Join us with your most valuable scrap to talk about Lethal Company in today's RPS Game Club liveblog!

[Chanting]Scrap! Scrap! Scrap! Scrap!

Kiera, let me ask you: why did you pick Lethal Company for our Game Club?

Scavengemonger 3rd Class EEvansThirl, signing in.

Hello and welcome folks! For me, it felt like a natural choice for a Game Club game. It's cheap and cheerful and after a few attempts with friends it felt light-hearted enough to reccommend to people. What were your initial impressions?

Cheerful and light-hearted do not describe my experience of the game so far, but I'm prepared to believe it gets wholesome over time.

I did have a lot of fun that time I got stuck outside on a relatively unthreatening moon, repeatedly failing to jump over a gap while you were all off indoors getting eaten by giant fleas.

Well, cheerful enough once you get past all the creepy monsters I mean...light-hearted in the sense that coming off the back of Baldur's Gate 3, I didn't need to worry about making any world-ending decisions

Yes this is true. I think it's a game that is much more fun if you let go of the idea of succeeding, and instead are happy to fail in silly ways. Looking back over the recording I made of our play through, we were laughing almost the whole time.

Apart from Edwin, who kept asking where everyone had gone.

It was worse when I found you again because I thought you were all monsters.

That was sort of my approach when writing about it, I think Lethal Company is the type of game that facilitates fun rather than creates the fun itself - if that makes sense. In Edwin's defence, the Bracken monster seemed attached to him in particular.

I have since read a guide to the Bracken monster on noted Lethal Company tips resource Rock Paper Shotgun. My error was that I kept trying to stare it down. It doesn't like that, apparently.

We weren't even playing with the proximity voice chat on, we were in a Discord call. I played with James and Nate using the in-game voice chat and it was even more chaotic. You could just hear, like, Nate off in the distance very faintly shouting "oh no, bees!" and things.

I think the monsters are brilliant. Proper creepypasta creations.

Are there any monsters in particular that left an impact? The Coil-Heads are very creepy but I don't believe we encountered any in our playthrough.

During our session I forgot to disable either the game or Discord mic inputs, so ended up broadcasting through both. Sorry about that - I probably sounded like I was yelling into a vocoder. Yelling about wiggly things down the corridor who turned out to be James.

The Coil-Heads are great for the noise they make when they stop. I wish we'd met the jack in the box one.

It's kind of cheaty but I thought it was best to keep Discord on in the background. Things were chaotic enough and I wanted to help guide everyone... until I died about 5 times over. My leader status should have been revoked after the lightning ordeal.

Seeing you struck by lightning right in front of me was the perfect intersection of horror and comedy. It was incredible.

I think the Forest Keeper properly scared me the most, because it was the evening and I couldn't see him through the trees, and then he just lumbered over the bridge at me with his big hands and no head. But the rest of the time you can hear the big stomping footsteps, so maybe that's a bad example...

You did have a knack for calling the thunder.

You missed the part where you were carrying James' lifeless body in your arms. As you tried to run away from the Forest Keeper his arms were flailing around like jelly.

I'm not sure it counts as a 'monster' but the tentacled entity outside of The Company HQ is cool. If you spend too much time hanging around the bell it will create a little earthquake and try to grab you. Do you guys reckon it is actually part of The Company or is just a little loot goblin they hire to pick up collections?

I think the entire company is a huge monster inside a building. Like, Cthulhu gone capitalist.

I like the little hook it uses to swipe the loot after you ring the bell (assuming it doesn't get mad and eat everybody). Strangely satisfying.

Generally speaking I like the line the game walks between open satire and goofy monster designs and taking the supporting fiction just seriously enough. It's a hard line to walk.

It's a nice bit of tension the game creates. Sometimes you have to wait ages for it to get your loot and you can just hear it gurgling below. I love that theory, but it begs the question of how we got contracted in the first place. Does The Company monster know how to use LinkedIn?

I actually think that the supporting fiction helps with the goofiness. Like, you are collecting scrap and selling it to a slot in a huge brutalist concrete building for no verifiable reason. So it sort of makes sense to me that the entity that is The Company would value big pieces of industrial rubbish and also whoopie cushions and kettles.

I would quite like the Company monster to be in the next Fallout game. Plenty of junk to chew on in Fallout games.

You could feed it the Matt Berry robit!

What's the most successful you've been at scrap collecting? I've only done a few rookie days, you know, so I've got a lot of that slippery corporate ladder to climb.

I've had a good run and fulfilled a few quotas with friends mostly guiding me through the whole process. I had a few failed attempts solo before I decided to install mods and make life easier for myself. It's a whole different game on your own and does have a Fallout dystopian vibe, but alas with less Matt Berrys.

I mostly agree with James's hot take that the game gets less entertaining the more of it you master. Once the initial jump scares and ragdoll humour wears off. Have you folks had similar thoughts?

I'm interested to know whether there's a lategame meta or similar where it turns into something completely different. Like speedrunners doing bizarre things, or people trying to farm the monsters.

I haven't got nearly that far myself but I know you can get weapons from one monster, for instance.

Yes and no! I think James is being a bit harsh. I think it's true that the initial drop off is very fast, but I think if you're playing with the right people and the right spirit, Lethal Company has the right silliness to extend the tail longer than most.

I mean I did reference this in the article I wrote, but Phasmophobia is essentially the same framework, but I didn't think it was great shakes or loads of fun. I think Lethal Company is just much more of a laugh riot and I think, for example, the monster design is calculated to more actively cause havok.

Yeah, it mostly comes down to having the right squad. I'm not sure I would like to face public lobbies just yet. Although, your story about the child who joined your game was very funny. Speedrunners are an entirely different breed so I'm sure it's possible! I know there are some folks that have a completely decorated ship for example, but most of my day is spent just trying to stay alive.

It's been interesting to see Content Warning swoop in and try to make the idea its own. I quite like Content Warning, but I'm not sure it'd have done so well without the free promotion - it's got some great ideas, but the munsters are less munstery.

Yes, I think a big reason why these games have such a large amount of initial success is meme culture. People tend to stick to a monster and give them a personality. It's part of the reason why I love the Hoarding Bugs so much (that and their freaky little faces). Content Warning has the same potential but their monsters aren't as memorable. At least, for me.

I do think the 'streamer' angle was a strike of genius though.

This isn't entirely fair, but Content Warning feels to me like the cleaned-up "triple-i" take on Lethal Company. It doesn't have any real unpleasantness in it. The selfie view and auto playthrough recordings are an inspired touch though.

Plus, it caters to gamers who have dreamed of being a streamer at some point in their lives. Do you think you'll play any more of Lethal Company, or are you satisfied to leave it as is?

I think it's a great one to play with pals, so I would definitely hop on again with the right group, you know? I haven't wrung the fun out of it yet.

I'll definitely play more! Might wait till there have been some fresh updates - I'm not sure what the developer is planning at this stage. I've also been enjoying revisiting their older horror games.

After playing it quite a bit for Game Club and (mostly breaking it with mods), I think I'm happy to leave Lethal Company on the shelf for the rare games night when I need something quick and easy to jump into with friends. Which is exactly what it's for really.

Thanks for picking it for this month, Kiera - and for hosting our nice chat!

Thank you for joining me! For my first Game Club, it's been a grand one.

Durkonkell says: I feel like a lot of the comedy in this game comes from what in another context we might call 'jank' - the demented running animations, flopping limbs on carried bodies and that. Is it still jank if its deliberate?

We're about to hop off for the night BUT I think... yes? Maybe? Although how could you tell if it was on purpose? Either way, I'm alright with it, I think. That's a fence sitting answer if ever I gave one.

Night everyone! Have good weekends. Watch out for nutcrackers with guns.

Night everyone and thanks for joining!