I have an update on things that have been going on in the code project, which will give you an idea of what is coming in the next Windows release. Detailed changes can be found in
this page.
The changes that have been made are mostly improvements to the stability of the game. A number of crash bugs have been fixed, most notably the digging-while-hungry bug, which has been lurking within even vanilla IVAN (0.50) for around for 12+ years by our best estimates. Wizardmode saves should also load reliably in the next release. The wand of polymorph breaking bug has also been fixed.
For devs and some players, you will notice a change to the graphical file format. This is quite a big change, and the solution has been very generously implemented by our very own Zenith. These have been changed from Picture Exchange (PCX) format to Portable Network Graphics (PNG). This was done so that changes to the graphics from contributors can be diffed and visually compared from within the github pages. It makes it easier to keep track of the graphical file history as well. Graphics developers should take note of the format changes and adjust their workflow accordingly. Hopefully it also speeds up the process of cooking up new graphics.
Players will not be able to notice any visual difference to their IVAN experience.
There will also be the option to scale the graphics by 2x in the next release.
Unless someone else jumps ahead and does a release (most welcome), the next Windows release is planned for the end of feApril or the beginning of feMay. IVAN 0.51 will thus be due out at the end of June. The prospect of IVAN 0.51 being a stable release is looking very good at this stage.