A Rose By Any Other Name...
Added 2019-04-16 08:33:18 +0000 UTCWith my crusade against loading times complete I've been able to move onto other, more interesting tasks. In particular I've improving the way characters in Lab Rats 2 refer to each other. Previously characters had a first and last name and those were always used during sections of dialogue. Internally the script file looked something like:
the_person.name "Hello [mc.name], how are you doing today?"
For some events I wanted you to refer to a character in a specific way, for example saying "your mother" instead of "Jennifer". These references were hard coded into the game, making them rather inflexible.
The new system has three key pieces of information that every girl stores: A Title, a possessive title, and a player title. A girls title is her proper noun, often just her name but sometimes something more formal like "Mrs.Anderson", or far more crude like "Sugar Tits". A possessive title is how the girl would be referred to relative to you. For example, "your sister", "your mother", or "your employee". If no particular possessive title is set then a normal title can be substituted and be grammatically correct. Finally, the player title a girl stores is the proper noun she uses for you. This is often your first name, but could be more polite like "Mr.Games", more personal like "Sweetheart", or suggestive like "Daddy".
New titles for a person are unlocked by achieving different combinations of stats, roles, and personalities. You can talk to a girl and, if they are obedient enough, change how you refer to them or how they refer to you. If they are not obedient you'll have to wait until they come to you and decide they want a new nickname or they want to call you something new.
To go along with these changes most characters now start the game as strangers. Their names are displayed as "???" in menus and there is a short introduction event when you talk to them for the first time. During this event they give you their preferred title and you can tell them what you prefer.
I've just begun the task of going through all of the LR2 dialogue and replacing name references with the new updated versions. It's a slightly tedious job but it shouldn't take too long to get done. Once it's finished I will be able to write new content and take advantage of the much more flexible system.
Comments
Aaaand... I'm outta here. Just tried it... Game USED to be fun... Now it's a complicated mess. Too many.reasons to list here. It's just no longer a fun porn game. And i have NO desire to pay money every month for a pharmaceutical company simulator. See ya peeps!
Tim R Mercado
2019-04-19 21:08:47 +0000 UTCWell... I'm gonna try this game again after a few months of not playing it at all... I really hope by this time its made the swap from pharmacy tycoon to fun porn game.
Tim R Mercado
2019-04-19 19:43:09 +0000 UTCHi! Since you're using Illusion games assets to make Lab Rats, and I'm thinking about using them in my next project as well, I just wanted to know... has Illusion warned you not to use their games to make your own or contacted you somehow?
2019-04-19 12:01:49 +0000 UTCSo Vren, are the girls from lr1 ever going to look like themselves or are they always going to look generic and I'm sorry but in my opinion not very pleasant. I except that your making lr2 in a different way and trying new things but you've taken away the story element to it and it's all just a bit of a grind. The harem scenes are too chaotic with no real sense of achievement. I absolutely loved the first one and I can understand where your going with this one but for me the big kicker is the way lr1 chars look now please can you do something about it please.
Dave
2019-04-18 20:19:40 +0000 UTCThe feature that retchedegg suggests is definitely a polish feature. Getting the title system working first (insert title into function call, get title out during dialog) then writing the title decider (based off of variables, produce a title to be chosen) is how I would think to go about it if you choose to do so.
mazterlith
2019-04-17 18:04:42 +0000 UTCthe girls should choose by themselves what they call you, for instance after a date they will start calling you by your first name, or when you anger them too much they start referring to you in a less familiar way. Also titles could affect stats, not in a major way, but if you call someone a bitch, they should get angry, or feel more humiliated and potentially become more obedient under the verbal abuse (or get more excited based on personality/slutiness). With that said, implementing any system/events interacting with titles might be problematic, if you want to allow the player to create custom titles. One way of doing it is categorising titles into groups based on how polite or mean they are, and having player custom set whether his custom title is nice or mean. it might allow people to custom input bitch and custom set it to nice and than get away with calling everyone bitch, but it would allow a lot more freedom for the player in setting how severe his custom titles are and how offended he himself feels about his custom titles. I dont know what sort of events should trigger based on titles, at the time i came up with: Someone responding to what someone else calls you (either jealousy, being protective of their friend, being curious, feeling offended when someone else calls you something specific). A new employee notices what everyone else calls you and confronts you about it. Also titles could be used as a form of rewards or punishments, i expect that certain titles would require certain stats, and the girl should get upset if you call her something wrong, but i would like it if there were possibilities to force a title on a girl, although it should probably at the very least affect her happiness and possibly other stats, at least until she gets used to the title, this means until she somehow reaches the stats that she requires to accept the title
retchedegg
2019-04-16 14:44:40 +0000 UTC
