Patch 1.2 - Darker Still Full Release

After a lengthy beta process that ended up even more lengthy due to more personal turmoil, what is probably our largest update ever, including 1.0, is now live. Let's go over some of the changes - there's a LOT, so forgive us for moving quick on each thing!

New graphics

The most obvious thing you will notice is that every tile in the game has been redone. Our own newness to game making meant that we ended up with a bit of a mishmash of perspectives and approaches in our old sprite set, and it really didn't come together as a coherent whole. With the help of the awesome pixel artist Downvote, we've gotten a complete visual overhaul, which brings with it a new sense of life and coordination.

Robbie comes off great from the changes, and it's not the only one. Please enjoy the new slickness to our favorite brutalist bots and their rattling home!

New System Designs

Most of the systems on the ship now have their own subsystems that help them do their jobs, rather than simply providing the function themselves.

Reactor:

Now charges Batteries, which is what actually provides power to systems. Batteries discharge every turn, whether you use the power or not. Consequently, a reactor failure is a next-turn problem, not a this-turn problem that will cause immediate blackouts.

Navigation:

Now collects information from Scanner arrays, and displays it for your use. The Scanners are what actually gets weather data - if they are offline, you will not be able to see the weather they correspond to.

Shields:

Now charges Capacitors, which expend energy to repel damage. The more Capacitors you have charged, the more likely you are to avoid damage. Damage tends to come in more bursts now, so having many Capacitors charged can be a very strategic decision.

Speaking of damage, let's talk about the-

New Damage System

Major systems, like the abovementioned Reactor, Shields, Cryo, etc, are no longer damaged by random chance and entropy. The new minor components (Batteries, Scanner arrays, Capacitors, and the existing Thrusters and Pods) are damaged by entropy instead. 'Entropy' is now heavily intensified if you fall behind the tension wall, and it gets more intense the further you fall behind. Before, it technically did cause more problems, but the effect was very small.

Major systems are now only damaged by flying into space weather. Each type of visible space weather (Dust, Radiation, EMP) will now try to damage 2 or 3 specific major systems, depending on the hazard. This makes navigating the ship a much bigger deal, and Navigation much more of a vital system. All of this is IN ADDITION TO the effects they've always had.

The grav anomaly does not cause any system damage, but does still have its effect of disabling navigation. This can cause you to careen into a patch of intense weather like an oil slick, so it still pays to be prepared for things you cannot foresee.

On top of being less frustrating overall, this system also ends up helping Robbie a lot. Robbie's negatrait is much less of a curse when major system damage is something you can generally prepare for, and makes its ability to cope with grievous damage much more valuable. The Most Eager Lad now takes its rightful place as the easiest, most resourceful bot to play as.

In addition, Overclocks can now damage systems. But that's getting a bit ahead of ourselves. So let's switch to the-

New Overclock System

Major systems no longer lose their Overclocked status over time. Once something is Overclocked, it STAYS overclocked until it is damaged or shut off. Instead, being Overclocked makes a system pull more power from the Reactor Batteries, and gives it a small chance to damage either itself or the Reactor every turn. The net effect is that you will still not be able to keep too many systems Overclocked, but if you prioritize a few systems to keep going, they will STAY going far more consistently than they used to.

Furthermore, the system info screen will now explicitly tell you what happens when something is Overclocked:Steam post image

New Breakers System

The Breakers now act like actual circuit breakers. They cut power to a specific quadrant of the ship when open, which turns off the systems in that quadrant and unpowers doors. This makes breaker surges an enormous pain in the neck, and as such their frequency has been massively, massively nerfed, to the point where they should only happen once or twice per game at most.

It also makes interacting with the Breakers a bit more high stakes and potentially rage-inducing than they used to be, while also being occasionally useful for disabling Overclocks from a distance.

New Encyclopedia

Every interactable thing in the ship, and every menu on every interaction, now has entries in a Custodian Encyclopedia, originally written by a Custodian long past, and kept dutifully updated by the chain of Custodians since. There's thousands of words spread across over a hundred entries to hopefully answer each and every one of your questions on how the game works and how everything functions, right there in game. Just hit your HELP key!

New Endless Mode

The Endless Mode has been re-documented and overhauled to make it more engaging, and to explain how in the heck everything works. When starting Endless Mode, you will be offered a tutorial that explains the critical concepts of the mode. It's very brief, but tells you exactly what to expect.

In addition, new effects have been added to Endless Mode in order to visibly, and audibly, show a lot of the cues that are happening, as they happen. Most notably, there was always supposed to be an uptick in tension, damage, and danger the turn after the real crisis had an event. Unfortunately, the way the Director is coded, it was not possible to make the difficulty spike happen without ruining the balance curve in the rest of the game.

Instead, we have created new particle effects to show around the ship when these difficulty spikes happen, and commissioned new tension tracks by the talented Junnie to audibly communicate what's happening.

New Music

Junnie has also contributed a half-dozen new tracks that have been incorporated into the main game. These will be added to the OST DLC soon.

New Onboarding

Getting into the game is now much faster - advanced difficulty modifiers are not shown unless you click for them specifically, and Memories don't show up unless you have some to play with. We've also fixed a bunch of display bugs and trimmed down the amount of reading you need to do to get going substantially.

New Observation Mechanics and Scoring

Observation has never quite felt like it accomplished its goal of being a useful friend for managing the pressures of a hard Custodianship. Simultaneously, we still had an issue where it was incentivized for you to remain at Psychosis as low as possible, as long as possible - thereby cutting out some of the most fun points of the game.

In addition to everything it does and can do with meta-unlocks, Observation will now cure an increasing amount of Stress the more you use it. Early on, it isn't much, but as the Custodian relaxes into the groove of staring at the calming blackness, it can easily be the difference between losing it and keeping it together. In exchange, ignoring your programming and continuing to stare at the darkness will build up small amounts of Psychosis.

However, Psychosis is no longer purely negative. If you survive your tasks, it is actually now counted as a POSITIVE on your ending scorecard, for... narrative reasons. You need not fear going crazy any longer! Just as long as you don't go TOO crazy.

New Achievements

A fistful of new Memories have been added with this update, along with in-game effects for added Fun Times. One of the new Memories is Dangerous!

New Low Price

And finally: Endless Dark will be on sale for 20% off, starting April 27th, for two weeks! This is the lowest we've ever been, which is notable for how cheaply our game already goes out. Sorry I couldn't make it starting today, but Steam wouldn't let me. :[

Much love to everyone who has stuck with us so far, and much love to anyone who hopefully might give us a new shot with the new updates. Thank you, again, for helping make our quirky game such a success.