Merry Christmas Eve! Santa "Claws" has prepared a special gift for all the good little bugs and girls out there; it's another big update to Armored Arachnid! This particular update mainly focuses on quality-of-life changes and side content, so there aren't any new areas to explore or bosses to fight, but there's still a lot of new features and improvements to sink your fangs into.

The standout feature of this update is the addition of a basic "leveling" system, which is something that I've wanted to incorporate into the game somehow since the beginning. By defeating enough enemies in a single run of the game, Taska will level up, permanently increasing its augment capacity point limit by 1. This mechanic is intended to go hand-in-hand with the existing augment drops from minibosses and gradually allow you to equip more and more of your spoils at a single time as you continue to progress through the game and encounter more difficult content. The maximum level for this new version is 8, but this will be increased as more content gets added to the game down the line!

The "view extras" button has finally been implemented and now guides you to an all-new achievements section! Each achievement is represented by a hexagon, and hovering over one with the cursor will make a textbox appear with some relevant information. When you complete an achievement, a unique image will appear inside of it to commemorate your accomplishment. There are 8 functioning achievements with this update, and 2 of them will unlock some fancy cosmetic options for you!

Lastly, this update is polished off with a handful of smaller touches. The augment menu has been expanded on and now features the ability to save and load your favorite builds, so it will be much easier to swap between them! I'm particularly proud of catching and fixing a dumb error with my enemy pathing algorithm (I forgot to set a few positive numbers as negative), so enemies that use pathing will be more difficult to elude than before. Lastly, the Shadowflame subweapon has received a major duration boost to counterbalance its limited range and difficulty of use (as well as to keep you warm during the winter season)!

== VERSION 1.1.1 CHANGES ==

• An "experience meter" mechanic has FINALLY been added to the game! By defeating a specific number of enemies during a single run, Taska will be able to level up and increase its augment equipping capacity! The maximum level is currently set to 8, although this will definitely be increased as more content is added to the game. If you've played a previous version of Armored Arachnid, this does mean that you'll have to level up before you can equip your augments again... Sorry!
• Because I've decided to put off implementing the scoring system until the game is closer to being finished, the previously useless score display in the gameplay UI has been repurposed and now shows the number of enemies you must defeat to ascend to the next level.
• An achievement grid has been added to the game's extras menu! At the moment, there are eight achievements to go for, but more are certainly planned for the future. You can hover your cursor over any cell to get a hint about each achievement, and when you complete the respective challenge, the cell will display a small image to commemorate your accomplishment.
• The augment interface has been revamped! A new menu displays your statistics and gives you the ability to save and load up to five of your favorite loadouts, so you won't have to manually adjust your choices every time you want to play with something different.
• All game difficulties and modes have been condensed to one button, which acts as a toggle. The text on the augment menu button has also been greatly simplified, as your stats are now displayed in the new augment menu.
• Two unlockable color palettes for Taska have been added to the options menu! The methods to find them are secret, but I will let slip that they're only obtainable on Deadly Mode... By the way, if you've noticed the third locked palette, it's currently unobtainable and will be available in a future update.
• All bosses now have different dialogue when playing on Deadly Mode.
• An issue with the pathing of obstacle-avoiding enemies that was causing them to occasionally get stuck moving back and forth along walls when attempting to move in specific directions has been fixed.
• The shadowfire subweapon's duration has been increased by 50 percent.
• The visual effect for picking up an augment is now larger and more colorful.
• The text guide that comes packaged with the game has been expanded to cover the new achievement system as well as the existing augment configuration system.