vrengames

Bug Hunt Safari - Tracking The Most Elusive Bugs

Work on v0.7 has been going great the last few days - the new clothing system is working well and has most of it's new contented added in, a few screens have been redesigned, and new poses and clothing items are being rendered as I type. In a day or two I should be far enough along to set a solid release date.

While working on the wardrobe changes there were a pair of very interesting, very strange bugs that popped up that I thought would be interesting to write about. If you end up working wi...

Updating the Clothing and Uniform System

I've made great progress with v0.7 over the last couple of days, with the majority of the work going towards a new clothing and uniform system.

In previous version of LR2 clothing was all handled as a single outfit. A girl would pick an outfit to wear at the start of the day and wear every single item in the outfit. That caused two significant problems: First, it limited the number of outfits to what I pre-designed or were submitted by patrons. Second, it meant that defining a uniform meant de...

Game Design - The Gameplay Loop of Lab Rats 2

Game design is one of my passions, and back in the early days of Lab Rats 1 I would put up posts talking about the various design principles I was following. I thought I would take some time tonight and restart the practice, this time taking a look at Lab Rats 2! In particular, I'm going to be looking at the central gameplay loop of LR2, what is already in place, and what needs to be added to make it a satisfying game.

First, lets establish what I mean by a "gameplay loop". A gameplay loop is ...

v0.7 Progress Update

Work on v0.7 has begun! My focus on the last few days has been updating my rendering scripts to support all types of different accessories that I'll be adding to the game. That work is finished now and my computer is busy rendering out the image sets for a test batch to make sure everything is working properly. Once that's done I'll finally be able to add in something that Lab Rats 2 has been missing for a long time - cum shots.

In addition to adding in the art necessary for cum shots I will b...

Crowd Sourcing My Accessory Search

I'm beginning work on v0.7, which if you check the latest development roadmap here is focused on a couple things: New sex renders, outfit accessories, and a reworked clothing system.

I'm going to be jumping into my rendering automation code to let it handle rendering accessories, and then I want to get right down to rendering accessories and adding them to the game. That's where I need your help - there's...

Lab Rats 2 v0.6.1 is Live!

Lab Rats 2 v0.6.1 is live! Get it here!

For PC: Lab Rats 2 v0.6.1-PC 

For Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.6.1-Mac 

For Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.6.1-Android&nb...

Anatomy of a Bug - The Slowdown Bug

I'll start this breakdown with a tl;dr: I've discovered and fixed the source of all of the slowdowns and halting in LR2. Expect greatly improved responsiveness and stability in v0.6.1. In the worst offending case the game now processes turns 650 times faster (6.5 second hang-up during end-of-day code down to 0.01 seconds, mostly Ren'py code).

When I find interesting, complicated, or in this case critical, bugs I like to breakdown exactly what caused it. Explaining it helps me make sure that th...

Prototying Week!

v0.6.0 is out for bug testing right now (thank you to everyone who's left me a bug report so far!). I normally use the time between the public and patron release to prototype features that are either very early in development or that might not make it into the final game, but this week I have a different goal in mind.

For a few versions now a number of people, myself included, have noticed a significant slowdown in LR2 as the game progresses. My goal for this week is to track the cause of that...

Lab Rats 2 v0.6.0 Release!

v0.6.0 is live! Get it here:

For PC: Lab Rats 2 v0.6.0-PC 

For Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.6.0-Mac

And for Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.6.0-Android 

v0....

Serum Creation System Update

v0.6.0 will be released to $5 patrons tomorrow night for testing. This update will include a tweaked serum creation system that I hope will resolve a flaw in the gameplay of LR2. That flaw was that the most valuable serum was also one of the easiest for the player to produce - a single trait serum with a high trait value. Because additional traits increased production cost along side value there was never any incentive to produce a multi-trait serum for profit.

The new system in v0.6.0 has som...

v0.6 Progress and Release Date

Work on v0.6 has been going very well the last couple of day and I'm almost finished with all of my goals for the update cycle. Those goals were: Rebalance content in the game for the new suggestion system, Implement a number of UI changes, and rework serum value to encourage use/sale of more complicated serums. The only work that is left to do is the work on serum value, which I hope to finish in the next two or three days.

I will be releasing v0.6.0 to $5 patrons for a week of bug testing on...

Expanding My Rendering Automation - Accessories

For people who are unfamiliar with my workflow, all of the rendering for Lab Rats 2 is done inside of a 3D posing/rendering program called DAZ Studio. The dynamic clothing system in LR2 requires a large number of renders done of the same piece of clothing while worn by different body types or in different poses. To make this possible I have spent a lot of time writing automation scripts that generate the appropriate image sets for new pieces of clothing, poses, body types, and so on.

For v0.6 ...

UI Changes - Visualising Sluttiness

I've spent the last couple of days refining the UI in Lab Rats 2, mainly focused on how information about different girls is presented to the player. 

Character names in menus now use that characters personal font and colour. Sluttiness is now also displayed visually instead of numerically - core sluttiness is gold, temporary sluttiness is red, and the current cap based on suggestibility is shown in a dull red. A symbol at the end of the line tells you if her core sluttiness is increasing...

Personalised Colour and Font

Here are some screenshots looking at the new personalised colour and font for different characters. If a character is created without a particular colour or font assigned to them they will be given a random one of each. Colours have been hand picked by me to make sure text remains easily readable against the blue background of the text box, and all text currently has the standard dark grey outline that is used for the rest of the narration.

The next step is to expand the number of fonts I have...

v0.6 Work Begins!

With my road map for the next few versions posted a few days ago it's time to get to work and make all of that a reality! First up is something I spent time prototyping last week, customized colours and fonts for characters names and text. 

I've finished getting the code in place and now I'm working on putting together a set of colours and fonts that are all different but still readable. Next I'll be seeing if I can get the same colours for names to appear in lists, which should make it e...

Lab Rats 2 Development Roadmap

Now that v0.5.1 is live it's time to lay out plans for future development. Here's what I'm planning to work on over the next few updates:

v0.6 - The major goal will be to rebalance all of the content in the game for the new suggestability system that was introduced in the previous update as well as set up a balance framework for all future content. I also have a number of UI improvements that will be implemented. The way serum traits are valued will be changed to make advanced multi-trait...

Lab Rats 2 v0.5.1 Public Release!

Lab Rats 2 v0.5.1 is out and available to everyone! Get it here!

PC (Windows and Linux): Lab Rats 2 v0.5.1-PC 

Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.5.1-Mac 

Android: 2018-05-28 08:45:48 +0000 UTC View Post

Prototyping Week Progress

The public release of v0.5 is only a couple of days away, which means I have to wrap up my prototyping work and get started on v0.6. Over the last week I've been working on a few different things and thinking about how they might work in Lab Rats 2.

First up, I currently have a new sex pose being rendered that should, if all goes well, make it into v0.5.1. The pose being added is a kneeling blowjob pose, which has required some extra work on my rendering automation software to add in variants ...

Prototyping Weekend Plans

It's my time in the development cycle: that special week between the patron bug testing release and the public release. As usual I will be using this time to fix any bugs found and to experiment with new features that might make it into future versions of the game.

I've got a couple of things that I want to take a look at this week. First up I'll be getting a new character pose set up and rendering (a kneeling blowjob pose). If all goes well, that should make it into the v0.5.1 update, along w...

v0.5.0 Patch

A pair of major bugs were discovered in the new production line code of v0.5.0 over the last 24 hours that prevented the creation of more than one serum design at a time. I've fixed the bugs and updated the download links, so if you haven't downloaded the game yet there is nothing to worry about. You can find the download links Here.

For anyone who has already downloaded v0.5.0 I'm also releasing a p...

Lab Rats 2 v0.5.0 is Live!

Lab Rats 2 v0.5.0 is live and available to $5 patrons! Get it here:

PC (Windows or Linux): Lab Rats 2 v0.5.0-PC 

Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.5.0-Mac 

Android: 2018-05-21 05:07:44 +0000 UTC View Post

Finishing up v0.5.0

I'm coming to the end of the list of things I wanted to achieve with the v0.5 update, which means it's time to buckle down and tackle some of the few remaining tasks and get everything finished up. If all goes well v0.5.0 will be released to patrons on May 20th, this coming Sunday.

So far the v0.5 update has:
* Introduced a new suggestability system, replacing the old "suggest as modifier" system with a "suggest as cap" system.

* Added multiple production lines, letting you make speci...

New Clothing Items in v0.5!

Over the last couple of days my computer has been hard at work rendering out a bunch of new clothing items to add to the game! A few combinations of new and old items are shown in the picture above. In total 12 new clothing items and 1 new hair style have been added. There are a few clipping issues I want to go over and resolve, as well as an issue with some items being more transparent than intended, but overall things have gone well.

Here are some notable additions: First, lab coats! Now you...

Adding New Production Lines

One of the most annoying limitations in Lab Rats 2, as of v0.4, was the inability to produce more than one serum design at a time. You would often want to produce one serum for profit and another for internal and/or personal use. Designing a single mega-serum that did both was inefficient, and switching between designs was tedious.

Tonight I've resolved that issue. I finally took the dive and ripped out all of the old serum production code and replaced it with a new system that allows for an a...

v0.5 Progress Update - Suggestability Rehaul and Lab Coats!

I've finished implementing the new suggestibility system and testing it out to make sure it plays nicely with the rest of the game. I'll be setting up a test game soon to see how balance was affected by the changes and modify values accordingly. I've already bumped up the default duration of a serum from 1 to 3 time segments - temporary sluttiness bleeds away at a rate of 1/chunk, and has a (suggestability)% chance of being turned into core sluttiness. With a 1 unit duration it would take foreve...

Planned Changes to the Suggestion Mechanic.

I'm very happy to say I'm completely over my cold now and able to return to work on the next version of Lab Rats 2. The core focus of v0.5 is going to be a complete re-haul of the suggestion mechanic and refinement of the gameplay in general. Today I'm going to lay out my plans for the game and talk about what I hope they will achieve.

So here are the changes I have planned:

1) Girls will now have a "core sluttiness" and a "temporary sluttiness" score. Temporary sluttiness has a maximum ...

Lab Rats v0.4.1 is Live!

v0.4.1 is available to everyone! Get it here:

PC (Windows and Linux): Lab Rats 2 v0.4.1-windows 

Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.4.1-mac 

Android: Lab Rats 2 v0...

Out with a Cold

In my last post I mentioned that I had several social events that were going to be taking up my time this week. In addition to that, one of them left me with a brutal cold. I think (hope) I'm at about the worst of it now, and that over the next two or three days I'll improve significantly, but work this week has been slow. The public v0.4.1 release will go on as planned tomorrow with as many bugs patched as possible; if the version is still not stable I will work on a patch for it to release as ...

Lab Rats Prototyping Week

It's the week between the public and patron releases of Lab Rats 2. That means, along with fixing up all of the bugs found, I'll be spending some time prototyping some cool stuff to see what might make it into the game in the future. Social commitments are going to keep me busier than usual this week, but I still have two major topics I want to investigate:

1) Sound/Music - Good sound design can make menu and character interaction much more responsive. I want to take a look to see what re...

v0.4.0 Patron Release!

The final bit of rendering has finished, which means the patron release for Lab Rats 2 v0.4 is ready!

Get the PC version (Linux and Windows) here: Lab Rats 2 v0.4.0 - PC 

Get the Mac version here: Lab Rats 2 v0.4.0 - Mac 

And get the Android version here...