I did a live stream on my Twitch channel where I played a new build of Abstráctomon in Error Ware 2. 

You can watch the recording above!

I fixed the bugs I encountered during the stream already.  If you don't have time to watch the full video, here's a quick overview of recently added features:

• Buildings that you can enter
• the "Abstrácto-Center", where you can let a nurse heal your team and access the "A.S.S"
• The "A.S.S.", short for "Abstráctomon Storage System", where you can manage all your caught monsters. You can store them in up to 5 boxes with 25 spaces each (may be more in the future), watch their stats or delete them if you don't have a heart.
• Humans look like humans now
• You can swim now, simply by entering water as long as you own swimming trunks / a bikini. 
• Improved in game map

New Abstráctomon screenshots!

In the last two weeks, I made some more battle backgrounds + transitions, some new NPC sprites, improved the player's walking animations, added a lake you can swim in... and added a shop called "Monpoint". 

How about exploring the new area I've added to the test map?

Time for another Abstráctomon screenshot update!

I'm working on a "Abstrácto-Dex" for the Error Ware 2 homepage. You can view the first couple of entries already, including two never before seen monsters! https://errorware.jimdo.com/errorboygames/abstr%C3%A1ctomon-venom-violet-version... 

Cool video

Time for another screenshot update!

Small improvements

This will be quite the long post, so I hope you have fun reading it!

This month I took a little break from  Abstráctomon after I finished the first dungeon "Atoneel Tunnel" (which I had to remake 3 times because GameMaker crashed on me) and focused on improving the main parts of Error Ware 2.

Memory loss

I went through all the big assets (sprites, background images, sounds) that were still loaded into the project and made them load from the harddrive instead (I also reduced colors on some backgrounds were you wouldn't notice). Overall this reduced the project file's size by 12 MB, which may not sounds like alot but the effects in the game are really noticable.

Not having large backgrounds and sprites loaded into memory at all times improved the framerate and load times quite a bit!

Typo

Then I went on to improve the onscreen keyboard that appears when you are able to enter your name. 

Before, it was using a regular Windows font  to display the letters, but that could be an issue if the user doesn't have the font installed on their machine. Now it's using sprites in the colorful Error Ware 2 style instead.  The buttons also didn't scale up from the center but from the upper-left corner, so I fixed that, too.

Variety

I added some shadows for menu buttons here and there, and then went ahead and added some more variety to existing micro games...

...and even made two new ones in the process.

This week, I'm working on an idea I had to make the "Party Mode" even more hilarious and challenging: The "Crazy Mode".

Even if you've mastered all the micro games you can now ramp up the difficulty! The Crazy Mode will add random effects to the games to confuse you like turning the game upside down, make you having to lose the game (remember this from the first Error Ware?) or mess with the time limit or... I came up with about 20 effects so far!

You can always comment and ask questions about the game. These small improvements really feel good to make. 

As a little bonus, here are the latest screenshots from Abstráctomon, because why not :) 

Here's a video of the new "Crazy Mode" I talked about last time!

Here's more gameplay footage of the new "crazy" difficulty in Error Ware 2's local multiplayer!

18 different effects are now implemented. One of my favorites is the "ERROR" effect, which makes the game glitch out badly I made this one today, actually!

You can now sit on benches, chairs or couches to let time pass by faster in Abstráctomon.

Here's a quick rundown of things I worked on in the past weeks:

• New Abstrácto-Ball animations made with Blender including the new "Dark" (better chance of success at night and in dark places) and "Net" Ball (good for catching Bug- and Water-type Abstráctomon).

• "Darkness" weather effect in battle (increases strength of Dark- and Ghost-type moves and lowers the speed of any non-Dark/Ghost Abstráctomon
• A move that can change the weather to "Darkness" in battle
• New eye blinking frames when looking left & right while standing and sitting (before the player character would only blink when looking down)
• Fixed some bugs involving battle music and leveling up
• The ball type you catch an Abstráctomon with now gets saved and is shown when you call an Abstráctomon or heal them in the Abstrácto-Center. Enemies can use different balls, too.
• Fixed some issue with NPC placing after a battle
• Improved the framerate when looking at the Trainer Guide
• Added information about weather to the Trainer Guide (still have translate that into French though)
• Improved the Atoneel-Tunnel map a bit, you can now find a few items
• You can now use ladders with a smooth climbing animation
• Fixed an issue where the Error Ware 2 logo did not play sounds sometimes

I need to replicate a bug  I encountered once where my Abstráctomon leveled up two levels at once and the game kinda softlocked after the level up jingle... 

When I fixed that and did some more test playing I can finally release a new Version of the EW2 demo with a bit of Abstráctomon included, to make the "2017" of the last trailer not a lie... Man time flies!

Sorry that it takes me so long to make this dang game!

Happy holidays everybody!

I'm glad that I am able to squeeze out another Abstráctomon screenshot update before I'm visiting my family.

So here it is:

To make the wait for the full version of Error Ware 2 easier, I decided to bring its precursor to itch.io!

Check out Error Ware here!

Error Ware was originally released in October 2012 for Windows. Prepare for crude graphics and midi music :) But it's a full game and it's free, so enjoy!

Time for another update for Abstráctomon!

But first I want to say thank you so much for 300 downloads of my games and well over 3000 views of this devlog! 

Did you know that you can rate games & write reviews on itch.io? I'd love to hear your feedback!

But now the latest news in Abstráctomon development:

• Improved text boxes are now able to show the name of the talking character and can highlight important words
• You can now rename monsters currently in your team anytime when accessing the A.S.S. (Abstráctomon Storage System)
• You can now unlock a new item that lets you access the A.S.S. from anywhere
• Reworked collision for the player & NPCs
• The introduction sequence in the Professor's lab is almost done, including the first battle against you rival (see video below!)
• The lab looks a bit more like lab (but still not final)
• The Exp. bar now changes to orange when full
• Savegame previews now show money as well
• Various other bugfixes

My internet connection is terrible this week (thanks for nothing, Vodaphone!), but I managed to upload a new video to YouTube!

Enjoy!

Hi there!

Here are some neat little things I added to Abstráctomon:

Other things I improved on:

• I finally figured out why I had some seemingly random audio issues with the Caster dll I use to load .ogg files into GameMaker8.1. Turns out you can't have numbers in the variable names assigned to the loaded files. Basically I named them Song1, Song2, etc. but caster treated everyone as "Song", so changes to Song 2 affected Song1 as well and so on. Anyway, it is fixed now!
• The scores at the results screen of "Turbo Taxi" mode are now displayed in the correct order (highest at the top)
• Made the final level of the microgame "Helicopter" easier
• Fixed a bug in the "Draw something" microgame where the brush would turn invisible some times
•  Added the new microgame "Sound TripZ"
• In Abstráctomon, you can now change direction when sitting on a chair or stool. Maybe I'll use this feature in a chair maze?

That's all I can think of right now. Overall many small improvements! The game feels quite stable now.  As I said before, the new demo is coming soon ™

Just a small screenshot update today. Enjoy!

Oh, and I added a few new songs I made for Abstráctomon to the soundtrack preview on the game's GameJolt page. 

I'm not sure if they will make it into the game, give them a listen and tell me what you think!

A quick Abstráctomon Screenshot Update!

That's all for today!

Edit: I made a short video of the new trees in action!