This is the biggest update yet, mainly because there is a new in-game interface, a new ship model, and Levels 1 and 2 have been expanded. The tutorial got some new material as well. Grab your copy from the downloads page. If you like it, please support it on Steam Greenlight. Here are the details:

• New in-game interface. Text is bigger and easier to read on small screens. Everything is a bit flashier.
• New ship model. The new model is 20% bigger for visibility and difficulty tuning. It’s sexier too.
• Expanded the tutorial and Levels 1 and 2 in order to better teach some game mechanics.
• Added rumble support for game controllers. My Logitech controller still isn’t rumbling under Windows for some reason, but it works under Linux. Need to work on that.
• Ship integrity and shields are now restored when you beat a level.
• Dolly-zoom effect added when spawning a new ship.
• In co-op games, all players now share the same score.
• Sound effects pause when game is paused.
• Plenty of cosmetic tweaks and gameplay tweaks as usual.
• Made humans more interactive. Watch the video:

There have been a lot of good suggestions coming in from testers, so I have been doing a lot of level refinement lately. This includes the changes to the early levels you see in the demo. One big change is the addition of material that gets players accustomed to using the laser on the nose of the ship. It is useful for distinguishing the foreground from the background and can cue players in on whether or not they can fly past an object on screen. About half of the testers were figuring this out, but the other half were getting frustrated by not understanding how useful the laser can be.

Another big change to several levels was to remove the challenge where you need to rescue all the humans to unlock the level exit. Rescuing humans is an old school game convention, but not everyone seems to know about it anymore. So there is more training on rescuing humans on Level 1, and rescuing humans is now a local challenge some places–not a whole-level challenge.

Humans are also more interactive now. In previous versions they could be crushed and set on fire. Now they can also be knocked of cliffs and plummet to their screaming deaths. The deaths also look juicier now.