A Successful Test Run of v0.5.0

As Lab Rats has gotten larger, my ability to test it from start to finish has grown smaller. Most of the time I test new content by cheating a little. Bump up a girls stats, add some extra money, so I can get to the new stuff I've added and make sure nothing crashes. Tonight, though, I decided to sit down and do a full playthrough of the current version from start to finish. 

One of the goals was to see if I could reach the "perfect game" level of over 100 influence with each girl. I managed it, but just barely. That seems like a good indication that it's difficult (If I'm not an experienced player, who is?), but possible. My test also revealed a few gameplay issues that will be dealt with in the near future (but not in v0.5.0, to avoid introducing new bugs so close to release).

1) Lily has a lack of player triggerable major scenes, which makes influence gain very difficult. She is the hardest girl out of the five, and I only managed to push her over 100 on day 119. On a possitive note, her hub scene provides plenty of resistance reduction in an easy player controlled way.

2) Mom has a limited number of major scenes that can be triggered by the player, and her minor scenes are much rarer than Lily's. Her easiest resistance reduction, the "favours" you can buy on Monday morning, costs cash which is otherwise better spent on serum supplies.

3) It's frustrating having to buy either 1 or 3 serum supplies. I think I'll tweak this soon so you can buy 1,2,3,4, or 5 at once, with a bulk discount as you get more.

4) Money is tight (which is good, that forces decisions), but there's only one thing really worth spending it on (which is bad, because one choice does not a decision make). The only two places money really matters (outside of minor expenses like buying coffee) are serum supplies and Mom's morning favours. Making purple serum and using it on mom is almost always going to be better than spending the same amount of cash on her minor scenes.

5) Income is flat throughout the game, while expenses grow. As your influence over the girls grows, you end up with more places to want to use expensive serums (Red for new events that won't generate resistance anyway, purple for old events that would otherwise generate a lot of resistance). No matter what though, you continue to pull in either $200 or $150 each week. I need to introduce some way of earning more money as the game goes on.

On the plus side, a lot of things worked out well!

1) Nothing crashed or bugged out with the new endings.

2) Resistance is working exactly as intended. I was forced to make intellegent decisions about using red, blue, or purple serum and to seek out minor scenes to lower resistance of key girls.

3) It's possible to get over 100 with each girl in a single playthrough.

4) The pacing with the girls felt about right, nothing seemed too sudden or too drawn out and the endings seemed like a natural extension of the story.

5) Getting a high score required a domino effect from the girls. To max Lily, I needed to get Mom's score above 100 (so I could trigger the movie scene repeatedly without worrying about her resistance). To get Mom's score above 100, I needed to have Nora on board so I could trigger their threesome scene without worrying about Nora's resistance. Stephanie and Nora both make the other girls easier by providing access to newer serums.

Over all, a success and a good sign for v0.5, which will be out in a couple of days!