Deep into 2 projects (Patreon)

Hi, since I don't want to outright spoil the new addition to Lethal Company, I'm just going to refer to it by its acronym, the CC.

I've been working on Welcome To The Dark Place and Lethal Company at the same time; I have never been able to move back and forth between two projects at the same time, which goes to show how torn I am between the two. As usual I'll start with the progress on Lethal Company.

First, it took me about five days to finish modelling and texturing the CC, during which I got some narration from a professional voice actor which I'll be using for the Version 55 trailer. The marketing of this update will have a clear theme which I'm very excited about.

Then I got to adding the CC into the game.

The first step was changing the player physics and netcode to allow you to stick to other objects than just the ship. This wasn't actually that hard (I think) and has plenty of applications besides just the CC, including vehicles and elevators and enemies, etc. (Heck, I could make it so you can ride the item delivery ship into the sky. Everyone's tried that before.) It's very easy to use this system. However I still need to make it so dropping items will also stick to moving objects like this.

Another week later and the CC is quite functional, but I am overwhelmed by a vast amount of edge cases that need to be addressed--not least of which is how creature AI will interact with it. I didn't think much of this through. Because I've realized that if you can't be brave, you can at least be stupid and naïve. And that's how we got here. At the same time, it's a headache but also has me shaking in excitement imagining what could happen.

A little on Welcome to the Dark Place

The most notable thing I did for WttDP is to rewrite the game's ending. Previously I had no idea how to end it, maybe because I didn't know the answers to the questions I was asking. As a result, it almost felt like the rest of the game mocked its easy conclusion and made it feel fake. It was actually embarrassing to me. Now the ending is far darker. But it feels genuine, fits the game perfectly, and isn't really all doom and gloom.

I think I have a bad track record of dissatisfying endings, which almost always involve someone stepping out of frame as if trying to escape the story entirely. To the audience, it can feel like the actor ran off the stage in fright instead of bowing gracefully and closing the curtains. I'm not sure what's different about this one, but I think it's more about what's being left behind, and it follows the actor off the stage for quite some time.