Demo Update 0.4.4: Clearer Notifications, Better Controls, and Pacing Changes

This update adds a notification history, improves feedback entry, and gives new systems more room to unfold. It also fixes missing sounds, text scaling, unit refunds, and several Windows issues.

Details are below.

Notifications

• Added a notification menu with its own toolbar icon.

• Made routine notifications less prominent during play.

• Added a history where you can read and dismiss notifications.

• Added controller navigation and right-stick scrolling to the notification menu.

• Kept valid notification text and icons when loading a save.

• Fixed notification button shapes, clipped text, and spacing.

• Fixed old hover text that could remain visible when opening notifications.

Text and Menus

• Made each UI scale step use a larger text size.

• Matched text sizes across resource panels, objectives, building panels, and other menus.

• Fixed text that could shrink at larger Windows UI scales.

• Fixed text that kept its old size after a display-scale change.

• Improved text rendering on Mac Retina displays and restored crisp Portuguese text on Mac.

• Made Research Node borders scale with the UI.

• Improved panel bounds and control labels in translated menus at large UI sizes.

• Moved Prestige guidance away from the selected tooltip when space permits.

• Wrapped long patch-note section titles to keep them inside the panel.

Controls and Windows

• Made Pause accessible with keyboard and mouse. The Controls panel shows the new pause key.

• Fixed a shared Confirm and Interact binding that could perform two actions with one press.

• Kept the title bar and frame inside the monitor work area in Windowed mode.

• Improved window restoration when switching display modes or returning from another app.

Feedback and Saves

• Added arrow-key navigation and text selection to the feedback field.

• Added Home, End, Ctrl+Home, and Ctrl+End navigation for entered feedback.

• Added a Discord follow-up after successful feedback delivery.

• Changed diagnostic reports to use Discord file attachments instead of unreadable message text.

• Included recent error logs in feedback diagnostics.

• Added visible confirmation and a sound when a save export succeeds.

Gameplay Fixes

• Fixed Omnicollector reservations that could leave Blood Fragments stuck in the air.

• Fixed unit refunds that could turn free bonus units into extra Larvae.

• Fixed a repeatable free Blood Burrower purchase after a refund.

• Fixed Automatic Shedding purchase tracking and its behavior with Hide Maxed.

• Added a short grace period when the Watchdog arrives, giving you time to read its warning.

Audio

• Added Audio to the main menu.

• Kept music, sound-effect, ambience, and mute settings across saves and new runs.

• Kept existing audio choices when importing older saves without separate settings.

• Made Mute When Minimized work while the main menu is open.

• Replaced the music playlist with an entirely new set of Kevin MacLeod tracks from Incompetech.

• Added Send for the Horses to the Prestige screen.

Performance

• Removed an extra frame-limiter wait after a long stall.

• Improved performance when many resource popups appear.

• Reduced work during automatic saves.

Progression

• Reduced the first Chitin Organ cost from 5,450 Blood to 500 Blood.

• Made the Chitin Organ tooltip show its actual cost in every language.

• Added a Biomass requirement for Greenhouse access after the Research Nodule unlocks.

• Added completed Memory cycles as a requirement for first-run Prestige access.

• Required a Clamberer and completed Ether cycles before the first Flywheeler.

• Required Page-driven Courage cycles before Knights become available.

• Added a post-Portal Biomass requirement before the first expedition can start.

• Kept owned units and established features available in older saves.

Thank you for playing the game and leaving so much feedback. more changes are on the way, including broader ones that I needed more time to test. I hope you have fun!