Wowee, lots on my mind! (Patreon)

Wow, the last time I posted (Feb 23) feels like forever ago. So what did I do since then? (I think I already mentioned this before, but these progress posts are really helpful for giving me a sense of my progress, since I'm forced to look back pretty far.)

Non-Lethal Company stuff, and imagining some things

The most major thing I did in the past two weeks was add 3 more bonus levels to The Upturned (after the 3 in January) and release them all. They are available to play now, but you have to get the collectibles in their respective levels to unlock them. The levels I thought would be the most difficult ("Mount Everest" and "The Challenge") are apparently not, and instead it's the maze level.

I also thought about the possibility of a sequel to The Upturned a lot during this, thinking about the amount of easy improvements I could make to the gameplay (including seamless level loading in the elevator with no cutscene in-between, huge performance enhancements, better level design, and better character animations and nuanced abilities). But story-wise the game would want to depart completely, and I don't think I'm clever enough to marry a radically different storyline with the exact same structure of gameplay. The Upturned is silly, but it takes itself a little too seriously to pull a mario.

Plus, it's in a grey area where remaking it from scratch or just updating it would both feel pretty bad. So I think in the future if I want to make something with a similar spirit, I'll have to come up with an entirely different game.

One more thing...

I got another idea. I think this idea first popped into my head when playing The Witness and admiring its open world, which sometimes felt eerie. I was wondering how much more interesting it would feel to navigate if there was a persistent monster tracking you around it. Unfortunately the open world in The Witness is wasted space, but at least it gave me ideas.

Fast-forward 5 years, I've been envisioning a game where you are an escaped convict being hunted down in a bleak open world--like a horror chase or hide and seek happening over a grand scale, against a very smart AI (or AIs), where you need to cover your tracks as much as possible. "HIDE" (which has clearly already inspired me in other ways) is the closest comparison. Other inspirations are The Long Dark and that "Mantracker" tv show which I remember thinking was really cool when I was like 8. The idea of a chase being drawn out over a long distance is exciting to me; I imagine it could feel very dreadful but in a good way. You could become more invested, and it would be more about stamina and stealth.

Back to Lethal Company stuff

Anyways, I finished the turret that I teased in the last update. After that I did several bug tests; the first couple were the most glitchy tests I've run on Lethal Company and would give Bethesda a run for its money. The last one I did was almost stable, which gives me some hope.

I also began adding in a proper settings menu, complete with luxuries like a gamma/brightness slider and key-bindings (for some actions at least). This was kind of a major undertaking, yet I almost forgot about it already. I think it lends to the game feeling more "triple-A". 

Then I started ironing out some game design flaws or potential cheese spots--like the fact that if just one player stayed alive somewhere safe, his teammates could be reckless knowing there were no consequences for leaving just one alive by the end of the day. Now there's a penalty for player deaths. Also, the game's day-cycle system allowed players to leave in the ship and then immediately land it again, resetting all enemies and goodies whenever they wanted. So I had to make time fast-forward a few hours each time you leave.

These fixes unfortunately risk adding some contrivance to the game's rules, but Lethal Company is past the prototyping stage where I could take the long way around it. 

Today I got started on adding in some themed "tutorial" stuff and a hint system. This is one of the last features I add before I start just adding content.