I installed the game and puttered around for about 90 minutes. I started the game on "Normal" difficulty.

Thanks to decades of training by previous video games, my natural instinct is to comprehensively explore the environment looking for hidden goodies (sometimes to the great annoyance of onlookers). And when I say "comprehensive," I mean comprehensive -- methodically tracing in a serpentine pattern back and forth until the entire area has been examined. This game appears to be designed around such behavior, as pages of books and diaries are scattered all over the landscape, many obscured by the local flora.

As such, I found it annoying that WILSON was yapping at me every ten minutes to Do X To Not Die. "Eat something! Drink something! Find heat! Cool off! Tuck your shirt in! Stand up straight!" This interfered with my ability to properly examine the local area. It also meant that I was consuming (presumably) finite food resources without really getting anywhere (at least water and burnable brambles respawn).

I also found the interface quite klunky, especially when it came time to eat -- Switch to the can of food, drop the can of food, switch to the sharp rock, "craft" rock with can of food to create opened can of food, pick up opened can of food, eat opened can of food, drop empty can of food (where's the recycling bin?)... Oh, now you're freezing. Switch to sharp rock, cut down bramble, pick up bramble, switch to bramble, "craft" bramble with already-burning bramble... Maybe there's some keyboard shortcuts or some magic with the inventory menu I haven't learned yet, but... Oy...

As a consequence, I haven't made it off the opening beach yet. I will probably restart the game in Easy mode, just so I can make some progress without being distracted by my own mortality.

I did appreciate being able to fix hypothermia by standing in front of the (somehow) still-burning rocket engine for a few seconds.

I was able work out how to make a fire before the tutorials for same were presented (although the tutorial did clue me in to the big drum of oil, which I hadn't found on my own).

I have not yet deliberately stepped close to the creepy moving plants.

All of this doesn't diminish my interest in the game, however, and will be puttering around in it again this evening. Just need to get some time to explore without WILSON squawking at me...

Further Thoughts

I've started the game four times. First attempt was on normal difficulty, which I abandoned after finding it too annoying. Second attempt was on Easy, but as I was jumping around on the hexagonal rocks (basalt columns?) just to the west of the landing site, I fell into a slight hole and couldn't climb out. Third attempt (Easy) made some progress, but didn't understand that saving the game was triggered by sleeping, so all my progress was lost when I quit the game for the evening. So now I'm on my fourth run and, given the changelog for the update which just posted, it looks like I'll have to start a fifth.

Nearly all my time has been spent on the landing beach. Saw my first tornado. I glimpsed it while poking my head out of the landing cave, and promptly ducked back in, the screams of the wind and thunder echoing through the cave. BTW, I thought I saw the geometry of the tornado funnel clip through the cave, but I incurred no damage.

I found the "singing" cave, and the teleporter shortly afterward. That cave system seems huge, and creepy as hell; I'm going to have to dedicate a fair block of time to completely spelunk it.

Thing that made me scratch my head and go, "Hmmm..." Small towers of individual stones, stacked three or four high, in the midst of spaceship debris. How did they get there? How did they remain standing after the debris smashed into the ground? (Why don't they fall over when I bump into them?)

Coolest thing so far that made me stop and go, "Oooo!" While standing inside the landing cave, the light of the setting sun could be seen shining and moving along the surface of the cave wall. I stared at it until the sun set completely. Just beautiful. Dunno if that was intentional or just a freebie you got out of the UE4 engine. (I have a sneaking suspicion there's going to be a puzzle involving standing around waiting for the sunlight to peek through some structure and illuminate a key feature or make a shape that provides the clue on how to progress.)

Still very much enjoying this. I almost don't mind restarting the game a bunch of times... :-)

Started a fifth game after installing the update. Haven't noted any major differences, but then I never got very far through the game to begin with.

Having the torch tutorial auto-skip forward was much appreciated.

Survival guide page #7 used to be at the foot of the still-burning rocket nozzle; it's not there now, and I haven't found it yet.

Saw another super-tornado and, again, the base of its funnel clipped through the cave I was hiding in. (Does this thing deliberately seek me out?)

Something that's been bugging me from the start: Why does the sun move through the sky (as Gilese-6143-C rotates), but the nighttime stars don't?

WILSON's status screen (what comes up when you press 'P') displays the current Prolus fleet time. However, when any of the fields hits zero, only a single digit is displayed. You probably want to change the format string to: "%02d:%02d:%02d".

Can the tides be predicted by observing the position of the moon(s)? The second time I visited the crash site on the north side of the landing island, the water was much lower...

Warning: Possible Spoilers Ahead

I seem to have bumped in to the end of available content, so now I'm just going to blather. Sorta...

Okay, guys, the seemingly endless caves are just creep-tastic. And I'm not sure I mean that in a good way. I'm constantly concerned that I'm missing goodies or passages, because even with the torch it's still hard to see. The glowing crystals barely illuminate anything, and the green glowsticks are effing useless as a light source.

I encountered these urchin-like critters that hiss at you, and then scuttle away. Even though they've scooted right past my feet, I've taken no damage, so I'm assuming they're otherwise harmless. Rather less fun are the weed-like growths that try to impale you with a ten-foot-long spike, and will hurt you if they hit you.

It was a massive relief when I finally emerged on the second island, even though it was raining at the time. What I found inside the cave at the waypoint, however, was heartbreaking.

I was confused by what I was supposed to be doing with the transmitter. I would acquire a part and carry it to the transmitter, but when I tried to craft it, the on-screen message said I'd removed a part that was defective/junk. Huh?

While I was out scavenging parts on what had been a crystal-clear night, a super-tornado suddenly appeared, and I started sprinting all over the landscape looking for cover that wasn't there, which was actually quite exciting. Happily I didn't get killed.

Eventually I arrived at Halls of Darkness 2, whereupon a screen popped up saying I had evidently reached the end of the available content. This doesn't feel right; I've only visited two islands and two major cave systems. In the meantime, I have the feeling that I'll be doing a ton of backtracking to try and pick up secret areas I missed and areas that I should be able to enter now that I've acquired the right tools.

We should probably reword that a bit better. When it said "removed" it basically meant it was removed from your inventory. Construction to the tower had in fact actually begun, as the music right afterward was meant to illustrate.

Yes, it seems you had made it to the first Early Access pit stop :). Don't fret though, we are releasing the second part with three more levels and more story bits on the 7th of March (most likely), so stay tuned for that update!

Warning: Possible Spoilers

I played a bit more before installing the 0.57 update. Specifically, now that I had a sledgehammer, I wanted to go back to the first underground complex ("Crossroads?") where there was a brick wall I couldn't get through before. I also went back to a hole in the wall very near the beginning of the first cave and explored that a bit.

I also explored a narrow corridor just off the "entrance" to the second island.

I sat and watched a tidepool in the cave fill up and then empty out. I haven't yet worked out a way to relate the cycling of the tides to the in-game clock.

After consulting a couple of YouTube videos, I picked up a couple more goodies in the Innovation of Flagellation. I also found another place to tie a rope to and climb down, but I wasn't prepared to spend my last rope doing it, especially there was no guarantee that doing so would lead to anything interesting. I have since found another rope, so I'll have to inspect this area (yet) again.

There are now bugs crawling around Yuri's cave. There's an entry in the release notes mentioning this, and whose wording suggests that the appearance of the bugs is a Bad Thing, but might be averted if you get there soon enough.

Do we ever find a pair of binoculars? Or a telescope? Would be really helpful. Given that we had been on a spaceship, seems kind of a weird thing to have not packed...

I'm starting to get more comfortable running through the caves I've already explored. But the fact that at least half the game takes place in what would otherwise be pitch blackness has pretty much lost all its charm.

Oh! UI Note: In the inventory wheel, the numeral that says how many of a thing you have can be a bit hard to see. For a moment I was saying to myself, "Self, I'm pretty sure I have two ropes now..." before finally seeing the "2" on top of the icon.

World Model/Rendering Bug:

So I was wandering around the second island, and found myself outside on the "pier" just as the sun was coming up, its warm rays bathing the beach in golden light. Except...

The sun was in front of the large moon. More precisely, the sun corona in the skybox was behind the moon, but the light source itself and its bloom was in front of it.

This is, of course, impossible -- the island should have remained dark under the eclipse.