Monworks 2.5 — the community release: servers, ladders, and trades that wait for you (July 2026)
2.5 is the release where Monworks games meet online — yours included. Everything below works for any game built with the toolkit, and none of it phones home: a server is something you run.
- Run a server, join a server. A lobby server is a headless mode of the same engine you play with. It checks every arriving copy byte-for-byte at the door, introduces matches, and relays traffic (without reading it) when two routers won't cooperate. Players get an ONLINE option at the Cable Club; connection blips mid-battle reconnect and resume on their own — even through the relay.
- Cheating can't win. On a verified server both games submit a compact replay after every match. Agreement records instantly; disagreement makes the server replay the battle itself — the story matching its own claims stands, the other is voided and struck. Illegal moves are refused live, by name. The worst tampering achieves is a void.
- Ladders and formats. Plain Elo over verified results, in a file anyone can read. Operators author formats — level caps, species clause, party size, and in-battle clauses (sleep, freeze, evasion, OHKO) both games agree on before turn one.
- The trade board. Post a monster and what you want for it; claim a listing while its owner sleeps. When you're both online, both get the call and walk into the ordinary Trade Center ceremony. The listing dies the instant the trade completes — and the server never holds a monster.
- For builders: the build is now plain Python — the same commands on Windows, Linux, and macOS. PowerShell is no longer required.
Under it all: battles reproduce byte-identically across Windows, Linux, and macOS, gated in CI. Fair online play you can check, not just trust.
As ever: the toolkit is MIT, the samples CC0, and extracted Kanto content stays personal-use on your own machine.