Fans of the tower defense genre and players of Hordes of Orcs should know that Freeverse has rolled out update 1.1.3 to assist in defending their village from the Orcs. This doesn't mean that the game is getting any easier. On the contrary, A.I. has also been tweaked up with new levels.

Hordes of Orcs is a "Tower Defense" game in which you must build walls and towers to defend your village from the Orcs. 1.1.3 brings three new Maze Defense maps (Swirl, Back and Forth and Chip!) and an improved main menu interface. Resolved issues and improvements include various graphical and bug fixes, fixed Shiny! map, walls are slightly larger so they don’t look tiny compared to the Orcs when zoomed in, while the auto-launch of new waves doesn’t "stop" randomly anymore.

The game should also pull balance changes from the +7systems Balance Engine as soon as the patch is installed. As mentioned above, Orcs are now smarter. Especially when navigating maps at high speeds.

The +7systems Balance Engine, which has quietly been building anticipation in the gaming industry, has been chosen by MrJoy, Inc. for the tower defense game. Using the only automated approach to game balance in the industry, Hordes of Orcs provides the proof-of-concept that many in the industry have been waiting for.

"With thousands of players participating at any given time, it is inevitable that gamers will find optimal strategies to beat the game, eventually outsmarting the designers. This, in turn, leads to player boredom and frustration. Our system is designed to do away with nerfing and increase player enjoyment, while freeing up game designers to focus on creative game design instead of time-consuming manual balancing," says Nathaniel Bogan, R&D Director and Co-founder. "I am excited to have MrJoy as a customer and the game Hordes of Orcs as our first proving ground for this revolutionary and efficient new technology."

Hordes of Orcs 1.1.3 is free to registered users, and costs US$24.95 for new users.

Be sure to also check out the dozens of available Mac game demos from Freeverse by visiting this address.