ff6sol.com/ (click on the English link for English version).

What do you think about that? Fun? Not very original? Ambitious?

[awall]

I think it would be awesome if it actually managed to get all the way through development. However, there are two problems I can see associated with making a full-scale FF6 "sequel" (I know it's not really a direct sequel or anything, but that's the best word I can think of).

1) I don't know exactly how much of the FF world is owned by Squaresoft, but I'd imagine that if nothing else, they have the rights to all the characters/places/things from FF6. If I were on this project, I'd be a bit worried about getting a Cease and Desist order from Square. Of course, since they decided not to use the graphics or music from the original FF6 and I don't see the words "Final Fantasy" anywhere except in their descriptions, it might be okay. I'm also completely unfamiliar with how those laws work here, let alone in France, so I may be worrying about nothing here.

2) This project is entirely volunteers? Uh oh. There have been many amazing projects that people work on simply for the love of what they're doing - I should know, I'm a linux person. However, I also know of a lot of projects that stagnate because the people working on them simply decide that they don't have time/motivation to get back to work. Money is a huge driving factor in the creation of games - in order to hire the talent and buy the resources to create most modern games, it takes millions of dollars. Is that really something that volunteers are capable of getting together? Will pure "love of the game" be enough to keep people working on this project for the several more years?

I'd love to see this project get carried through - heck, this is the kind of thing I'd really like to work on myself - but the first thing that goes through my mind when I see something like this is, "Will it really survive?"

That's just my two cents. For anybody working on this project, good luck, and keep at it!

[Cain Highwind]

I hate that you have to plug your website in your first post, and you'll likely never post again. But because it is FFVI and there's no gimmick involved (IE VOTE CLOUD!), I'm not going to do anything.

I'm pretty sure I remember seeing this project a good couple of years ago, and man you guys really have changed quite a lot. I was intrigued by the idea back then, and I'm very excited to see how it'll turn out now. I only hope SquareEnix doesn't find out and shut you guys down like the ambitious Chrono Resurrection Project.

Don't worry about copyright! Each character is new. The story takes place 100 years after the first opus. Each element which comes from FF VI have been slightly renamed.

With 5 years of experience (the project restarted from zero two times), the team has now a great experience and has reached a constant speed in work. They developed web based tools for group working. They're really good!

Your questions have been asked by everybody interested in Shadow of Life. It's pretty new for me to explain that in english . We are really involved in the project. We just want to share this passion!

[Sir Kenneth]

I think it's admirable how much work you guys have put into this project. Even with names changed and such Square might still not be too happy though, but I do hope it'll work out fine.

[LocoColt04]

Originally Posted by Cain Highwind

I hate that you have to plug your website in your first post, and you'll likely never post again. But because it is FFVI and there's no gimmick involved (IE VOTE CLOUD!), I'm not going to do anything.

Haha, yeah, my immediate response was "blegh, more advertising."

Hey Mr. Shadow Guy, don't be a stranger around here. I can't say that I've heard of the project before, but it seems REALLY cool. Keep us updated, and on top of that... oh, I dunno... post around a bit? XD

Thank you! Of course I will keep you updated! We do not have an updates/news page in english yet, but we think about it. Anyway, I will try to visit those forums as much as possible! (I suscribed to this topic)

Thank you for those who left the topic, and excuse me for the ad, but it was the only way for me to speak about Shadow of Life. It's a little bit difficult to explain all that stuff in english, and the link to the website is the best help for me

[Sean]

Reading through the site, I'm very impressed.


I, too, am concerned about the copyright infringement here, but who knows.

The music on the website is pretty nice, my only complaint is the English you guys use. I can tell it's a very unpolished translation from French, and, while it's not that big of a deal, a majority of the people who will play this and support it once it reaches completion will be English speakers. Even the Final Fantasy games used good grammar in the translations from Japanese (which is much harder to translate than a latin-based language such as Spanish or French)

It certainly is an interesting project.

I'm also concerend about copyright problems, but if everything goes alright I'm sure it will be quite interesting. The site is cool as well. Lets hope we can have as soon as possible.

Originally Posted by Sean

[...]my only complaint is the English you guys use. I can tell it's a very unpolished translation from French, [...]

I'm going to report immediately your comment to the concerned team. I know I don't speak English very well, but I was sure the English version of our website was not translated perfectly...

We will do our best !

If you have suggestion on how to translate it in a better english, don't hesitate to email me at brice@ff6sol.com.

[LocoColt04]

Well, you could always do your rough translations and then have someone whose native language is English go through the whole script (as well as your website) and touch up the grammatical aspect.

As long as people can make sense of the sentences, it shouldn't be tough for someone else to run through it and clean up all of the English. I'm sure that's how the Japanese translators do it. Put the words into English, and pass it on to someone else for editing.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by LocoColt04

Well, you could always do your rough translations and then have someone whose native language is English go through the whole script (as well as your website) and touch up the grammatical aspect.

As long as people can make sense of the sentences, it shouldn't be tough for someone else to run through it and clean up all of the English. I'm sure that's how the Japanese translators do it. Put the words into English, and pass it on to someone else for editing.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

If I had the time to spare I'd gladly do it. Anyone here can testify I know my shit when it comes to grammar. =P

[LocoColt04]

Honestly, Sean, I was thinking the same thing. One of us could do it. Any one of TFF's ole grammar nazi's would be great for this. Hell, we could even split the game into four or five parts, spread it out amongst everyone, and clean it all up.

Hmm. Good idea.

Hmmmmmm...

*pokes ShadowOfLife*

What do you think about that one, eh?