Reading the Instruments
A player told me they could not read the icons at the bottom of the screen. They were right. Version 19.5 makes the HUD explain itself, without turning it into a page of labels.
What a new pilot sees
In the first minute of a run, the bottom left of the screen shows a white bar with a star on top, a wrench and two hexagons. Nothing says what they are. Words like +SLOW appeared where the coin was picked up, not where its gauge sits, and gold and the star meter never had a word at all. The only explanation lived in the settings, three taps away.
A word, the first few times
Now each part of the bottom HUD gets its name the first time it shows up in a run: STAR METER with 8 COINS = STAR under it, HULL · 2 LEFT as you enter the tunnel, SLOW TIME beside the blue gauge when that coin's spark lands. After three runs a part is never labelled again on that device.
Permanent labels would have crowded a small landscape screen in 16 languages, so the word is a guest, not a tenant. The icon stays the coin itself.
Gauges that show their own rules
The star meter is split into one field per coin, so it reads as something to fill. A missed coin takes a field away, which explains that rule without a sentence. The hull plates lost the dark slot that made them look like minus buttons. The last plate glows red, an empty row pulses red, and every scrape says how many are left: SCRAPE! · 1 LEFT.
Explained where there is time to read
Mid-flight there is no time to read, and a pause to explain would give unlimited thinking time on a shared leaderboard, so there is none. The death screen is the calm moment. Die with the star meter at least half full and it tells you how many coins you were short. While you are still learning, a chip there opens YOUR INSTRUMENTS, one screen that explains every gauge. HOW IT WORKS links to it too.
Nothing here changes the game. The cave, the scoring and the price of a star are the same for everyone. It is all presentation.
Measured from now on
The apps now report how many stars and scrapes a run had, so I can see whether new pilots reach the star more often once they know what the bar is for. Thanks to the player who said it out loud.