Hay guys, the EBF4 cover art is finally finished!
It was done by long time fan of the series ptolemaiosLS, who also did the crests for the Mother Earth and Absolute Zero spells.

Here’s a wallpaper pack you can download.

Here’s a walkthrough of how to transfer saved games from the web version of EBF4, to the Steam version. Any version of the game should work, but only the Kongregate version is up to date, so the rest have a tiny chance of causing problems.

Here’s the basics:

• Flash files save data in .sol files, or Flash cookies, and puts them in hard to find folders, which are different for each operating system.
• EBF4 on Steam uses .meow files to save data, and puts them in the installation folder. It will try to load .sol files if no .meow files are found.
• The save files are always called “EBF4file[1-7]”, in both .sol and .meow formats.

Here’s what to do:

1. Create a save file in the Steam version. This will create a .meow file and a temporary .sol file. This will help identify which folder is being used for .sol files.

2. You’ll need at least one empty save slot in the Steam version. If you don’t have any, you’ll have to delete some saves by going into the installation folder, and deleting some .meow files. Do this while the game is running, otherwise Steam Cloud will redownload the .meow files when you start the game.

3. Search your whole computer (including hidden folders) for files starting with “EBF4file”, and open the two folders containing the Kongregate and Steam .sol files. The folder for the Steam files should have “localhost” in the path name, while the Kongregate folder should have “assets.kongregate.com/gamez”, or something like that.

4. Move the files you want from the Kongregate folder to the Steam folder.
Rename them if you have to. Remember to only use slots that aren’t used by .meow files in the installation folder.

5. Your files should now appear in the Steam version when you try to continue a game. To convert them to .meow files, just load them, and save them.

Your achievements and options will not be transferred, btw.

I hope that all made sense!

Since the Steam release is going to have support for different resolutions, I’m replacing a lot of the bitmaps used in the game with bigger ones.
So here’s what the game looks like on the highest settings! (click for full size!)

The current filesize is 137MB, which obviously wouldn’t work for a web game.

I’ve also implemented cloud saving now.
All of your .meow files will be backed up when you exit the game, and re-downloaded when you start it (if they need to be), no matter where you are.

Also there’s a fullscreen button in battle now.

That is all for now.

After this, most of the remaining stuff just involves preparing the Steam store page.
I’ll have to update the screenshots and trailer to show off some of the new content too.

Oh yeah, I also need to implement the save game transfer.
It will probably involve moving your .sol file into a very specific folder, and giving it a specific name. The game will check for that file and convert it into a .meow file, overwriting the auto-save slot. Not very user-friendly, but I’ll post a walkthrough somewhere.

Managed to connect to Steam and unlock an achievement, yusssss!
I think that’s the hardest part out of the way now. Since I’ve got the game communicating with Steam, the rest of the features should be quite easy to add.

Also, the game works fine if you run Steam in “offline mode”. A lot of people were asking if they would need an internet connection, and you don’t, unless you want to use cloud saving.

A Kongregate user named Liddian is probably the first person to get all of the achievements in the expanded version of EBF4. So gratz to them!

I’ve never even done it without cheating, because I’ve made the last few incredibly hard and time consuming on purpose. It only took Liddian 38 hours apparently, which is a bit quicker than I would have expected.

Anyway, I’m going to have much better achievement-tracking tools on Steam than on Kongregate, so I’ll be interested to see how many people get each of the achievements!

And in case you missed it earlier: All 104 in-game achievements will be available as Steam achievements. That’s quite a lot…