AVWW Beta 0.541, "Plasma Bolt," Released!

This one has some pretty major internal changes in terms of how the AI functions for the monsters in the game.  I'm not completely done with those upgrades yet, but already the AI has some cool new capabilities.  For one thing, enemies can now change behaviors as their level gets higher.  So, for instance, now icicle leapers start actually chasing you once they hit level 5, but not before.

The insect orb scroll was also ridiculously overpowered in the prior versions, and has been scaled back quite substantially.  It's still a really solid spell, especially against masses of enemies or really large enemies (more of the bugs hit larger enemies, doing more damage than they would to a smaller enemy -- also true of circle of fire and ice cross, by the way).

There's also a cool new plasma bolt spell suggested by KDR_11k.  Finally there's  a cheaper light-element offensive spell, like fireball or forest rage or similar in some of the other elements.  This one has its own slightly different flavor as well, but most importantly it gives you more options when you run into a boss that is weak against light but not much else.

There's some other bugfixes in here as well, yet more multiplayer internal progress, and... a new enemy in the lava flats.  I won't say what it is, but I think it has to be my favorite enemy so far.  I intend to do more enemies with... the general theme of this enemy.  It also has some of the more interesting AI behaviors, at least to me; it took a while to get that tuned right, but now I can reuse that general code in other enemies to make even more complex behaviors.

The next release is likely going to be an unusual stretch from now -- probably we're looking at Monday the 14th, so half a week from now.  I'm going to be out of the office until then with some personal stuff, but I'll be back and raring to go on Monday.  When I get back, one of the things I really want to work on, aside from yet more spells and scrolls, is increasingly complex and interesting enemies.  But for now I think there's a great amount of recent new stuff to experiment with, anyhow.  Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.