Project Spunk Becomes Lethal Company (Patreon)

Hi, since the last post, the project is picking up speed again and finds itself in a new groove (as is the typical ebb and flow!)

My friend signed a contract and is now officially working for me on the project. He helped get the project onto version control, which was somewhat tricky to set up, but now it's working like a charm! He doesn't want anyone to know who he is yet and I'm also not going to say exactly which of us is working on which things, because he feels some pressure working on this more well-known project. So I'll be trying to use "we" more often.

Following the tradition of probably breaking every mod, I've done some work cleaning up variable names that I had become quite comfortable with--such as "isInElevator", a variable which is used over a hundred times throughout the project and which strangely has nothing to do with the mineshaft elevator. No, it actually signals whether the player character is inside the main ship or not. This name was a holdover from such a long time ago, back when the thing that took you between rounds was a literal elevator going down between floors in the factory (and the actual ship and exterior was all just set dressing.) To be completely honest, I had become sentimental about this. I felt a little bit of sadness at changing the old "isInElevator" variable that I knew so well! So this paragraph is its eulogy and send-off. Goodbye, isInElevator. You did well.

Also, the project name is now internally Lethal Company, not Project Spunk--another hit to the part of my brain that gets sentimental about any small thing that I have had to see every day for years. I chose the name Project Spunk thinking of the phrase "You got spunk!" as a way of calling someone courageous and bold, because I was beginning on a massive challenge and I needed to have some pluck if I was going to see it through. Well now Project Spunk is officially Lethal Company. Of course it has been for a while, but now it's official. It's meaningful to me, okay.

I also created a code overview document (or HLD document) that briefly describes every script in the game and their purposes (though I don't feel comfortable showing it all off to the world, and it's still being worked on here and there.)

My friend is learning how to work with the enemy AI system so he can help me make AI for the long-awaited creature feature. He's doing quite well!

What's gotten done

I decided exactly on the game mechanics for this large, hyper-aggressive monster which I've been excited about for a long time, and I finally figured out what I wanted it to look like, modeled, and textured it. This beast is probably one of my favorite enemy designs visually in the game, partly because it just feels like a real creature (but is far stranger than the Feiopar). I also feel like its model and texture show a lot of improvement in my craft. Mechanically I'm also enormously excited for it, and I'm very proud of the concept design-wise. There will be a lot of unique challenges coming up, mainly in its visuals, which I'm excited to tackle. We're also working on another creature which we came up with quite suddenly and thought was a hilarious concept. It's the first creature that has had its AI worked on before its model and animations were finished.

We're also improving the player physics so that clinging to a vertical wall is no longer possible and will cause you to slide. And, more comically, slamming down into a wall at high speed will cause you to tumble off rather than stick to it like a spider. This has become more necessary as Offense is now full of sheer cliffs, and the mineshaft caves especially enable players to cling up to walls and confuse creature AI.

I never wanted V85 to take so long, especially after the wait for V80. But the project is going through another renewal, and I want to let it mature. So I think the mythical Creature Feature will finally become a reality this time around.

Okay, it's been a while since there was pictures, so I'll give you something that can't spoil gameplay!

I bet you want to rub this belly