Welcome, one and all, to the official version 1.0 release of Armored Arachnid! I've been hard at work adding in all of my planned functions and features, and now the gameplay loop finally runs as I originally planned it to! Although there are no new levels yet, there's a ton of changes with this update, with the most significant of those being the addition of the augment system; replacing the orbital system from the original Dark Space, certain enemies will drop new weapons, subweapons, and augments for you to use. An introductory cutscene, a combat training room, and game rebalancing are all present in this update, too.

At the moment, all of the bosses and minibosses carry a unique augment. By defeating them and retrieving the augment, it will become a permanently available option for you to equip on the new augment interface. Along with their specialized purposes, the majority of augments also adjust your basic parameters (such as attack power and movement speed). Each augment has an associated capacity cost, which limits the total number of augments you can have equipped at one time, forcing you to be careful about which augments you want to incorporate into your loadout. For version 1.0, you'll have 5 capacity points, which should be enough for the currently available augments, but a way to increase your capacity will appear in the future!

I've also done some general difficulty balancing to make the game a little more accessible. As in the original game, enemies will now occasionally drop health restoration if you're not in top shape; if you have a subweapon equipped, every enemy will also drop a small amount of energy, too. The initial weapon, Dart, now fires 6 shots per second instead of 5, which should make it considerably easier to fend off your enemies. I'll keep an eye on how things feel as I add new levels with more dangerous opposition in the future, but for now, the difficulty should hopefully be in a comfortable spot.

I hope you enjoy getting this first "real" taste of Armored Arachnid!

== VERSION 1.0 CHANGES ==

• Two weapons, one subweapon (a new feature), and six augments (another new feature) have been added to the game! Each one is being carried by a powerful foe, permanently becoming available after your victory. Are you tough enough to collect all the new items?
• A new menu will allow you to view and equip your different upgrades! It will also show you how your base stats will be affected by your equipment choices.
• A training room for testing your weapons and augments against a target dummy and optional enemies has been added to the game!
• The game now opens with a short animated cutscene!
• Enemies will now occasionally drop restorative pick-ups if you are below your maximum health or energy!
• Taska's invulnerability time after taking damage has been slightly increased.
• When damaged, Taska's sprite now becomes a more visible color for a longer period of time.
• The fire rate of the straight shot (the starting weapon) has been slightly increased.
• The starvil miniboss's movement speed during its projectile phase no longer scales with the wave number.
• The energy bar will no longer be displayed during gameplay if a subweapon is not equipped.
• A few visual elements have been added to the planet selection screen.