It's our second major update, and it is a DOOZY. As is traditional, let's start with the new blood:
FRANK
FRANK (the all-caps are important) does not like you. In fact, he's generally angry that you exist. But he does not want you to leave him alone, per se. He will be angry regardless. You just give him a reason to be angry.
FRANK is cursed with a very deep awareness of his fundamental nature. Which is a fancy way of saying that, of all the Custodians, FRANK was made from second-hand parts at a bargain basement price, and he knows it. The universe has seen fit to awaken FRANK for another cycle, and he WILL make it everyone's problem. With this awareness, however, comes a certain freedom - why bother keeping up appearances when you know the terrible secret of space?
FRANK represents an explosive response to stress, and will blame every last one of his copious problems on someone or something else. Which also means he takes solace in not solving those problems. Far from gaining stress when the ship is not in working order, FRANK actually loses stress for ignoring repairs, and comes pre-equipped with a pneumatic hammer to augment his robo-strength for making breakers and doors see things HIS way. However, his fractured world view must be constantly reinforced; he will gain Stress if he does not sabotage a system every turn.
Furthermore, FRANK has a... particular relationship with the passengers of the ship.
While other Custodians may regard the passengers as their charge, or even their sacred duty, FRANK regards them with open hostility. He gains Stress every turn for each passenger that is alive, and sheds it when they die - whether by his hand, or by happenstance.
FRANK is strong against one Crisis Arc in Endless Mode, and will be strong against the arc that will release sometime in the next few weeks. He also has over 15 unique interactions with random events, and has his own art for every narrative arc.
FRANK's release is particularly exciting for us because he represents the first of our 1.0 promises completed. Three very unique Custodians, all of whom respond and react very differently.
New Narrative Arc
We also have a new narrative arc for you - Into The Underworks. We've figured out some critical things about ship's central computer, and about the passengers. Now, what about the ship itself?
Into The Underworks represents the completion of act 2 of our over-arching plot. Act 3 will begin with the release of 0.7.0, and again change the tenor of the writing entirely. Please look forward to the ongoing adventures of the Custodians!
New Crisis Arc
This release also has the 5th Crisis Arc for Endless Mode - when terrible failures begin brewing, and everyone insists it's not your job, how should you respond? Pay close attention, and figure out if the recurring power problems with the ship are actually in hand, or if the ship just can't ask for help from the expert.
Robbie is strong against this new crisis arc.
New Insanities
This release also includes a slew of new unique insanities, bringing us up to 40 in total, and includes a number of new starting insanities for Annie. This represents another promise kept for us; with this many unique, flavorful insanities, the mental state of your Custodian is very unlikely to ever be the same in two separate games. You should be able to play the entire story, and a fair bit besides, without seeing the same insanities too often, and never the same combination of insanities.
New Pressure mechanic
One very valuable piece of feedback from our players was that, while we use a Director to moderate the RNG, the game can still feel very hopeless if lots of bad things happen at once. While Endless Dark is absolutely supposed to feel like a struggle, hopelessness is not something we want in our game. Enter: Pressure.
As bad things happen, Pressure will build up. If things ease up, Pressure will go back down. However, if lots of bad things happen all at once, you will receive an Inspiration to help you get over the hump. You can only get Pressure inspirations every few turns, so don't go chasing them, but if you feel yourself in a death spiral, Pressure will give you a reason to grit your teeth and keep going. There is hope just over that hill.
Sandbox mode
Another player request, Sandbox mode is now a toggle when starting a new game. An explicitly calmer mode, Sandbox mode:
- Uses a much slower difficulty increase arc; you can expect a much longer, calmer game, though it will eventually hit so hard you cannot keep up.
- Enables all modules for manufacture and use.
- Disables all narrative and crisis arcs.
- Disables the distance limit.
- Slows down, but does not disable, random events.
Sandbox mode is there for experimenting with modules, trying event choices you would otherwise avoid, and experimenting with play styles. Or, just having the deep satisfaction of checking off a to-do list.
UI Upgrades
The Navigation bar is now much more useful than it was before:
In addition to being much easier to read your progress, you can now predict the space weather much, much further in advance than you previously were able to. Naturally, this bar still goes blank if Navigation is offline, and it cannot predict when a Gravitational Anomaly will show up - so pay attention, and don't rely on it to always be there!
In addition, tooltips have been updated to present information much more aggressively. Passenger deaths are now reported as decision effects, and the overall effect of their deaths is properly reported, as well. Compare what happens when FRANK lets 3 passengers die in the Gamma Burst event:
To Robbie doing the same:
You will also get similar updates if passengers are expected to die on turn ending.
Accessibility Upgrades
A few sliders have been added and more revamped to provide better support for players with Irlen Syndrome and similar brightness sensitivities (which are very different from light sensitivities, we've learned!) Check out the new 'Ambient brightness', 'Bot lamp intensity' and 'Ship Light Intensity' options to come up with a balance that suits you best.
Special Shout-outs
We knew when we started making Endless Dark that we were doing something offbeat, strange, and unique. We were not sure how many people would react to what we were doing. So, we are incredibly thankful for everyone who has embraced our project of spirit and curiosity, and wanted to give two very special shout-outs to two streamers who have had so much face-melting fun with our game:
Tomato "ROBBIE, NO!!" Gaming: https://www.twitch.tv/tomato
The little pink squid on the internet, Pankraru: https://www.twitch.tv/pankraru
For those of you who might not stream, please consider dropping us a review on Steam and joining our Discord. We love to hear from you!
Full Patch Notes:
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Major new content:
- Added new Custodian (FRANK) - FRANK gains extra fatigue when repairing, and stress from living passengers. He must also sabotage 1 system per turn, or gain more stress. However, he loses stress from sabotage, and loses large amounts of stress when passengers die.
- Added new narrative arc: Into The Underworks
- Added scenes for Turing Complete
- Added new Crisis Arc: Frayed Wires. Robbie is strong against this crisis.
- Added Sandbox mode. This mode uses the Endless Mode difficulty progression, but does not queue up any Crisis Arcs, which normally pump up the difficulty as they function. Should be a very relaxed mode.
- Added Pressure mechanic. This keeps track of everything that has happened recently, and if you get hit too hard, it gives you an inspiration to help mitigate the bad RNG. UI updates
- Updated tooltips to more explicitly call out effects of passenger death, and when passengers are expected to die.
- Updated the notification of passenger death to be less aggressive toward the player.
- Updated Navigation bar to show radiation belts, dust clouds, and EMP storms.
- Moved Glitch notifications to the bottom task bar, rather than making them a task (since you can't actually do anything but wait them out) Player content and balance:
- 12 new insanities, bringing total up to 40.
- Reduced the amount of fatigue for opening/closing breakers (should make breaker surges less punishing)
- Enabled the Director to use Glitches as Tension building devices (reduces how many breaker surges it uses)
- Reduced the cost of almost all subroutines; most inflict Fatigue now, rather than Stress.
- Buffed engine overclock to +20% speed
- Buffed Robbie's Emergency Repair; now gets +20% chance to work for each busted system, up from 10%.
- Changed Consensus Protocols to be uninstallable if it is the first thing you do on a turn
- Fixed a few music tracks that were much louder than intended
- Fixed a bug that was causing only about a third of the selected soundtrack to be eligible for play
- Added brightness sliders to allow brightness-sensitive players to make a lightscape that doesn't give them migraines
- Fixed a potential softlock in Turing Complete
- Dozens of event typo fixes
- Fixed multiple instances of random events erroneously applying decision costs twice
End of update bonus:
"So Rob-man, I put two and two together there, and, heheh....
....I decided that you're tickin' me off."