More good progress on adding image sets, we're almost with all of the endings at this point. Here are a few shots from my work over the last two days, hope you like 'em.
2017-04-09 07:54:42 +0000 UTC View PostBefore I get distracted, a quick update on the state of v0.6. All the special endings are written and image sets are half done. I've still got to go through and fix a bunch of spelling mistakes that were found in the last version, which I'll probably do in the next few days. Over all, we're quickly marching towards the release of v0.6!
By default Renpy includes a rollback feature that allows the user to undo actions or step backwards in a conversation. This allows you to go back and reread dia...
2017-04-07 09:04:33 +0000 UTC View Post
It's been a hectic few days for me, but I was finally able to set aside a nice big chunk of time and get to work on the image sets for v0.6. Tonight I finished two of the endings, adding 28 unique images to the game. If my schedule holds I'll be doing more image sets over the next couple of days, so expect to see some more teaser shots coming your way!
2017-04-05 08:15:32 +0000 UTC View PostThings have been a bit busy for me over the weekend, but there's been a solid amount of forward progress with Lab Rats all the same. All of the writing is done, and work has begun on the image sets for each ending. I've also added a small notification right before you trigger each major scene, informing you how many times you've been through the scene before and how much resistance is expected to increase.
That's all I've got to report for now, I'm sure I'll have some fun WIP shots from t...
2017-04-03 06:28:52 +0000 UTC View Post
It seems a little cruel to talk about new UI features like I did yesterday and not provide some screenshots of how things look. Here's a sneak peak at the slightly modified Influence and Serum HUD, plus the new "Notes" page in the notebook.
There have been a number of comments asking about the exact mechanics behind Resistance and how it can be modified. Resistance is a relatively recent addition to the game (being added in v0.4), as a way of allowing repeated Major scenes while also encouraging exploration and discovery of new content. While the game design is sound, the way it is currently being presented to the player is severely lacking.
As a first step to fixing that I'm expanding the notebook to include a "Notes" tab. As th...
2017-03-30 05:44:42 +0000 UTC View Postv0.5.1 is up and ready for play! Get it here:
https://mega.nz/#!lwxQzBxT!E8F9tb_TBTiG8Uc1F3Lk2DESxkrGs5jnh3QduVlEC0c
EDIT: Fixed the link. Sorry about that.
If you've already played v0.5.0, there isn't any new content in the public build that you haven't already seen. Major progress has been made this week on v0.6 instead, which should be out relatively soon. I...
2017-03-28 07:19:20 +0000 UTC View PostJust a quick update with how things are going. v0.5.0 seems to be stable, with no game breaking bugs reported so far. That's left my week open for some solid development, and I've gotten a ton of writing done the last few days. If I'm able to keep this pace up the core content of v0.6 will be done shortly, and I'll use the extra time to work on some extra stuff that I've got planned.
Since v0.6 is just a continuation of v0.5, there won't be any major new content in v0.5.1. Instead, I'm p...
2017-03-26 06:10:50 +0000 UTC View Post
I've finished up the writing one of the special endings for v0.6, which involves Stephanie and Nora (plus one other girl, I'll leave you in suspense about which one). The outfit from a few nights ago is the uniform they are both wearing now, for reasons I'll leave up to the imagination.
Here's a quick image I put together to get a rough idea of how the scene would be laid out, hope you like it.
2017-03-24 07:11:34 +0000 UTC View PostI've thought about it, and now seems as good a time as any to lay out some plans for the next few updates of Lab Rats. So, lets take a look at what's on the chopping block and in what order.
v0.5.1 - The public release of v0.5 will include any bug fixes needed, plus a few small tweaks I'm working on right now. Other than that, all work is going towards getting v0.6 out as fast as possible.
v0.6 - The Endings update, pt. 2. This will add 7 "special" endings to lab rats to go along wi...
2017-03-23 03:17:57 +0000 UTC View Post
V0.5.0 is out, and (so far) nothing horrible has befallen it. That means I was able to spend tonight doing some more experimenting and seeing what's possible and looks good.
Tonight, I was playing around with fishnet stockings, trying to get a look I like. In particular, I wanted fishnets with larger segments and lower cut than I had available. That meant copying meshes and textures, modifying textures, then modifying the materials for the meshes, and eventually getting the result you see...
My schedule for tomorrow night just filled up unexpectedly, but because development went so smoothly I'm pushing out v0.5.0 a day early rather than a day late! Download the latest version of Lab Rats here: https://mega.nz/#!coBBTTjJ!JuC1U9Dsr2JkNNFIETGmsUUsfXR9PNKINhtCDDxaMX0
And as always, the change log for this version:
- Added 10 endings, two for each girl.
- Add...
2017-03-21 06:18:58 +0000 UTC View Post
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 mana...
2017-03-20 07:51:44 +0000 UTC View PostA few months ago I wrote a post about game design, specifically the relationship between Cost and Reward (Here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/game-design-cost-7856670 ). Picking apart games and figuring out why they're good is one of my hobbies, and with the release of v0.5 so close I thought I'd look at what makes an ending a good ending.
So, lets dive right in. There are a few critical parts to a g...
2017-03-19 07:41:26 +0000 UTC View PostI'm closing in on the end of development for 0.5 (which is, of course, now only the first part of the endings updates). By tomorrow night I should be done with all of the image sets, and then it's just a matter of testing to make sure everything works correctly before it is pushed out to all of you on Tuesday night / Wednesday morning.
For each ending to trigger a certain "high influence" threshold has to be reached with a girl, and I'm currently choosing the cut off value that will be us...
2017-03-17 04:45:07 +0000 UTC View PostJust a quick progress report for tonight. Work on v0.5 continues to go well, All of the generic endings have been written, and the "actions" that you can take at the end of the game have had image sets made for them.
If this pace keeps up I'll be done with a little time to spare, so I've got a small addition planned that I'll sneak in. No spoilers though, you'll just have to play the new version to find out what it is.
That's all, back to work for me now!
2017-03-16 03:22:32 +0000 UTC View PostI've been hard at work the last little while writting the various endings for Lab Rats, and progress has so far been good. By the end of tonight I should be done writting the generic endings, and I can move on to making image sets for them.
Rather than wait until all of the endings are written and imaged, I've decided to split the endings update into two seperate updates. v0.5 will be the generic endings, and v0.6 will be the special endings. This means I'll be able to push out v0.5...
2017-03-14 05:27:47 +0000 UTC View Post
I finished up Nora's generic ending tonight, and I took a few minutes to work up the outfit she's wearing in it. Hope you all like it!
2017-03-13 05:06:36 +0000 UTC View Post
I got Stephanie's generic scene done tonight, then decided to devote some time to a little basic research and try and expand my capabilities a little. It may not produce immediate results like spending the night writing or imaging, but taking the time to figure this stuff out now lets me plan to do cool stuff in the near future.
In particular tonight I was figuring out how to copy and texture pieces of clothing, so that I could edit them however I wanted. Here we see I've given Nora a some bra...
2017-03-10 07:59:08 +0000 UTC View Post
My thumbnail had been around since Lab Rats started development, and was looking a little worse for wear. I've spent some time sketching and made one I think looks a lot better.
Writing for v0.5 continues as normal, still plenty to go though!
2017-03-09 06:43:02 +0000 UTC View PostYep, I'm still writing. Current word count has climbed to 130k, which is 10k more than 0.4.1. There's plenty more to do too, so we'll see how high that number gets by the end. Right now I'm writting up the harem ending, which will be the hardest to reach but hopefully the most rewarding. In it, you end up with all five girls living under one roof, eager to serve you (and eachother while they're at it). It's turning out to be a lot of fun, because basically anything goes here. It's the big finale...
2017-03-08 07:38:33 +0000 UTC View PostMost of tonight is getting eaten up by administration duties. It's important, but a little dull. If all goes well I'll still have time to do some writing tonight and make more headway with v0.5; on the chopping block right now are the first few special endings.
Now onto other, more fun, buisness. As I write up the new endings for Lab Rats, I thought now is a good time to take an informal pole and ask you, the audience, what your favorite scenes in Lab Rats are. Do you have a favorite girl...
2017-03-07 06:18:30 +0000 UTC View PostWell, just what the titles says. I'm currently writting all of the ending content for v0.5, and there's a lot of stuff to write. It's currently sitting at an additional 6000 words, and I litterally haven't touched the actual endings yet, I'm just finishing up the end-of-game actions the player can take. Expect to see a few updates over the next two or three weeks that's just me checking in with new word counts.
To help give me a break though, I want to take a little time and do some plann...
2017-03-05 08:17:00 +0000 UTC View Postv0.5 is the endings update, and in terms of word count it's shaping up to be one of the largest updates to date. Currently there are three "Actions" that you are presented a choice about at the end of the game, as long as you meet certain requirements. These actions, along with having their own sex scenes associated with them, unlock different epilogues. Three actions which each may or may not be taken means 8 different paths through the action tree. 7 of those lead to unique epiolgues, the fina...
2017-03-03 08:19:17 +0000 UTC View PostI've finished all of the planning for v0.5 and I'm ready to get to work on the writing. At the end of the game the player will have a short story section similar to the intro. If their influence is high enough with certain girls (right now 100 is the default for "high enough", but that may be changed later) they can take certain actions at this point that will influence their final ending. This section will include a few sex scenes as well.
After the "action" phase, there is a time skip of a f...
2017-03-02 06:44:37 +0000 UTC View PostA few days ago a patron by the name of Kravenar Games Team (Who seem to be working on their own project here: https://www.patreon.com/kravenar )pointed out that all of the assets for Lab Rats are unencrypted. If you download the game and do a little digging through the folders you'll find that all of the images used in the game, the music (such as it is), and the script are all available for you to look at and edit.
After a great vacation I've returned! As much as I've enjoyed the time off I'm eager to get back to work and get started on v0.5!
First, a little housekeeping. I see there were a few bugs that slipped by me in v0.4.1 that are causing problems and locking out some sizable chunks of content (Lily's hub scene and access to the purple serum recipe, mainly). To address that I'm going to push out a bug fix build tomorrow night which should resolve those problems and make sure everything is playable ...
2017-02-28 04:45:21 +0000 UTC View Post
We've seen a few different looks for Lily lately, but I thought just one more couldn't hurt. Here we have Lily tied up for the night, probably on the extreme end of the private slut spectrum. Why leave the house when everything you need is kept inside?
REMINDER: This is an automated post. I am currently away on vacation and will return on the 28th.
2017-02-27 11:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post
I posted an image of Lily in an apron (just an apron) a few days ago as a potential private slut ending, and I thought I should expand on that a little and see what else the girls could end up looking like. The maid style is a classic, and mom clearly knows what her boy expects when the chores aren't done on time.
REMINDER: This is an automated post. I am currently away on vacation and will return on the 28th.
2017-02-26 11:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Stephanie's the party girl of the game, even though she tries to hide it early on. If there were ever a person to get into a wet t-shirt contest while on vacation, it would be her. And of course, why bother wearing panties when they're just going to get in the way.
REMINDER: This is an automated post. I am currently away on vacation and will return on the 28th.
2017-02-25 11:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post