Reverse Engineering

Like the title I and a few other want to duplicate the engine of FFXII and make our own game. The thing is we have scowered through sourceforge and have turned up nothing on a possible engine that would be like or near to FFXII. Does anyone know what engine they used or any projects that came out that tried reverse engineering the game?

Like all FF games, FFXII was developed with it’s own unique game engine (one that went through much alteration during the four-odd years it was in development). Originally, FFXII was planned to be a MMO like FFXI (in fact, when FFXII was first announced with FFX and XI in 2000, Square stated that all FF games following FFXI would be online-capable). However, when Hironobu Sakaguichi left Square in 2003, FFXII’s development went in a different direction. The online functionality was scrapped in favour of a single-player game set in the Ivalice universe first visited in FF Tactics. However, some hints of it’s original concept remained in the final game, most notably the MMO-like GUI and battle system.

As for reverse-engineering it’s game engine, I’m pretty sure that is technically against the law (especially if you plan on releasing the game you want to develop from it and selling it), however, if it’s for your own enjoyment, then it should be okay. I haven’t heard of any modding community for the game though, but that wouldn’t surprise me if there is one around.

As a first step, try the Qhimm forums at Qhimm.com Forums – Index (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php) (although they’re specifically a FFVII/VIII PC modding community, they do seem to feature mods for other FF games there as well so you might turn up something.).