I’m still playing 0.C so I don’t know if this has changed in the experimentals, but I recently had the experience of getting five colds in the space of 21 days (I’m playing 91 day seasons), and then ran out of water in just two days away from home despite starting out with 18 bottles of water, which I thought would be plenty. I looked at my display, saw I had a whole shitload of mutations (including high thirst and a fish tail), and realized I must have gotten radiated somewhere along the line, which is what was destroying my health and turning me into Charlie the Tuna. My problem is that I missed all of this in the scroll. If not for the constant unexplained colds (five in 21 days is ridiculously excessive) and the high thirst mutation, I might never have noticed. I know screen space is at a premium, but I really think you should have some kind of obvious cue if you’re feeling very sick and growing a tail. An overall health descriptor which pops up somewhere if your health is anything but ideal – even just “SICK” or “WEAK” or something – should exist. I should not be popping new limbs out of my ass without noticing.
Yes, a character status on the screen would be a good change, i frequently miss the deep bite messages and later wonder why i’m infected. Maybe the top row of the screen could be used for character status? This would add more space for the map and messages on the right side.
BTW, status changes should be colored messages also it would be good to add some alarm sound to them, so the player could not miss them.