It has been an extremely busy 30 days here. As we are getting to the finish line and finding we know precisely what to do to make Endless Dark the best game it can be, that is spurring a huge burst of creativity that is all going into the game. There's a ton to go over, so let's take it at the heading level. That'll hopefully keep it together better.

Usability

We've gone through a lot of trouble this patch to make the game generally easier to look at and work with. Firstly, there's the task list. In builds past, every leak, every door, every almost-identical task would generate its own entry on the list, which could make for quite a teetering list, very quickly. Now, tasks will be fairly aggressively grouped up, like so:
You can still end up with a staggering list pretty fast, but you will no longer have a list shooting off the bottom of the screen because you slept on some leaks. The weather list has also seen a couple huge upgrades:
In addition to the symbols simply being made larger, we have designed and are now using unicons that distinctly identify each hazard. No longer will you have to remember which color is which; a cloud is always dust, a magnet is always EMP, a rad marker is always a radiation belt, and a black hole is always a grav zone. This also moves the weather markers away from the bottom ribbon. Hey, while we're on the topic, let's talk about that bottom ribbon!
The bottom ribbon is now only for systems, and they are always displayed. Highlighting them still pulls up a summary of their status, even if that status is simply "on". The usual accessibility-tested color palate is in use for various states, be it damaged, glitched, disabled, or more. Also, as you likely already noticed, some of the systems also got their own unicons! The default unicons we've had for a long time have always been a little confusing, so we went back and designed our own for the systems where that was important. Navigation now looks like a compass, shields now looks like a shield, and observation, surprise surprise, appears to be an eye! The UI's fidelity got a giant upgrade from these changes, and we're really happy to have them. Toasts have also gotten a huge upgrade. They were always nice to have, but sometimes, it would give you an alert without a clear idea as to why something happened. Now, toasts will report a reason in close to every case.
This is especially useful when you are seeing you badly-needed overclocks sputter out, and don't understand why. It's helpful to see if it's something you could have avoided with Memories or not. And hey, what's that last thing we have always made a big deal, but never actually shown you? That's right, the power supply.
Snuggled up next to the bot UI is a power bar, showing you exactly how much power you are generating, how it is being used, and how much you have in reserve. You can also select it to get a full report!
But is that all, no wait, there's more! You know those Decaying Ship faults that act as spoilers for your run? Wouldn't it be cool if you could see them coming?
Now you can. You can even cancel them. Though not without cost:
But we'll get into the specifics of that when we start talking about Doability. The final Usability note is one everyone can get behind: Pure, raw, frames. We did a lot of tightening up on the game over the last month, and the collective performance increase has been A full 100% over our last release per our benchmarks, even with the other upgrades we've put in. We have also massively improved the way the game handles garbage collection, so the occasional stutters that sometimes happened when the game was cleaning itself up have been almost completely eliminated. If you were having any trouble at all running the game, please try again. We've worked really hard to get you a lot of extra frames.

Viewability

In addition to everything above, the game has gotten the first wave of the art facelift we promised in our road to 1.0 post. There is the usual outlay of upgraded doodads, floors, and a few walls. Most notably, though, consoles have been redone to fit the rest of the art. They also now incorporate the new sigils to make their screen match up with the system tray:
Oh, and also, they have some particle effects when you smash 'em up:
Consoles also have alternate screens for when they have alternate effects on them, that they will cycle between. So you will now be able to tell, by looking at a console, if it is Glitched, Disabled, Locked, or Hardened. Hardened? Well, we'll get to that with Doability. Speaking of particle effects, we've added a fair number of them to the game. Certain leaks, in particular, will now kick off stanky fumes that obscure the screen and force you to go digging for the source:
The title screen also got a bit of an upgrade - nothing major, but enough to show you that it's doing something when you load. A few people have said that the stillness unnerves them, so now, the title will print itself out and keep a flashing cursor going.
It also persistently answers the question of what we made the game with. :D Much more is scheduled for prettying the game up as we march to 1.0, but you can get a good look at where our plans are with the new update.

Doability

All this is great, but this game is fundamentally about doing things. About interacting and working. What can you actually DO in this new update? Well... a lot, and it mostly works into things you already know. First, everyone's favorite, psychosis tasks. More of the insane tasks that show up in your list can now properly be completed. Swap places with a passenger? Turn a pod into an aquarium? Huff xenon fumes? Sure, why not, we'll do that! Wait, xenon fumes?
The individual thrusters in the engine bay can now both malfunction, and be sabotaged. Each busted thruster reduces your speed by 5% - so a few thrusters are probably ignorable for some turns, but a lot of them on the fritz is crippling. This is a new minor repair that can happen instead of leaks, breaker surges, etc. And also:
It's an opportunity to get high. Or try to. Robots don't actually breathe, silly. Have you checked your neural net recently? Next up, the Custodians' personalities now matter when you are making event choices. The loose descriptors in the bot selection screen have been swapped with functional tags. So while Annie is Implosive and Pragmatic, FRANK is Explosive and Selfish. These actually matter in game:
When doing things your Custodian agrees with, the benefits of the decision are increased, while any penalties are reduced. In addition, you keep a personality score that will get you perks:
Naturally, there are plenty of things your Custodian will DISLIKE, as well. FRANK, as ever, is not really into the whole "extra work" thing:
Doing things your Custodian disagrees with will earn you more fatigue, stress, and psychosis for the choice, or reduce the healing that happens. Also, it's just as easy to get harmful perks if you keep dissociating with your personality! Nextly, let's get around to talking about those ship faults.
For increasing amounts of Fatigue, you can reveal an upcoming Fault. This will tell you what the fault is, when you can expect it to hit, and also OFFER TO LET YOU COUNTER IT.
These costs are randomized, and generally quite harsh, but it now gives you some agency against these chronic, game-altering events. Also, there are also now Dilemmas that occur in the final act of the game.
If you've ever felt yourself struggling in the final act, or cruising, this is where you sell out, or cash in. As you limp toward the finish line, you will be offered a choice to screw over Future You in order to finish what you started, or to make the next Custodian's job easier, for a sacrifice now. It is also the first major adjustment to the score that we've added for quite some time. Tired of seeing negative scores? Now you don't have to. Ah yes, and let's not forget - the Hardened point we mentioned earlier. You have everything set up the way you want, with overclocks just so, and even had good rolls on the duration? Four turns of overclocked engines! Amazing! Finally going to get caught up to the tension wall! Next turn, it is practically guaranteed that damage to the engine, or a power failure elsewhere, will rob you of that, right? Now, there is! You can Harden it!
Hardening takes some Fatigue, and 2 parts. Also, a Hardened system consumes +1 power. But in return, it is immune to most glitches, and is last in line to be shut off due to power shortages for 4-6 turns. As a bonus, a Hardened system, if damaged, will simply become nominal. What does all this mean? It means a Hardened system isn't going to lose Overclocked unless something dire happens, and it'll be even harder to take offline! Finally - a crunchy Lore update. Every time you have started a game, you are greeted with a reference to the infamous MC.419. But what are these MCs? And are there really that many of them? Answer: YES.
This update includes encodings of roughly 300 of the 419 MCs, which will be displayed to you when the ship believes you are in violation of some (rightly or not), or repeated as mantras by your Custodian to hold onto the fraying edges of their sanity. While many seem innocuous, many more give hints to the larger story - the one that came long before you awoke on Contingency. That, at long last, is all for this update. Please review the game, it TRULY helps. We welcome all bug reports and chat on the forums or in Discord, and if you know a content creator who might be interested in showing off what we've got, please reach out. :) Now - back to work on 1.0!