			A BLURRED LINE 2.1 README
				by Lysander86
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1. INTRODUCTION

Wow, it has been a long time, hasn't it? ;)

The first real demo of A BLURRED LINE was in October 2000, followed in a few months by THE LINE NARROWS in March 2001. The plan was for me to finish LINE'S END by December of that year, but, well, that didn't happen. Instead, almost two years later, I present to you ABL 2.1 - it's not LINE'S END, but I'd like to think it's the next best thing.

2. WHAT IS ABL 2.1?

This version of ABL consists of a great many tweaks, fixes, and upgrades to the section of the game that has already been released, most notably in the area of graphics, but also in terms of skill and difficulty balancing. A few areas of the original have been expanded and some scenarios have been added. ABL 2.1 also has several hours of gameplay past the end of the old demo - your results may vary, but ABL for me is now about seven or eight hours long. At the end of this version, you'll be prompted to save your game for use in LINE'S END - keep that save file; you'll be able to load it up when I release the final version of ABL and take up right where you left off!

Also, when you get alllll the way to the end - stay tuned for a short teaser trailer of some scenes from LINE'S END; consider it my thank-you present for being so patient with me during the five centuries since LINE NARROWS came out. ;)

For those of you new to ABL, I know it seems as if I put the Start position in the wrong place - but that's really where it goes; the storyline just starts right in the middle of the action, that's all. :)

3. INSTALLATION

Just create a folder in the Projects folder of your RM2K directory, name it ABL20, and unzip the contents of this zip file into it. Run the RPG_RT, and good luck with the game!

4. GLITCHES AND ERRORS

Fixes from 2.0 to 2.1:
+Wooden Club description is now correct
+After getting AG7-17, now you can reach the car again
+New fancy missile graphics!

I and my playtesters have put in a lot of time to make this as bug-free as possible, but if you do run into any glitches, let me know by email and I'll do my best to correct them for the next release! ABL 2.0 has only been made possible by all the people who mailed me with comments and bug reports for the earlier versions, so I encourage you to do so freely and often! :)

There is one bug that has become the bane of my existence: every now and then, one of the songs will go out of tune. If this happens, almost every song after that one will ALSO be out of tune - needless to say, this really takes away from some of the drama. :P  So, if that happens to you, I've found that the best thing to do is to find a savepoint, save your game, and then quit out of the program all the way. Then, load it back up and restore the save. This tends to correct the out-of-tune midi problem.



5. SPECIAL THANKS

A lot of people have contributed a lot of resources, time, and energy into helping me make ABL as good as possible. This is just a partial list, and to thank everyone would require a document much longer than this one!

So, very special thanks to:

- My lovely wife, who is perfect in all respects, not the least of which is playtesting
- Bottomline2k, for some great charsets
- Shqua, for character portraits, system graphics, enemy graphics, playtesting, and all sorts of other help
- SovanJedi, for some beautiful 3D battle backgrounds
- Wishmoo, for some excellent village and outdoor chipsets
- Fenixmirage, for a picture of Talan that lived for a long time as my desktop wallpaper
- RPG Advocate, for his excellent resource site (www.phylomortis.com)
- www.vgmusic.com, for keeping videogame music alive
- #rm2k_anime, for being such a loveable bunch of wackos
- Anyone else who submitted graphics and resources to me but who can't find them in the game yet; maybe they'll end up in LINE'S END :)
- Anyone else I should have mentioned but haven't - boy, is my face red!
- And finally, everyone who played the earlier versions of ABL or my other rm2k game, THE BOOK OF THREE.

Thanks!

6. THE FUTURE, CONAN?

I probably shouldn't set a release date for LINE'S END, given how long it's taken me to get this demo out... but I'm going to aim for next winter. We'll see what happens; since we're at about the 75% mark for being all the way through ABL, that might be feasible... of course, it might not. ;)

Be sure to let me know what you think, at lysander86@hotmail.com!

Until next time,

Lys