https://reddit.com/link/1vpz5e9/video/1fdkvbc72rjh1/player

https://www.patreon.com/zeekerss/posts/underground-is-165541780
"Hello, progress has ramped up over the past couple weeks. Within a couple days I completed the two enemies I was working on (the silly one and the one with a complex model). The second, less-silly one turned out quite well, and because it was so simple, there was room for me to add some extra features/abilities. One of those features was inevitably going to find its place in Lethal Company in a creature of some form, and now it has finally happened; and it has startled every single friend that I've tested it with. Both these enemies are among the smallest in the game, and both their designs are a little more quirky than I would find ideal, but that's okay. The next one I'm going to make is going to be enormous.

Mineshaft Renovation Begins

We tested them on the new Offense, which I wanted to be primarily a mineshaft moon, but then I found that these new enemies don't work so well in the caves. I've known that many creatures aren't exactly in their ideal setting when in the caves, but the silly one especially just does not function properly in the caves because of its design. So I decided it's time to renovate the mineshaft. My objectives were:

1. To add some openness to the caves and hallways so that enemies can be avoided more easily and have space to do their thing.

And 2. To make the mineshaft less hellish in general. There are lots of unique properties about the mineshaft interior that are each cool on their own, but added up together, they amount to an experience that is so oppressive that it drives you to despair. One of these properties is the elevator, which makes entering/exiting through the front a lot more difficult; this is probably not going to change. Another is the fact that the interior is divided into two sections, the caves and non-caves, and the caves hold most of the loot. This is probably going to change. And another is the caves (and tunnels) being so claustrophobic and mazey. This is going to change somewhat. I'm basically doing everything I can to give players a leg up in this interior now; another change might be to add more lights to the caves. I've reworked the way that the generator handles the caves so that the main path has a lot of large cave tiles and generates more claustrophobic caves to branch off of that main path; there is a lot of experimentation on the generator, and the mineshaft will probably feel very different from before.

https://preview.redd.it/fk85y9gk2rjh1.png?width=583&format=png&auto=webp&s=b916f3e8a5f17d35aa851c6a72b944f4e3256cd6

https://preview.redd.it/lysns5wk2rjh1.png?width=820&format=png&auto=webp&s=32b32c3ee3e8455be15e6b7c253b980041bfb80e

Working on caves is a very simple, one-step process, as it doesn't require much reference or texturing or modelling of miscellaneous objects, but it's still very long and monotonous and kind of drives me crazy. Still, I have made three large cave tiles so far, which already makes a big impact.

https://preview.redd.it/dxf0ewyl2rjh1.png?width=820&format=png&auto=webp&s=5751b6f705a7873e3ddc41b532d1abc11d256df9

Now I'm moving on to the non-cave section. I'm excited to add more to this part of the interior because it has so little right now.

The cafeteria tile was changed to something like an equipment station which integrates more naturally with the common tunnels.

These 2x3 tiles became 3x4 tiles when I realized the mineshaft uses a much smaller tile size than the other interiors. This makes them seem like the biggest rooms in the game if you just look at numbers.

I think the mineshaft is some of my best environment work, including a lot of really crazy stuff like the connecting rails and curved ceilings and of course the cave systems, and I really hope to make it as fun and cohesive to play as it is to look at.

The Ending

Yesterday I woke up with an idea for the way that the game cuts to end credits, which has been a crucial question. It's nothing incredible, but it's satisfying and doesn't feel like an anticlimax or a bad ending. I fuss so much about the ending of Lethal Company because I'm not good with endings. Practically every game I've made has ended in a way that left people scratching their heads rather than feeling something. That is a big weakness. It's partly because I just don't know how to make a proper ending, and partly because I always get an urge to swing for the fences when I could just do something normal. But every game that I finish is another chance to get this part right.

Now I have a really strong idea for the start of the ending and a good idea for the ending of the ending, and I have to figure out exactly what bridges between those.

V85 is still a little ways off. I'm once again very ultra-focused on Lethal Company and making quick progress, as is the natural ebb and flow, but the past couple months have made me realize that it's really time to make the ending as soon as possible. My mind is more and more filled with entirely new ideas I want to get to. So it's really beginning to feel like I'm working on Lethal Company in order to finish it. The plan for V85 is to renovate the mineshaft and then continue adding as many new creatures as possible (and at some point along the way I'll get Grugga to a more acceptable state, or lock him up for all eternity.)

Games I'm Playing

I've been enjoying some of the best games of the year so far. Creature Kitchen was a delightful little surprise which I enjoyed more than I thought I would, and I recommend it.

I "finished" Splatoon Raiders yesterday: it's not as good as Octo Expansion, but it takes a snug second place in the ranking of Splatoon single-player campaigns. Octo Expansion's style and narrative and characters were just so incredibly strong (not to mention how it pushed the series the furthest in gameplay; even Splatoon Raiders still borrows its formula with very addictive, bite-sized dungeons and challenge levels.) I don't think they will ever top it, but Splatoon Raiders is still probably my favorite game on the Switch 2. It has all the depth that I've wanted them to add to Salmon Run in the mainline games.

I just started Endacopia, and I'm only about 30 minutes into it so far, but this game seems incredible and is exactly what I need!!! I'm eager to play more as soon as possible."

And this new leak thanks to Daily Lethal Company News discord server:

Zeek: \"In a unique way I fixed the problem of the mineshaft caves not having lights, and it increases my enjoyment of the caves far more than I feel like it should. It accidentally solved a lot more issues than I expected it to\"

https://www.patreon.com/zeekerss
"Hello, I decided to take a full-fledged break the past two weeks because I'm in a slump. I'm slightly sick and had just cut down significantly on sugar, since I used to drink several Mountain Dews a day. I did draw some concept art for one of the next enemies I'm going to make, but it was looking a little too cartoony for my liking, and I need to find a way for it to make sense. Or maybe I don't and I'm just overthinking it. I also fixed some issues with Grugga on the side, such as netcode bugs, its behavior with multiple players, and improving the "following shot" type. I've also commissioned someone to make a certain 3D model for the ending of Lethal Company, and that is coming along very well.

My main project the past two weeks has been starting a new book. In 2018, my book called Between Music and Silence just kind of happened spontaneously. (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I had just read every single thing written by C.S. Lewis.) The first draft was finished by the end of that year, and the manic excitement I had working on that was crazier than any game I've worked on.

Writing stories is not like making games

What I discovered is that writing a book is very exciting because eventually you will find that you are telling yourself the story. Even if you outline a plot beforehand, you will find your characters constantly outgrowing your outline and doing things you didn't expect, causing you to course-correct. That's because no matter how character-focused you make your outline, it is still the eagle's-eye view of their journey. For characters to feel alive, they have to be the ones driving the plot of their story. And it seems to me like the only way to know for sure where your characters will drive your plot is to write them going through it. You just can't treat writing fiction like you do with games; making games is like building weird, eccentric machines, but writing stories is like putting on a live performance.

So what I had was a very good, solid plot with characters that were not in control of it, in a world that was practically empty. The book was terrible.

But there are two chapters in it which I'm still really proud of, and I've always believed something went right here. They are the backstory chapters of Thrin, the side character. So after I made a massive text document analyzing all the large-scale problems with this story, I decided to take her story and make a new one based on her. This is something I've always considered but never acted on.

I am trying to learn from my previous mistakes, which are 1. to let the characters fully drive the plot, and 2. to not take any shortcuts when it comes to world-building. What's funny about the old book is that its world was consistent but took crazy leaps to explain why it was completely empty and boring. No more of that.

https://preview.redd.it/m4nrn3qrvgah1.png?width=820&format=png&auto=webp&s=91a41df942d20a1ba95176a16bbd7d43c2dd29f8

World-building is one of the things I feel most inept at. I'm very slow at coming up with details that feel like they fit in, and for some reason I'm more critical of this aspect than I am of plots and characters. And while some people are quite good at filling in the blanks of their world as they write, I am not. So I'm not going to rush this part. I actually feel like I am actively stretching my imagination. I can feel my brain growing. swelling uiuuuueauuueeauuuuueoauoooou

Writing is probably not something I'll ever be really good at. I think I found my natural talent in making games. But that makes writing fun, because it's an enormous challenge and little wins are really big. I'm also getting back into reading. I finally picked up the Lord Of The Rings, and after that I'm finally going to continue The Stormlight Archive, which has been on my mind since I paused it in 2020. Yikes

In the next post, I'm almost sure I will have made massive progress on Lethal Company. There is a lot of fun to be had over the next couple weeks."

https://www.patreon.com/zeekerss/posts/grugga-enters-159982313
"Hello, in the past two weeks I have been burned out, but I did manage to revamp Offense's exterior very quickly. I think it took me about 5 days. I'm quite satisfied with it; it feels like I finally achieved an idea that I've had for a while and yet never fully committed to.

Since the very beginning, I've always felt like Offense should be the 'first boss' when looking at the moon catalogue's progression from early-game to late game. I wanted it to be kind of infamous, befitting of the ugly name "Offense." I have more plans for Offense besides just the exterior terrain.

This moon truly hates the Cruiser

https://preview.redd.it/p9tyyi1r0t7h1.png?width=820&format=png&auto=webp&s=51e003d14ce8b2710ea848b4efcd5464876d58d9

Now it's quite unlike any other moon. The dramatic idea that excited me is that the fire exit is clearly visible and within audible range of the ship, yet is very far in actual walking distance.

I thought outdoor creatures might be a serious problem here now, but so far it's been quite tame when we test it. I don't know if that's just because Offense's exterior stats are kind of tame already, or if it's because the canyon/ravine design shields you from lots of encounters and makes creatures take longer to get around.

By coincidence though, this map does feel perfectly designed for the Old Birds. This adds to a dilemma for me: Old Birds were originally supposed to be a late-game kind of surprise. But since then, they have just been such a fun enemy that I've been tempted to put them elsewhere (like Adamance.) I am brainstorming a new, unique exterior creature to fit Offense, but I haven't gotten very far with that yet.

Games I'm Playing

There is just such a drought of new games out right now (which appeal to me), but I am realizing I have a small backlog which is starting to build up. I don't want to make a habit of leaving games unfinished. So I am going to finally finish games that I never got around to completing, starting with Inscryption and followed by Baby Steps.

I initially wrote Inscryption off because of my hatred for card games. Then after I had gotten really deep into it, I put it on the shelf and then got completely used to putting it off until it had sat there for years and years. I don't know why. It is totally my thing, and it's a crime what I've done to it. It's just that I have so much prejudice toward RPG's and card games for one reason or another, and I am used to keeping them away with a ten-foot pole."

https://www.patreon.com/posts/will-cs-system-156723827
"Hello. I was hoping to be able to show the CS system to you at its finest, but it's still in a state where I don't know if it will really turn out. So instead, I'm going to show you the CS System at its worst!

Massive progress has been made since last time I made a post, when he could barely do anything. Now I have at least one clip of him working surprisingly well, and it can be fun to watch. This is an ambitious idea, and if he truly becomes a master, he will impress you with what he can do. But let's go back to the start.

You may wonder who "he" is. Well you see, I am training a simple, prehistoric caveman named Grugga in the art of cinematography. I've watched every episode of Every Frame A Painting, so I'm basically an auteur and I can teach him. In my last post, Grugga was shaking the camera around like a maniac. He wasn't ready yet, he didn't know what a camera was, and being thrust into the director's seat frightened him. So he acted out.

https://reddit.com/link/1tc055p/video/kcz128sorw0h1/player

Grugga's Journey

The Cinematic Spectate system--or Cinespec as I call it--or Grugga--is based off of different types of shots, each with their own rulesets to gauge the quality of the current shot, all of which I teach through code. This was the very beginning; once I had gotten Grugga to hold a camera properly, all he really seemed to care about was the Rule Of Thirds. And all he knew was the static shot.

https://preview.redd.it/n32gzg0gsw0h1.png?width=820&format=png&auto=webp&s=942b702e70266ac0f8730d67d8b256a1b71403e7

Grugga at this point was like an amateur art-house film director. Somehow he slavishly followed all the basic principles I taught him while still going for the craziest angles whenever he possibly could. He also wasn't able to take into account any other subjects other than the player he was watching. I did eventually make it better by emphasizing that he should try to look where the player is looking or moving towards, and that's about where he was at when we recorded this playtest:

https://reddit.com/link/1tc055p/video/qqjxlqvrrw0h1/player

Action follow cam

In this video you also see another shot type, the following action shot. It's inspired by The Shining.

https://i.redd.it/2jnnubhhsw0h1.gif

At least until recently, it's been much less steady. But it was so funny that I just ran with that for a while, considering it like a shaky cam.

This is not a new moon, it's a test area.

I made this specific type of shot so early because I was really focused on trying to make it look good when the subject is running around a series of tight, winding tunnels. Following a subject like that is harder to film than I expected, especially when it's happening live and you don't know where the subject will turn next.

https://i.redd.it/qw750r9jsw0h1.gif

Recent Developments

Then I refined Grugga's abilities for about the next week, teaching him new shot types. The most significant of these was what I call the Scenic Shot, which uses a low field of view and distances the camera as far as it can from the subject, panning to follow the subject. This panning element made the scenic shot so versatile that I'm able to use it indoors as well as outdoors, and it really helps where Grugga is still too dumb to use the static shot correctly.

Now, sometimes, rarely, I would actually prefer this over the current spectate system. (But Grugga still has a heart of gold, and if there is a Manticoil or some flying bugs in his range of awareness, he will include them in the shot at all times no matter where they are. He can't help it.)

https://reddit.com/link/1tc055p/video/l6ud9vvvrw0h1/player

Besides that, I've been putting loads of work into a "Shot Reverse Shot" shot for the camera, which reacts to players who are talking and looking at each other. It reacts to voice chat by cutting to each player's face like in a movie. I haven't seen it work well yet, and I think it will be somewhat niche. But it will be worth it when it works, because you'll really feel as if you're watching a Lethal Company machinima on Youtube. And after that, I'll probably work on a dramatic zoom or dolly-zoom camera which reacts to dramatic moments by zooming in on the subject... but this requires adding in some new variables which can be used universally and give Grugga more intelligence on what's happening in the game.

Will It Work?

Part of why I still don't know if this will work is because it requires so much touching up for small, specific situations. The way I've set it up, it's quite easy to make changes (and adding new shot types is kind of addicting), but it still requires a lot of testing and work, and I don't know how much more work it will take. I know that it will always be far from perfect, and I have some very, very good ideas for new creatures which I'm about ready to get to modelling. So my goal right now is to get Cinespec to the point where it's not completely distracting and annoying at least 50% of the time. Part of what makes me think this is not a total pipe dream is that it has some fundamental things going for it: 1. It intuits which player is the most interesting to watch at any given time and automatically switches to them so you don't miss anything (unless, potentially, it would be more cinematic if you didn't see something). And 2. It will display the exact same for all players, so all spectating players are watching the same thing together like a movie. (And of course if it gets annoying, you can simply click to swap to the old spectate system.)

The next post might be delayed by a week. But by then, I ought to be able to tell you if Grugga is actually going to make it, or if we are going to shoot him...and not with a camera."

https://www.patreon.com/posts/working-on-c-s-155584424
"Hello! In an earlier post I think I might have said I was really excited to experiment with a feature once V80 was done. Well I have dived into it. This week I started by created a coding architecture for this feature which allows me to add lots of nuance to it, which is basically required if it's actually going to work at all. This has been working well I think--especially once I created the debugging system, which... has been put to use. Yes, this is another wacky, zany, out-there feature with an acronym starting with the letter C. But it's not the CC--it's the CS System. (Is that too easy to guess? Maybe.)

Almost immediately I hit the feeling of "This is going to be harder than I thought", even though I had known it was going to be harder than I thought. It's also requiring an extra amount of math skills, which I am not too great at. I still don't know if it's actually going to work out or be scrapped, but it requires about another week to really tell. If it doesn't start looking a lot better by then, I'm going to scrap the idea, and you might never know what this was about. The reason I'm so ready to scrap it is because it doesn't really affect gameplay, so it's not really a super essential addition. (Unless, of course, if it works well--then it'll be essential.)

Besides this, I got a great idea for an ultra-aggressive creature, and I won't explain it further than that.

Ending Breakthrough

I also woke up this morning with an idea for the ending of the game. It came to me as I was waking up and felt like a dream; it was somewhere between an idea suddenly popping into my head out of nowhere and me watching it take place like a movie--a very short, choppy movie that finished in like 5 seconds, showing a key moment of the ending during gameplay.

This idea took place within the larger premise which I had been tentatively moving towards, which means I'm almost certainly going to go with that now. So I basically know what the ending of the game is going to look like now, in a broad sense. This dream was pretty exciting for me, because it mainly answered the question of what the players will do to ultimately bring about the end credits. That has been one of the main unanswered questions that has never really gone anywhere and has always been totally blank. So I'm really happy about that. There's still a lot to think about though.

I think the dream came to me because I had recently watched another couple videos analyzing one my favorite classic horror movies I've never actually watched (yet which I continue to watch long videos about; its plot just fascinates me.) And now if I said what movie it is, it would reveal too much!

Left-over V80 Stuff

Here's a document I forgot to share, which is from when I was trying to figure out where to put the utility slot on the HUD, which was a difficult problem. I was not going to add the utility slot until I figured out a place for it on the HUD. The final place I chose for it is still unfortunately easy to miss (which is why there is a special animation for equipping items into it to draw your eye up to the slot.) But the utility slot being on the top left feels like the most logical place to me, and I was really happy when I got that idea.

https://preview.redd.it/lxj5mivtbzxg1.png?width=820&format=png&auto=webp&s=a13838f2ce361a388c20d1b097ae5ad6808e8a55

This climbing animation for the Feiopar was the hardest, most painful animation to make, and its back left knee rig specifically has some ugly twitching problems that I couldn't fix. But it's gladly not really easy to notice from the side angle!

The Feiopar is an example of how just a little procedural animation can go such a long way. Because its tail waving around really "sells" a lot of its movement as real while in-game, and otherwise it would probably look quite robotic."

https://i.redd.it/i0jxatbwbzxg1.gif