V70 Retrospective (Patreon)

Hi, V70 just released on Saturday (after I finally got the new creature to stop ignoring players who were in the truck.) Spoilers ahead!

The first thing I developed for this update was the advertisement system, originally planned for V64/65. I'm pretty happy about it. The majority of the development time was on the new radar and manor, and I'm not sure what else there is to say about those parts. Well there is one thing.

I have heard concerns from some players about the line on the radar map which shows the direction from the monitored player to the exit and if that "automates" things too much. I had the same thought, but I ultimately decided to add it in, because most of the time as the radar operator when you're switching between multiple players who are in completely separate areas, it's impossible to direct a player to the exit (especially if they are really deep in.) I have resisted adding things like this and the compass because I am very afraid of "streamlining my game away" (something I see more often in triple-A games.) But after playing as the radar operator a little more, I decided it was just impossible to do your job, especially when you have more than one teammate to look after.

I feel like the radar experience of Lethal Company is something I would overhaul more deeply if it wasn't just out of scope at this point. If I were starting again from scratch, I would opt for a 3D free-cam which wouldn't be bound to players and would see an abstract "Metroid prime-like" map. That would allow for all sorts of opportunities for more interaction. Maybe we'll see that in a future game. But right now I'm satisfied with the radar as just a part of the experience, not the main thing. Early on I was hoping Lethal Company could be "Duskers but the drones are your friends!" But early on I realized that was a pipe dream, as I'd have had to compromise all the other aspects of the game to make it work.

I'm very happy with the manor additions. I'm excited to add plenty of variety to the facility and then probably an even deeper overhaul of the mineshaft (which is probably the most lacking at this point since it's the newest.)

The woodpecker was a very "safe" idea I think. The idea was for it to be a version of the bees that wasn't safe and easy to profit off of, so it's more of a last resort. The ideas that came up during development were for the eggs to crack open with live chicks and for it to pry open the ship's door to get inside. Those were unplanned.

There are two paths this enemy could take. One is for the eggs to be very low-value but generally easier to get, with some risk. The second path is for the eggs to be very, very high-value but for the eggs to be nearly impossible to get without someone getting hurt. I went with the latter option, and after fixing some issues with the bird I'm probably going to up the minimum value the eggs can have. The ideal is that it's almost like a Wile E. Coyote situation where players are tantalized by this priceless object and are driven to unorthodox ways of getting it (using items like ladders and/or stun grenades and/or zap guns and/or TZP). But I am now seeing the value in the former option, which is that players are more likely to risk encounters with the bird more often if it's lower risk.

This was a fine enemy to get back into the swing of things. The hardest part was certainly starting on its AI, and the thing that helped me was to remember that an AI is simply a very complex list of priorities; the hard part is all the nuance.

This is when I started to brainstorm the specifics of the bird's AI.

"What about Welcome To The Dark Place?" (Said no one)

Welcome To The Dark Place's development is the story of making a piece of art that is inseparable from my identity. Which has made it unbelievably emotional and intense, and most of the time it has felt like a search for my identity more than anything. It has probably resulted in a game that makes no sense to anyone else on the planet. But anyway, I've more or less decided that no matter what state the game is in, no matter how full or empty or fragmented or unpolished it is, it's releasing in October. And then I can move on--maybe, if I'm really optimistic, not just from the game but from the person it represents. I'm going to continue to work on it in little bursts and try to keep both these plates spinning.