Shattered Light

[Narushima]

OK, that's not the Fracas I was talking about. This one was made by Jason Merlo, it's completely unrelated.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ah... ok.

 

[Red Aviator]

Hey! Dropped by to say Happy Holidays and thanks for helping preserve this wonderful piece of media. Hope all is well in your quadrant, good sir. Let me know if I can help with anything similar in the future.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Pretty good. I got a color printer to test pdfs.

 

[Grondan]

Good day to everyone. I'm shocked that i find a thread about Shattered Light. I have kept this game's setup from Ensign Games site since 2002. But i lost original CD. This game had a great potential. Play ok with virtual XP not very smooth.

 

[Grondan]

It took me all day in storage but i finally found the box, then printed manual (i believe its a pdf), and the the slipcase with the disc. Found a copy too.

I'm waiting for the mail to send me the second book. Tomorrow i'll make an iso and put it up for DL. I wish the patch was a downloadable. Hope someone can find that. There is a mini manual i need to scan that comes with the disk.

Wow... I know these book but never saw in real. I envy you sir.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I still remember the ads in dragon magazine and one day at the mall PC shop it was on display. SNAGGED! Ah, back when malls weren't too bad. I haven't been to a mall in 10 years or more.

 

[Grondan]

In 1999 There was a great earthquake in my city. There was no malls left. 2 years later my dad bought me my first pc when i was 13. After two days i saw it at the little shop. It was near to the Star Craft. I took Star Craft but then i came back and took Shattered Light too with my last money. I ran to my home with lightning speed for gaming. I miss that excitement.

 

[Grondan]

Here is the 226 demo with spellfix.

https://www.dosyaupload.com/cxuO/shatteredlight.zip

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ah cool. Thanks.

 

[Grondan]

Ah cool. Thanks.

Hello sir. How can i find Shattered Light books. I cannot find them anywhere. Thanks.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Let's see. You can try here:

1. Ruby Flames
2. Dark Light
3. Catseye

There might be other places like ebay. Seems just typing Shattered light novels gets you odd results.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Shattered Light Review -- GAMESPOT
A good adventure can overcome shoddy graphics or a clunky interface with an imaginative plot and interesting gameplay. Shattered Light, unfortunately, has neither.

By Erik Wolpaw on May 1, 2000 at 8:24PM PDT

• • Leave Blank

A better name for Catware's role-playing game Shattered Light would be Diablo Lite. What has been removed from Blizzard's now-classic dungeon romp? Three things: a polished interface, attractive graphics, and fun.

Shattered Light is essentially an RPG adventure builder with a sample quest included. The packaged campaign tells the story of Delos, a world "not unlike our own" until someone rather stupidly tries to "capture the primal power of the universe." The upshot of this quite frankly insane attempt to "capture the primal power of the universe" is that Delos becomes less like our world and more like Middle Earth. Some inhabitants become much more magical, while others become one of over a hundred monsters such as dragons and unicorns. As a result of all the newfound fantastical wizardry, medieval weapon stores are opened, dungeons are constructed, and many people lose things then offer rewards for their retrieval. You are cast as the hero of Delos. Your duties include wandering all over the place and finding the ten gem shards needed to access the dungeon containing the Final Boss Monster of Delos, the Laria.

As in any standard RPG, you must first create a character. Shattered Light includes eight character types covering all the basics, with spell casters, fighters, and various combinations of the two. The character creation screen is where you'll get your first sense that you may not have purchased a triple-A title. Of the eight choices, three have the exact same palette-swapped portraits. A small detail perhaps, but indicative of Shattered Light's generic, bargain-bin atmosphere.

The game itself, like Diablo, plays out in real time across maps rendered in isometric perspective. The graphics are tile based, rather washed out, and not particularly mood setting or otherwise interesting. The interface is presented as a series of desktop windows. The main playfield, inventory, spell list, etc. are all separate, often overlapping, screens. Performing a standard operation, such as removing an active inventory item and replacing it with another, often involves opening up several windows and manually dragging them into viewable position. This is a tedious drill at best, and, when attempted during a time-critical situation such as combat, effectively sucks the fun right out of Shattered Light.

A good adventure can overcome shoddy graphics or a clunky interface with an imaginative plot and interesting gameplay. Shattered Light, unfortunately, has neither. For a game that advertises quests written by such noted fantasy authors as Robert Silverberg, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and P.N. Elrod, Shattered Light has virtually no task more elaborate than listening to an NPC describe his lost treasure, then fetching it for him. There is no sense of an evolving story composed of a complex chain of actions and reactions. The only thing leading you to believe that multiple authors may have written the plot is the inconsistent way in which NPCs address you. Some speak directly to you, while others have their actions narrated in the third person, perhaps by famous fantasy author Jody Lynn Nye - who knows?

Gamers excited by the possibility of creating their own adventures with Shattered Light's world builder will be disappointed. Although every map, monster, item, spell, and NPC can be redefined, graphics must be selected from the stock images provided with the game, and the basic goal of finding the ten gem shards cannot be altered. More importantly, no scripting language is included, severely limiting the storytelling possibilities. While the ability to tweak the stats of every game item might give the illusion of creative power, the core quest activity of item retrieval is immutable. This inability to script sophisticated event sequences outside of the standard quest structure leads inevitably to frustration for anyone hoping to create compelling scenarios.

The provided editing tools are also subpar. Editing screens contain lists of hundreds of items each with ten or more separate attributes, yet they cannot be sorted or searched through, making managing them needlessly cumbersome. In other places, previously defined items must be linked to other items by manually typing their cryptic identifier tags, rather than simply picking them from a list. These are just two of many examples of the editor's overall lack of polish - excusable when the tool is included as a bonus, but not when it is a game's central feature.

Shattered Light includes a server application that allows user-created scenarios to be experienced by up to eight people simultaneously over the Internet. The host can act as a sort of dungeon master, altering some statistics on the fly. Mutiplayer works as advertised and is stable, but the rewards of playing the game are so meager as to make this fact all but irrelevant.

In the early '90s, SSI released an RPG builder called Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures. It secured a cult following and, although out of print, retains a community of quest creators to this day. To anyone who fondly remembers that game and hopes some developer will bring its robust scripting capabilities into the realm of Internet multiplayer gaming: With the release of Shattered Light, your wait continues.

I don't recall what those pics I linked were. Dead links now. Grrrr..

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Maybe I covered this possible hex exit:

Hex Cheat​

In the dir CHARACTERS is file *.dat (name begining with user name).
So, this is the file we want to modify.
And here are offset locations for most usefull values (all in HEX):
1D Body Points
21 Mana
25 Strength
29 Concentration
2D Dexterity
31 Acc
35 Defense
39 Willpower
3D Number of Spells
You can change skills but they must be there first. In game distribute 1 point for each skill then edit them in the file. Skill offsets start from A2, then AA, B2 .... in 8 byte records.
Safe value for character stats is 100 (this is enough for start) and about 150 for skills.

 

[Grondan]

Maybe I covered this possible hex exit:

Hex Cheat​

In the dir CHARACTERS is file *.dat (name begining with user name).
So, this is the file we want to modify.
And here are offset locations for most usefull values (all in HEX):
1D Body Points
21 Mana
25 Strength
29 Concentration
2D Dexterity
31 Acc
35 Defense
39 Willpower
3D Number of Spells
You can change skills but they must be there first. In game distribute 1 point for each skill then edit them in the file. Skill offsets start from A2, then AA, B2 .... in 8 byte records.
Safe value for character stats is 100 (this is enough for start) and about 150 for skills.

There was a bug in this game's latest version. Older versions are OK. Distribute skills (but not all of them) and don't close skill window then click again to Cross (skills button). And yes... Free skill points again. You can do this forever

 

[Grondan]

Without Cheat, You must give all your skill points to Concentration at first. Otherwise your char always miss.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Yeah, game was definitely buggy. Damn pity it didn't get more support. I should reinstall it on my winxp laptop. I need to reprint the manual in full color. That old dotmatrix readout I have it horrible.

Good god! Infinite skill points.

 

[Grondan]

I wish I have enough knowledge for remaking this game I should buy an old XP laptop. I am playing on virtual XP and its not smooth.

Oh full color manual.... Cool...

 

[OldNice]

Hi all,

This is one of the few Shattered Light threads online with any substance, so I'll add to it.

I've recently been trying to replay this game, but the original Catware release of the game seems to have at least one location in the game which always crashes (Map S2->Darkling caves). I wouldn't be surprised if there were more. So I'm wondering if anyone has any patches or later releases of this game available? The 226 demo release linked in this thread has also died.

None of the download links in archive.org work (apart from the spell crash bug fix, which is already mentioned on this thread), and the "Shattered Light Online" available via GamersHell sure doesn't exist anymore.

I used to partake in a few discussions on the EnsignGames forums, when it still existed in the early 2000's. As far as I remember, Shattered Light Online was nothing more than an updated version of the original Shattered Light game, with the original campaign replaced with a more generic one. It might've had a support for larger player count (hence the name "Online") along with some minor updates, but I remember it playing very much like the original client. I remember seeing one of the developers online a lot as well, on the forums and in-game (David Potter possibly?), so I'm assuming the whole game was always a sort of passion project to the original developer(s), with big dreams backing the work.

As a kid I couldn't find the retail version of Shattered Light anywhere (online purchases were not an option at the time, and we probably didn't even have an internet), and was bummed out that the Shattered Light Online version didn't include the original campaign. Used to play the demo a lot, as a kid, and got to play the full original campaign only a few years ago. The game and the original campaign have obviously aged like fine milk, but there's a lot of interesting history in this game, at least for me personally. I remember reading through a few store catalogues in game magazines, with my father, checking if they had Shattered Light available, which they never did. I still remember being exited and heartbroken seeing they only had "SHATTERED.... Steel" available for purchase, every time.

I'd be interested to try out the original campaign with the "Online" SL version: it might work a bit better, assuming the bugs and crashes aren't baked into the original map files. I might have to work around the "activation" scheme that the online version had, seeing as they haven't sold the online client in a decade or more, but I doubt It'd be a major obstacle.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I wasn't aware of online clients but it makes sense. Yeah, finding patches and fixes is a pain. I don't recall what patch (if any) I applied or if it worked. I do have an older laptop I should install it on.

There a few ebay sales

Ebay1
Ebay2
Ebay3 $499 uh it ain't worth that
Ebay4
Ebay5

It will take an enthusiast to set up a fan site to this game. I remember seeing the ads one time in Dragon Magazine and when I saw it at my local mall I snagged it because I had a construction set.

 

[Grondan]

Hi all,

This is one of the few Shattered Light threads online with any substance, so I'll add to it.

I've recently been trying to replay this game, but the original Catware release of the game seems to have at least one location in the game which always crashes (Map S2->Darkling caves). I wouldn't be surprised if there were more. So I'm wondering if anyone has any patches or later releases of this game available? The 226 demo release linked in this thread has also died.

None of the download links in archive.org work (apart from the spell crash bug fix, which is already mentioned on this thread), and the "Shattered Light Online" available via GamersHell sure doesn't exist anymore.

I used to partake in a few discussions on the EnsignGames forums, when it still existed in the early 2000's. As far as I remember, Shattered Light Online was nothing more than an updated version of the original Shattered Light game, with the original campaign replaced with a more generic one. It might've had a support for larger player count (hence the name "Online") along with some minor updates, but I remember it playing very much like the original client. I remember seeing one of the developers online a lot as well, on the forums and in-game (David Potter possibly?), so I'm assuming the whole game was always a sort of passion project to the original developer(s), with big dreams backing the work.

As a kid I couldn't find the retail version of Shattered Light anywhere (online purchases were not an option at the time, and we probably didn't even have an internet), and was bummed out that the Shattered Light Online version didn't include the original campaign. Used to play the demo a lot, as a kid, and got to play the full original campaign only a few years ago. The game and the original campaign have obviously aged like fine milk, but there's a lot of interesting history in this game, at least for me personally. I remember reading through a few store catalogues in game magazines, with my father, checking if they had Shattered Light available, which they never did. I still remember being exited and heartbroken seeing they only had "SHATTERED.... Steel" available for purchase, every time.

I'd be interested to try out the original campaign with the "Online" SL version: it might work a bit better, assuming the bugs and crashes aren't baked into the original map files. I might have to work around the "activation" scheme that the online version had, seeing as they haven't sold the online client in a decade or more, but I doubt It'd be a major obstacle.

I have two full version of the game with patch in my achive. One of them is less buggy. I keep them in 3 different HDD. I will share them for you.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

That'd be cool. Damn shame even STEAM hasn't picked this up for multi-play online and maybe people would build. But heck, I say that about Stuart Smith's Adventure Construction Set.