Update #19 - Performance

*Also applies to the Abalon Demo

Hi Abalon Fans -

With great appreciation for your numerous reports and feedback, I am proud to release this next update that addresses several of the performance and memory usage concerns. With a game as large and complex as Abalon, this is no easy feat - especially when each unique PC system configuration can manage memory and alter the experience in different ways.

Thanks largely to your reports, profiling, and a lot of time spent with my son recording play sessions and capturing data, we finally uncovered what we believe was the "major" lag build up issue and were able to fix it. Additionally, we identified and resolved several smaller instances of memory leaks, tuned and optimized to improve overall performance and even reduced overall application memory usage by around 40%. In total, we completed over 40 investigations and optimizations over the last two weeks. I had considered including the details of the fixes in our update, but I didn't think too many folks would be interested in scrolling through 10 pages of tech speak :P - so please just take my word that a LOT of work went into this update ;)

All hands on deck! I hosted a family LAN party on Sunday to help me find and fix the remaining bugs before we rolled out this update.

Of course, there is always still room for improvement, and to that end I've added an additional reporting feature to help us narrow in on any future performance related issues. By simply including the word "lag" in your in-game feedback report, the game will automatically capture a report of the game object usage (ex: number of characters on the board, number of listeners active, etc.) so that I better track down and eliminate any further leaks.

1. Performance: Vastly improved game performance by eliminating several memory leaks and optimizing memory usage.
   
2. Performance: Still experiencing lag? Simply submit an in-game report with "Share Feedback" from the main menu and include the word "lag" anywhere in your description to send us additional resource data to help get it fixed.
   
3. Satchel Card Control Improvement: The satchel card controls remain in tactical mode until the player clicks to move a character. This makes it much easier to play multiple satchel cards in rapid succession.
   
4. French Translations Updated several more of the English text into French.
   
5. Fixed Bug: where units could remain lingering on the battlefield if player skips just after defeating a summoner and just as the units start running away. (Thanks Wesley)
   
6. Fixed Bug: where the end turn gets stuck in disabled state if player opens the settings menu while the battle is starting. (Thanks Wesley)
   
7. Fixed Bug: where two phoenix spells cast in a row could throw exception Error: Clock cycle error: TypeError: Error #1009 at view.ui::HM_CardShower/showCard() (Most commonly found during the Red Dragon boss battle). (Thanks Meeky and many others!)
   
8. Fixed Bug: where the mana bar fill could sometimes appear slightly over the mana bar area.
   
9. Fixed Bug: where it was possible to walk diagonally through ice cubes and brambles.
   
10. Fixed Bug: where player's party was truncated after taking secret stairs to demon kennels.
    
11. Fixed Bug: where exception is thrown on Armature/_doAction in low frame rate situations where an armature is disposed because the child armature has been disposed but the clock hasn't yet finished running through current list.
    
12. Fixed Bug: When hovering over a card in collection, exiting collection, and then returning, the enlarged card remained on screen.
    
13. Fixed Bug: where the map, satchel and run score were visible when initiating a retreat prompt that required dice roll.
    
14. Fixed Bug: where resizing the window while in card collection would result in a black screen. Made it so that if player resizes in any screen but the main game view, it returns to the main game view upon completion of window resize.
    
15. Fixed Bug: Settings button should never be blocked by scrim

We're looking for a team of heroes from the community to help us translate the game in your native languages for the 1.0 release. Already, I have one such player to whom I am so grateful: Scribe, who has very generously provided our French translation. As a special thanks for his support, I'll be immortalizing him in the world of Abalon as a playable character in our next update.

The Herald of Hope is one of several new angel units that will perform a "miracle" when entering the battlefield when your Summoner is at critical health to help you turn the game back around in your favor.

If you'd like to volunteer to help translate the game in your native language, please reach out to me on Discord (details below) and I will get you setup with our localization kit.

[h2]Join the Discussion:[/h2]
- Steam discussion board: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1681840/discussions/
- Discord: https://discord.gg/d20studios (RossD20Studios#2359)