Lab Rats 2 v0.15.1 Public Release!
Lab Rats 2 v0.15.1 is live! Get it here!
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.15.1-Android&nbs...
2019-04-08 09:39:04 +0000 UTC View Post
vrengames posts
Bug Fixing and Outfit Rendering
I just have a quick status update for tonight. v0.15.0 is out which means there are plenty of bug reports streaming in. I've tracked down and fixed all the ones reported so far, which bodes well for the release of v0.15.1 to the public in a couple of days. To keep my computer busy during this bug fixing I've had it rendering out a new clothing item: a towel. This won't be available in the outfit creator but I have a few events I'd like to write that make use of it. Depending on how many other...
2019-04-04 06:44:39 +0000 UTC View PostLab Rats 2 v0.15.0 Release
Lab Rats 2 v0.15.0 is Live! Get it Here!
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.15.0-Android&nbs...
2019-04-01 08:15:37 +0000 UTC View PostMore Event Writing Work
The last couple of days I have been busy writing even more content for the upcoming update for Lab Rats 2. All of the side tasks that my writing efforts had spawned that I mentioned in my last post have been finished. That means I now have ways of calling evets that trigger in the morning at the start of the day (previously all events triggered at the end of a time chunk, which meant there was no possibility for morning events before you left home). I also now have much more control over how ...
2019-03-27 10:01:59 +0000 UTC View PostNew Event Writing
Now that the changes to the serum design system are finished I've had some time to write some new content for a bunch of different sections in Lab Rats 2. First, I've taken advantage of the new system itself to add some serum specific lab crises. In these crises you are given a chance to increase your mastery level of a serum trait by a significant amount, add random new traits in exchange for adding random side effects, and remove side effects from existing serums. Second, I have been adding...
2019-03-23 05:03:50 +0000 UTC View PostSerum Side Effects
I'm just about done implementing the new serum design mechanics. The latest thing I've added are serum side effects and the concept of a trait mastery level. Every serum trait now has a base side effect chance associated with it. Some traits are prone to producing side effects while others have a low base chance. Side effects are minor to moderate negative traits that are added to the serum design once the R&D division is finished researching it. Some quick examples from the short list I'...
2019-03-18 08:22:21 +0000 UTC View Postv0.15 Progress Update
I've just got a quick progress update for tonight to keep you all up to speed. A couple of days ago I started ripping out the old serum system and rewriting all of the stuff that needs to be rewritten. The broad strokes were done relatively quickly and I'm now in the process of remaking all of the existing serum designs using the new system. Two of the main improvements I've noticed immediately are:
1) There are no more arbitrarily named, unexplained status effects like "Depressed" or "...
2019-03-15 07:48:18 +0000 UTC View PostSerum Revamp Plans
The release of v0.14.1 turned up a few bugs that I'm busy hunting down right now, but once that is done it will be time to turn my attention to the improvements planned for v0.15. My first focus will be on improving the serum design system, which is beginning to show its age.
The serum design system of Lab Rats 2 is a good case study for the necessity and value of iterative design. The core concept goes all the way back to the original design document for the game: the player rese...
2019-03-11 06:27:24 +0000 UTC View PostLab Rats 2 v0.14.1 Public Release!
v0.14.1 is a major update that introduces a main statistic for girls: love. Love is a measure of a girls individual devotion and relationship with you, as opposed to their general sluttiness or obedience. The higher the love value the more willing a girl is to have a friendly chat, go out on a date, or have sex with you in private. New events and conversation options have been added to give ways to raise a girls love and old events have been modified to make the stat relevant.
Bug Fixing and Design Work
I've got a pile of bug reports in for v0.14.0 (thank you to everyone who found something and took the time to let me know!), so I'm chewing through that as we speak to get v0.14.1 polished up. Once that's done I'm going to be doing some design work and planning for v0.15 to figure out what I want to work on next. One of the major things that has been bothering me lately is the underlying code for how serums are put together and applied. A lot of my early assumptions haven't turned out to be t...
2019-03-03 09:29:57 +0000 UTC View PostLab Rats 2 v0.14.0 Release!
Lab Rats 2 v0.14.0 is live! Get it here!
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.14.0-Android&nbs...
2019-03-01 06:01:11 +0000 UTC View Postv0.14.0 Release Date! 2 Days to Go!
Just a quick post tonight to remind everyone that Lab Rats 2 v.14.0, will be released the night of Feb 28th, two days from now and right on schedule! For the last few days I've been busy writing a few new pieces of content, chasing down bugs, writing new tooltips, and otherwise polishing things up. All things considered I'm very happy with how the update shaped up! As normal v0.14.0 will be released to $5 and up patrons for a week of bug testing. After that week the improved v0.14.1 will be r...
2019-02-27 10:02:05 +0000 UTC View Postv0.14 New Underwear Preview
v0.14.0 will include 6 new pieces of clothing, 4 new panties and 2 new bras. All of them are shown above. I've added a few new outfits that make use of the new underwear as well as created some new underwear sets that should work properly with all of the overwear sets already defined in the game. I hope people are looking forward to having some more outfit options available in the game.
2019-02-24 09:04:23 +0000 UTC View PostRefactoring for Fun and Profit
In my last update I mentioned that I was doing some UI refactoring, changing the way some menus were handled inside of Lab Rats 2. Pulling on that thread lead me to make a bunch of very useful internal changes that have taken up the last couple of days.
My work has all been focused around the concept of an "Action" inside of the LR2 code. An Action has two key pieces: A requirement, and the action to take. You would have run into an action before when you talked to your head researcher ...
2019-02-22 06:05:06 +0000 UTC View PostMore UI Improvements
just a quick update for today. I've spent the last few days refactoring code to A) make some UI changes easier and B) divide actions up the way they logically should be. The first major change has been to move all of the employee related conversation options (complimenting or insult her work, for example) into a new "Employee" role. These actions now show up under the "special actions" menu instead of the chat menu.
The second major change was to change how most of the menu items are pa...
2019-02-18 08:58:37 +0000 UTC View Postv0.14 Work, Implementing Love
I've had a couple of solid days of work lately and I've made major strides implementing the love mechanic for LR2. The most major change so far has been to the "chat about something" menu and all of it's sub-options (flirting, small talk, and complimenting). These options now advance time when they're taken and are the main way the player can increase a girls Love. Low tier events (like making small talk) will eventually reach a limit of how much love they can contribute, and higher tier even...
2019-02-14 04:19:52 +0000 UTC View Postv0.14 Work - Adding Love
It's time for me to get started on v0.14, and the first step of that is to figure out what needs to be changed or added. I've done a lot of thinking and brainstorming the last few days and I think I've figured out what Lab Rats 2 needs most right now.
Currently in Lab Rats 2 there are a few key stats that every girl has: happiness, obedience, and sluttiness. Happiness is the odd one out, because it is quick to change and has relatively minor effects on the game outside of dialogue and c...
2019-02-11 08:12:59 +0000 UTC View PostLab Rats 2 v0.13.1 Release!
Lab Rats 2 v0.13.1 is finished and available to everyone, absolutely free! Get it here!
Android: 2019-02-08 09:56:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Experimental Musings
v0.13.1 goes out to the general public tomorrow, which means tonight is mostly bug testing and writing some limited scope features that aren't likely to break anything. While working I had a couple interesting thoughts that I wanted to share with you, and that I'll probably be following up on in the future with some small prototypes.
First, while working on the skin tone consistency problem I had an idea about alternative ways to render everything. A quick aside into computer graphics:...
v0.13 Bugfixing and Render Improvements
I've been working on bug fixes and improvements for the last couple of days as we get ready for the public release of v0.13.1. Top priority for me was sorting out the differences in skin tone between the new body renders and the old face renders, which turned out to have an interesting cause.
The character images for LR2 are all generated using some automation scripts I wrote for Daz Studio. For v0.13.0 I changed the way character bodies were rendered to improve the shadowing on their s...
2019-02-05 01:54:44 +0000 UTC View PostLab Rats 2 v0.13.0 Release
v0.13.0 is Live! Get it here!
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.13.0-Android
Lab Rats...
2019-02-01 06:08:13 +0000 UTC View Postv0.13.0 Release Plan
The tutorial screens for v0.13 are all finished, as is an optional tutorial given to you by Stephanie at the start of the game. I have some more writing to do for some new tutorial events, but the bulk of v0.13 is finished and I'm working on polishing some bits now. The last patron update went out on new years eve, which gives me a good chance now to get my release schedule a little more organised. v0.13.0 will be going out on Thursday night (Jan 31st, Feb 1st) and the free, bug fixed version...
2019-01-26 05:48:32 +0000 UTC View PostImage Compression Automation
Yesterday I decided it was time to sink my teeth into the image compression work I've been putting off for a while. After some testing and false starts (as well as discovering namespace overlap that was stopping the "standing_doggy" images from being cropped correctly) I now have a proper workflow established. Previous to this the image pipeline looked something like this:
Rendering -> Cropping -> Character Images Folder
When rendered images would sit in a folder until I ran...
2019-01-23 07:41:33 +0000 UTC View PostTutorial and Rendering Work
Just a quick update tonight to keep everyone up to speed on what I'm working on. Integrating some tutorial UI for important screens (like the serum design screen) is continuing. I'm also now planning to have NPC's, most likely the head researcher for now, bring critical gameplay issues to your attention as they show up. If you have production staff but no serum is being produced, no research selected while having valid options, etc. they will trigger an event and talk to you about it.
W...
2019-01-19 05:50:30 +0000 UTC View Postv0.13 Tutorial Work
Some internet problems held this progress report up by a day, but I'm back online and have news about my recent development efforts! For v0.13 I'm working on improving gameplay explanations and feedback. One of the important parts of that is explaining to the player the basic building blocks of their business: research traits -> design serums -> produce serums -> sell serums. To that end I have added a tutorial section to the game taking place on the first day. Travel locations are r...
2019-01-16 08:05:27 +0000 UTC View Postv0.13 Plans
Since the release of v0.12.1 I've taken a few days to do some bug fixing (thank you to everyone who posted a crash trace or bug report!) and think about what LR2 needs work on next. After reading through some comments I've decided to devote the v0.13 update cycle to improving the UI and gameplay explanation. All the clever game mechanic design in the world doesn't help if none of it is ever explained.
First up will be implementing a general tooltip system throughout the game. I want to ...
2019-01-12 09:18:43 +0000 UTC View PostLab Rats 2 v0.12.1 Release!
Lab Rats 2 v0.12.1 is live! Get it here:
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.12.1-Android&nbs...
2019-01-08 09:07:49 +0000 UTC View Postv0.12.1 Progress Update
The last couple of days have been a mix of bug fixing and rendering automation work to get ready for the v0.12.1 public release on Monday night (Jan 7th). I'm re-rendering all of the current body images with a new technique that should give more natural neck junctions. If everything with the rendering goes well it will be ready just in time to be slotted into v0.12.1, otherwise it will be part of the v.13 update.
With the bug fixing mostly handled and the rendering set up and underway I...
2019-01-06 05:24:51 +0000 UTC View Postv0.12.0 Bugfixing
I've been hard at work going through bug reports, finding, and fixing all of the problems that have shown up in v0.12.0 so far. I want to give a bug thank you to everyone who takes the time to post their crash traces, it makes my life much easier! An extra thank you to the people who dig into the code themselves and fix their own bug fixes. By the time I've read a report there's usually some awesome person who's already found the issue and suggested a solution.
I should be done with the...
2019-01-03 07:07:42 +0000 UTC View PostLab Rats 2 v0.12.0 Release!
Lab Rats v0.12.0 is finished and ready for it's Patron only release!
Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.12.0
Android: Lab Rats 2...
2019-01-01 11:06:25 +0000 UTC View Post