In this Abstráctomon dev update video I show off the telescope & new NPC speech sounds!
The start menu looks nicer now with colored text and a little animated icon in the top-left corner.
I improved on the indoor lighting. Sunlight that shines through the windows now has the shape of the window (and things that are in front of the window). Below are some more examples from different times of the day.
On Saturday felt the urge to try to program a prototype for automatic island generation. If this works out, I could add randomized island to the game you can visit to catch more Abstráctomon.
My code scans the image and places the corresponding tiles on the map for each color.
So far, I managed to place the tiles for the beach from a tiny 32x22 pixel image. It also creates a unique island code & name that players could share with others.
Next I want to add gras, ponds and objects. We'll see how it turns out! Below are the results of two days of work on this:
Stay home & play video games!
I'm really happy how my little random island generation experiment turned out so far!
All it takes is a tiny sprite (up to 96x96 pixels) with specific colors representing things like beaches, ponds and cliffs, and a 5-letter code that defines things like
-the source image (=shape of the island) used
-if the island should be mirrored / rotated in various ways
-the biome (grassland, desert, snow...)
-the weather.
I made sure to not use actually random numbers but a fixed seed that is also generated from the Island code, so the island will look the same when you visit it again (or when it reloads after a battle).
You can see more examples below.
Please keep in mind that these screenshots are taken from my prototype and lack lighting and other stuff since I did not transfer over the code to the game project yet.
I also improved the look of frozen ponds a bit with a cool reflection. The ice sparkles even!
Other small improvements:
-footsteps have an echo in caves now
-I made a new textbox with a neat walkie-talkie design. The idea is that Herby, the helicopter pilot hands you a walkie-talkie so you can communicate with him. He will take you to the randomized islands (and bring you back, hopefully!) and you can also use the walkie-talkie to fly back to an Abstrácto-Center.
The item is in the game already, now I only have to create the conversation and some additional helicopter action!
Phew, that's all for today's post! Thanks for reading!
You can now select a skin tone of your character at the start of the game (your choice affects the appearance of your rival and parents, too).
There's now a reward for connecting star constellations with the telescope. Remember that shooting star I talked about in an earlier dev update?
Seems like it chrashes somewhere on Herringtin's beach! You can dig this mysterious item up with your shovel.
I finished the whole sequence of flying to the randomized islands called Wild Shards.
Talk to the pilot Herby on the roof of a Abstrácto-Center and he will fly you to certain locations on the map (which I redrew, by the way). If you choose the Wild Shards, you can either let Herby pick a random island for you or enter a 5 letter code to fly to a specific one.
Today I'd like to share some GIFs and new artwork of Abstráctomon with ya'll.
The first GIF shows that you can now dig up some sweet money.
The second GIF shows that you can now sort the item list by name, amount, worth and most recent! This took me almost a whole week to implement because of a some nasty bugs in my code. Oh well.
The different shops in the game have a unique menu designs now.
While debugging the item list and waiting for the project to compile, I colored in the drawings of the gym leaders which you can see below.
Stay save and thank you for reading!
New Abstráctomon Screenshots!
The first time you visit a gym you'll receive a new item called League Pass. It acts as a legal document that proofs you're a registered member of the Abstrácto-League and permits you to challenge the gym leaders.
The card's electronic chip holds your personal data and records your achievements as a trainer. The front of the card is fully customizable with photos taken within the game, borders, backgrounds and effects.
After obtaining the League Pass you can access the new "League" menu.
Here you can customize your League Pass, look at so called "Promo-Passes" you might get from other trainers, view your badge collection and see if there are any trainers you've encountered before who are ready for a rematch.
I made a fake 3D effect for turning the League Pass around. You can also choose some cool "shiny" materials for it.
There are now two ways to take photos in the game:
use the Photo App on your Dex (ask the programmer in Prof. Rich's lab!) to take a picture of the various locations you visit on your travels,
or pose in front of the Green Screen in the Pengu Pool Gym to take a photo with an transparent background.
I added the option to pose with your whole team at once (before you could only pose with up to two of them).
Hope you'll have some fun with this feature and create & share some cool League Pass designs!
I finished the League Pass Designer!
In my last post I talked about designing the front of your League Pass, today I'll can show you how!
In the "League" menu, select your name and then choose "Design" start.
Choose a background, borders and a photo taken within the game. You can freely scale and move the photo as you like or choose none at all.
Select a font and color for your name...
...and add some silly decorations for good messure.
Hmm... Somehow this isn't shiny enough.
Much better!
When your're done, hit "Save" and that's it. A copy will be save to your hard drive in the "Drawings" folder where the game is located so you can share your design with others.
I bet you can create much better League Pass designs than my example!
Lastly, I'd like to share some monster icons I made for menus and stuff. These icons are just 32x32 pixels.
Kinda tough to squeeze the big bois in there, but it's fun and I can do it on the side while waiting for the game compile when debugging.
Stay save!
I re-organized and expanded the options menu in Abstráctomon with separate pages for graphics, sound, controls and other settings.
Among the new features are optional auto-saving and setting the in-game clock to real-time (a day in the game takes 24 hours) or "fast" (a day in the game takes 24 minutes and you can fast-forward time by sitting on a chair, etc.).
The game supports the keyboard and all kinds of gamepads. Since the game has been in development for so long, it even still supports a sideways Wii Remote if you still own one (but I included single Switch Joy-Con support too to go with the times). You have to connect those via Bluetooth to your PC (It might take external software / a compatible Bluetooth dongle to do so).
I know these screenshots of menus aren't too exciting to look at, but this "quality of life" stuff is worth talking about, too!
It's now possible to select which save file you want to load or save to anytime from within the game. There are 3 slots available. You could keep a manual save and reserve another slot for auto-saving, for example. Since save files are basically text files on your hard drive, they are easy to archive and share (or edit, if you're a cheater!).
If you want to play with a real-time clock, you might want to offset it. I added an option to offset the real-time clock by -12 to +12 hours. Like any other option, the change happens immediately and there's no need to restart the game.
The only time you need to restart the game is for connecting / changing gamepads, since the game might not recognize them otherwise. I recommend connecting your gamepad before starting the game, especially if it is paired via Bluetooth. That's a limitation from the engine I'm using.
I touched up some monster sprites for Leechew, Dropchew + Wetchew. Especially Wetchew looks less like a used condom now XD
Remember the random islands I talked about a few weeks ago? I successfully ported over the prototype's island generation code into the actual game. There're still a few little bugs to iron out, but it's almost done.
You can visit these "Wild Shards" via Herby's helicopter, but as you an see you have to swim the last couple of feet...
This one is pretty small, but there might be some rare Abstráctomon to find! Right now there are 4 sizes (S, M , L and XXL) along with over a dozen different biomes to discover.
Last but not least, I'd like to show off new battle backgrounds I made. These will be used in the Tuca Forest area and islands with a autumn trees.
By the way: I'd like to thank you all for reaching 1.000 downloads of my stuff on itch.io and 10.000 views of this devlog!
Stay save !
The 5 letter island code will now be shown in the main menu next to the island's name when you're visiting the Wild Shards.
I added an animation of your Abstráctomon running away when you flee from a wild battle.
I made new sprites for tall grass and reeds in cold areas.
This is just a neat screenshot I wanted to share :)
Happy Halloween!
The Wild Shards island can now have caves! I added this feature after fixing a lot of bugs my brother and I discovered recently. Some of them had pretty strange effects like turning every item in you inventory into water bottles.
Anyway, below are some more impressions of generated islands with caves!
I finished overworld sprites for the three Starter Abstráctomon so you can see them outside battles, too. Here you can see the aftermath of you first battle against your rival!
The monster that neither of you chose stays in the lab and roams around the upper floor.
I made some cac-tiles! Sorry for the bad pun.
Caves on the Wild Shards islands now feature some atmospheric sounds.
Here are more 32x32 icons!
That's all for today!
