Sword of Moonlight

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{{Infobox VG series
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This is the de-facto starting point of the wiki. Some good Samaritan, please take it upon yourself to start filling this in.
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| title                  = Sword of Moonlight: King's Field Making Tool
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| image                  = [[Image:SoM-fb_1024.png|350px]]
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| caption                =
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| developer              = [[From Software]]
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| publisher              = [[From Software]]
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| platforms              = [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]]
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| genre                  = [[First person (video games)|First person]]<br/>[[Action role-playing game|Action role-playing game]]<br/>[[Game development tool]]
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| first release version  = 1.0
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| first release date    = March 16, 2000
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| latest release version = 1.2 (final)
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| latest release date    = April 4, 2000 <br/>Add-ons ended April 20, 2001
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| website                = http://www.fromsoftware.jp/pc/product/detail_93.html
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}}
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'''[[Sword of Moonlight|Sword of Moonlight: King's Field Making Tool]]''' is a 3D first person RPG maker developed and published by [[From Software]] for the Japanese PC gaming and computing market. The software eliminates most of the technical challenges for users wishing to make a PC video game like ''[[King's Field]]''. It also includes a remake of King's Field which doubles as a sample project. Elements of later King's Field games are not always possible to achieve, even though the resources included on the CD-ROM more closely resemble those of ''[[Shadow Tower]]'' with a little extra added detail.
  
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Also as a reminder to everyone, there is not a Wikipedia article for Sword of Moonlight. Somewhere along the way that should be remedied. Consider this space a proving ground for whatever such a page (in digested form) might look like.
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The original retail price of 9,280 yen<ref name="fromsite">http://www.fromsoftware.jp/main/soft/som.html</ref> came with an unfettered license for unlimited use of ''King's Field'' intellectual property. The user created games are able to be freely distributed and or ''even'' sold like any other PC game, royalty free and independent of the original Sword of Moonlight software and its minimal [[EULA]]. As a result, many fan-made games were created with the Sword of Moonlight software and distributed in Japan. In 2008, a fan translated Sword on Moonlight into English which led to a healthy following in the US as well. Several full length games have been produced in the US and many more are currently in production.
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Sword of Moonlight comes with hundreds of resources modeled on [[King's Field (series)]] lore, and also includes an advanced tool set which allows users to convert their own 3D models into proprietary Sword of Moonlight file formats. Hundreds of user-created resources are freely distributed on the Internet.
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==History==
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In Japan, Sword of Moonlight was a short lived phenomenon. Today, it is difficult to locate any prominent games produced by Japanese users on the Internet[http://www.google.co.jp/][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sword_of_Moonlight:_King%27s_Field_Making_Tool] or elsewhere. Sword of Moonlight upon release was a boxed product able to be found on store shelves in select retail outlets.<ref>www.rpgamer.com[http://www.rpgamer.com/news/Q1-2000/031400c.html] (source: [[Famitsu]])</ref> Support for Sword of Moonlight was dropped after less than a two year run due to lack of interest from fans or From Software with many serious bugs in the software never addressed by online patches.<ref>http://www.fromsoftware.jp/main/soft/som_dl.html</ref> To this day, From Software will still sell remaining units to Japanese residents by mail order.<ref name="fromsite">http://www.fromsoftware.jp/main/soft/som.html</ref>
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As a niche title even in its home region of Japan, Sword of Moonlight remained an enigma to non-Japanese collectors and enthusiasts for the larger part of the decade following its release. Being unable to establish grey import channels through friendly Japanese parties, community conscious fans began circumventing the shutout of online auction companies in Japan by use of private brokers based out of the country. The limited number of hard copies so obtained were in short order themselves copied, and shared, and translated into English.<ref>{{cite web|author=Author |url=http://agetec.yuku.com/topic/2371/ |title=Release Notice |publisher=Agetec.yuku.com |date= |accessdate=2011-04-6}}</ref> During this period, ''[[Diadem of Maunstraut]]'' emerged as the first full-featured user made Sword of Moonlight game in the ''King's Field'' mold. Diadem's author would later produce ''[[Trismegistus]]'', a puzzle game reminiscent of From Software's ''[[Echo Night]]'' series.<ref>Diadem of Maunstraut official homepage[http://www.kings-field.com/som/dom/]</ref><ref>Trismegistus official homepage[http://www.swordofmoonlight.com/Trismegistus/]</ref>
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==Present (2011-2025)==
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Unofficial open source software exists<ref>http://www.swordofmoonlight.net/</ref> which effectively eliminates all bugs from the tool chain and the games produced with Sword of Moonlight. The same software extends the tools and games in new and novel ways. For example, ensuring compatibility with modern and future Windows operating systems and display drivers. Furthermore additional apps have been developed in order to supplement features never realized by official Sword of Moonlight add-on content.
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Through the same extension mechanisms games are able to obtain modern standards in terms of graphical and professional presentation, and hardware acceleration. New games are touted to be in development on a regular basis. Related websites are putting in place infrastructure for collaborative development and resource management anticipating a new generation of games.
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 +
Sword of Moonlight has been transformed into a multilingual platform with complete Unicode internationalization including multi-font (hybrid) character sets and online facilities providing wiki-like localization.
 +
 
 +
2024 Update: [http://swordofmoonlight.itch.io/k] is a demo of a PlayStation game remaster (King's Field II) ported to Sword of Moonlight with extensions. [http://en.swordofmoonlight.org/wiki/User:Holy Its creator] wanted to complete this game project by late 2025, however he was stricken with schizophrenia in late 2022, that caused him to be sidetracked and indefinitely sidelined (slowed down) in searching for anti-psychotics for schizophrenic voices that are constant.
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==Version History==
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*[[Sword of Moonlight (2000)]] developed and published by [[From Software]] around the turn of the 21st century.
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*[http://www.swordofmoonlight.net/support/ Sword of Moonlight α (Alpha)] in constant ongoing development ever since 2010 or so. It systematically patches over the enumerable bugs and absent features striving to make Sword of Moonlight a competent and competitive, online collaborative action adventure video game authoring platform. At least one party works on it on a full-time basis. '''[https://swordofmoonlight.itch.io/k *NEW* Demo]'''
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*[[Sword of Moonlight|Sword of Moonlight β (Beta)]] to be published by [[Wiktionary:TBA|20XX]]. A future version poised to satisfy the general public.
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==References==
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{{reflist}}
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==External Links==
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*[http://www.fromsoftware.jp/pc/product/detail_93.html From Software website (formerly http://www.fromsoftware.jp/main/soft/som.html)]
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*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Truth_Glass/Sword_of_Moonlight:_King%27s_Field_Making_Tool Wikipedia]
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==Subpages==
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{{sublist|Sword of Moonlight}}<!--Featured Page-->
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{{From Software RPG games}}
  
 
[[Category:Sword of Moonlight]]
 
[[Category:Sword of Moonlight]]
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[[Category:Software]]
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[[Category:2000 video games]]
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[[Category:From Software games]]
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[[Category:Japan-exclusive video games]]

Latest revision as of 08:57, 24 July 2024

Sword of Moonlight: King's Field Making Tool
SoM-fb 1024.png
Genres First person
Action role-playing game
Game development tool
Developers From Software
Publishers From Software
Platforms Windows
First release 1.0
March 16, 2000
Latest release 1.2 (final)
April 4, 2000
Add-ons ended April 20, 2001
Official website http://www.fromsoftware.jp/pc/product/detail_93.html

Sword of Moonlight: King's Field Making Tool is a 3D first person RPG maker developed and published by From Software for the Japanese PC gaming and computing market. The software eliminates most of the technical challenges for users wishing to make a PC video game like King's Field. It also includes a remake of King's Field which doubles as a sample project. Elements of later King's Field games are not always possible to achieve, even though the resources included on the CD-ROM more closely resemble those of Shadow Tower with a little extra added detail.

The original retail price of 9,280 yen[1] came with an unfettered license for unlimited use of King's Field intellectual property. The user created games are able to be freely distributed and or even sold like any other PC game, royalty free and independent of the original Sword of Moonlight software and its minimal EULA. As a result, many fan-made games were created with the Sword of Moonlight software and distributed in Japan. In 2008, a fan translated Sword on Moonlight into English which led to a healthy following in the US as well. Several full length games have been produced in the US and many more are currently in production.

Sword of Moonlight comes with hundreds of resources modeled on King's Field (series) lore, and also includes an advanced tool set which allows users to convert their own 3D models into proprietary Sword of Moonlight file formats. Hundreds of user-created resources are freely distributed on the Internet.

History[edit]

In Japan, Sword of Moonlight was a short lived phenomenon. Today, it is difficult to locate any prominent games produced by Japanese users on the Internet[4][5] or elsewhere. Sword of Moonlight upon release was a boxed product able to be found on store shelves in select retail outlets.[2] Support for Sword of Moonlight was dropped after less than a two year run due to lack of interest from fans or From Software with many serious bugs in the software never addressed by online patches.[3] To this day, From Software will still sell remaining units to Japanese residents by mail order.[1]

As a niche title even in its home region of Japan, Sword of Moonlight remained an enigma to non-Japanese collectors and enthusiasts for the larger part of the decade following its release. Being unable to establish grey import channels through friendly Japanese parties, community conscious fans began circumventing the shutout of online auction companies in Japan by use of private brokers based out of the country. The limited number of hard copies so obtained were in short order themselves copied, and shared, and translated into English.[4] During this period, Diadem of Maunstraut emerged as the first full-featured user made Sword of Moonlight game in the King's Field mold. Diadem's author would later produce Trismegistus, a puzzle game reminiscent of From Software's Echo Night series.[5][6]

Present (2011-2025)[edit]

Unofficial open source software exists[7] which effectively eliminates all bugs from the tool chain and the games produced with Sword of Moonlight. The same software extends the tools and games in new and novel ways. For example, ensuring compatibility with modern and future Windows operating systems and display drivers. Furthermore additional apps have been developed in order to supplement features never realized by official Sword of Moonlight add-on content.

Through the same extension mechanisms games are able to obtain modern standards in terms of graphical and professional presentation, and hardware acceleration. New games are touted to be in development on a regular basis. Related websites are putting in place infrastructure for collaborative development and resource management anticipating a new generation of games.

Sword of Moonlight has been transformed into a multilingual platform with complete Unicode internationalization including multi-font (hybrid) character sets and online facilities providing wiki-like localization.

2024 Update: [6] is a demo of a PlayStation game remaster (King's Field II) ported to Sword of Moonlight with extensions. Its creator wanted to complete this game project by late 2025, however he was stricken with schizophrenia in late 2022, that caused him to be sidetracked and indefinitely sidelined (slowed down) in searching for anti-psychotics for schizophrenic voices that are constant.

Version History[edit]

  • Sword of Moonlight (2000) developed and published by From Software around the turn of the 21st century.
  • Sword of Moonlight α (Alpha) in constant ongoing development ever since 2010 or so. It systematically patches over the enumerable bugs and absent features striving to make Sword of Moonlight a competent and competitive, online collaborative action adventure video game authoring platform. At least one party works on it on a full-time basis. *NEW* Demo
  • Sword of Moonlight β (Beta) to be published by 20XX. A future version poised to satisfy the general public.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.fromsoftware.jp/main/soft/som.html
  2. ↑ www.rpgamer.com[1] (source: Famitsu)
  3. ↑ http://www.fromsoftware.jp/main/soft/som_dl.html
  4. ↑ Author. "Release Notice". Agetec.yuku.com. http://agetec.yuku.com/topic/2371/. Retrieved 2011-04-6. 
  5. ↑ Diadem of Maunstraut official homepage[2]
  6. ↑ Trismegistus official homepage[3]
  7. ↑ http://www.swordofmoonlight.net/

External Links[edit]

Subpages[edit]

v · d · eFrom Software RPG games
King's Field series
Shadow Tower series
Evergrace series
Lost Kingdoms series
Souls series
Other games
Video game software
v · d · eSword of Moonlight RPG games
King's Field series
Other games
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