Lab Rats Current Public Release (v1.0, 27/11/17)

[vrengames]

Hey there, I'm Vren, creator of Lab Rats. I've been working on this project for about a year now, and I hope it piques your interest. Take a look!



Plot

Lab Rats follows the story of you, the main character, during a summer term working in a small biology lab as a lab assistant. You're a third year chemical engineering student, and just as you are preparing to kick back and relax you are told you've been granted a lab assistant position. While the work is interesting, you've become more interested in the equipment and knowledge this gives you access to. The lab seems to have made significant progress in the delivery of several mind altering substances, and you are the only person who has realized it's potential so far. You will have access to the lab for four months, and it's up to you to figure out how to make the best use of it.

The game's topics includes: Incest, Threesomes, Mind Control, and Corruption

Characters

You - A third year chemical engineering student, brought into the lab to help keep the equipment working.

Nora - The lab director. Science is her passion, and she runs her small lab with enthusiasm.

Stephanie - A graduate student and fellow lab assistant. She has been Nora's right hand girl for years.

Mom - Your mother. Without your father she works long hours to make sure you and your sister can both earn a university education.

Lily - Your younger sister. She also goes to the same university for History, but unlike you has the summer off.

Alexia - A classmate from last semester who is taking summer courses. She seems to be interested in seeing you more since you are both on campus.

Screenshots

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Download it here for free (v1.0): https://mega.nz/#!pxAl0CzQ!5a2Q2jJs8u9h ... JumJPNA074
Download the android version, also for free (v1.0-android): https://mega.nz/#!MlBiVSgD!eperUSKdP2cE ... IoJY7YZxfI
I've also got a Patreon up, linked in the main menu. If you enjoy please consider joining to help further development.

[porne]

What kind of sexual content can we expect?

[Dead2112man]

Your images in the Spoiler don't work

[Abelius]

The lab seems to have made significant progress in the delivery of several mind altering substances, and you are the only person who has realized it's potential so far. You will have access to the lab for four months, and it's up to you to figure out how to make the best use of it.

Interesting concept. I like games in which you can manage 'something' to some degree. Ren'py allows for a reasonable freedom in that sense. Do you plan to implement that kind of game mechanic or it will be mostly a VN ?

I think you should put a placeholder song loop in the game, because any music is better than no music at all. When I'm playing a game I want to feel immersed and hearing my mouse clicks and nothing else is hardly contributing to that. Just my two cents.

Also... is there any h-content in this version? I wasn't able to find anything apart from that Lily's bend over shot...

Pictures

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Dropbox doesn't support hotlinking of images. I'd suggest another provider like Imgur. In the meantime...:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

You may also want to upload bigger resolutions.

no plan survives contact with the enemy

Honor Harrington fan there, by any chance...?

[Zaiaku666]

You know it's funny, I want to play the game but the images hit my uncanny valley button to damn hard...Oh well nothing ventured nothing gained.

[Abelius]

You know it's funny, I want to play the game but the images hit my uncanny valley button to damn hard...Oh well nothing ventured nothing gained.

Seriously...?

That's not uncanny at all, my friend. In the other hand this...

[keradi01]

Okay, so I spent a few hours on this game and I think it is a very good start. The models don't look bad, there are a good amount of options and scenes, and there aren't many technical problems that I have seen (at best I found one error screen that occurs whenever you try to go to the cafeteria with Alexis, in the morning, without fail.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Code: Select All Code

I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:
  File "game/script.rpy", line 1024, in script
    if (dayTime == 0 or dayTime == 2) and has_door_code:
  File "game/script.rpy", line 1024, in <module>
    if (dayTime == 0 or dayTime == 2) and has_door_code:
NameError: name 'has_door_code' is not defined

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Full traceback:
  File "game/script.rpy", line 1024, in script
    if (dayTime == 0 or dayTime == 2) and has_door_code:
  File "F:\Games\Lab_Rats-0.1-all\renpy\ast.py", line 1647, in execute
    if renpy.python.py_eval(condition):
  File "F:\Games\Lab_Rats-0.1-all\renpy\python.py", line 1670, in py_eval
    return py_eval_bytecode(code, globals, locals)
  File "F:\Games\Lab_Rats-0.1-all\renpy\python.py", line 1665, in py_eval_bytecode
    return eval(bytecode, globals, locals)
  File "game/script.rpy", line 1024, in <module>
    if (dayTime == 0 or dayTime == 2) and has_door_code:
NameError: name 'has_door_code' is not defined

Windows-8-6.2.9200
Ren'Py 6.99.11.1749
Lab Rats 0.1


Overall, I think this is a very promising start and what is here isn’t bad; my only issue is that it is hard to see everything or test things with the “no repeating scenes” methodology at work; it would be better to allow all scenes to be repeated (just like with Alexia) at least until there are more scenes for each character or another way to build influence. If you want elaboration, see the spoilered text below.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

So far, it is a far better start than many other games. However, there are design issues that I find are problematic. Making scenes non-repeatable is a great idea for a final product of a game where a player can play through and get the highest possible action for each scene, that way they can replay the game with different choices and get better versions of different scenes. The problem here is based entirely around the serums. From what I have seen, the only way to get better versions of a scene with a character is from having previous scenes with them. Stronger serums do not make that much of a difference or if they do, they require more scenes than what is available to do so. This means that we have to use each scene as effectively as possible to get any good options from a scene.

The movie scenes are especially rough, as there is no way of getting a decent scene with both the mom and sister without having the scene with just the mom and already using the serum on the random scene with the sister (which occurs so infrequently that I went through my first playthrough with over sixty days without encountering it once); though at least you can pick when and if that scene happens. There are two scenes with Stephanie that, when triggered, must end with using a serum on her, thus meaning that those scenes are gone and if you didn't do what you needed to get a better scene out of it, you just have to reload/restart. Then there are the scenes that are completely random. While random events aren't bad, this system means that when they can occur at inopportune times when you are trying to avoid them (to get a better scene out of them) or you aren't getting them when you are looking for them. The scene with Nora and Stephanie is also bad, since the best I could do is get them to strip and that was after going through every scene with Stephanie possible before that point. The scene itself is random and two of the scenes I needed out of Stepanie to get that option are random. Since there are apparently no scenes for Nora, it took three scenes and a red dose of serum to pick the stripping option (which is the second option available for that scene).

Once again, this isn't bad for a completed game, but without enough scenes with each character to allow for mistakes and without the ability to do any scene more than once to build up what actions can be done with a character in a scene, it makes playing and testing the game more difficult. I am assuming you want people to experience the game in this early stage to find out what works and what doesn’t as well as to isolate and remove bugs, but it is difficult to do either without imputing a large amount of time and energy to try and maximize the choices for each scene.

My suggestion, so long as the game is in early development, allow scenes to occur more than once so that we can see more of the game without too much trouble or at all, since I doubt it is possible to see the final two options of any scene except for the one with Alexia at the café (since that scene is repeatable). Once enough scenes are available for every character is available that every situation can be achieved with them one way or another, then having each scene only occur once won’t be that much of a problem (though it would mean that playtesting the game would take very long and scenes involving more than one character remain frustrating because you would want to do every scene possible with those characters first before going to te multi-character scenes).

That aside, there are other errors and questionable parts that I have found:
>I am fairly certain I found every scene (albeit without unlocking each possible option for them) except for the cafeteria scene for Alexia, though not from lack of trying. It may or may not be tied to that error I posted above, but I am not sure.
>The scene with Stephanie in the lab when she catches you making serum in the lab doesn’t have Nora’s model leave the window even when the scene says she leaves the room, so Stephanie’s model just superimposes over Nora’s in an awkward manner.
>Likewise, it doesn’t seem that multiple uses of serum on Stephanie allows for better options during her individual scenes. She has three individual scenes, but I couldn’t get anything other than the first option of each scene even if I had already used serum on her before.
>The café option with Alexia doesn’t remove money, though the cafeteria option does properly, even with the exception error.
>Getting Stephanie a drink charges you $10 each time you use the option. That’s not a problem except for the fact that the option remains even after using the scene from that option (so it essentially becomes a pay money for no reason dialogue choice). If you don’t follow my recommendation to allow scenes to be repeatable, you should at least remove the option once you have used serum on Stephanie from that scene; if only to prevent other people the pain I endured from losing money without realizing why.

[Darthjake]

I found the same bugs that keradi01 did as well, was sort of disapointed that Alexis did not become more pliable without going to the cafe and pouring a serum into her, while mom started offering "special" services after only 1 ? maybe 2 doses. I was hoping to dose Stephanie more by getting her drinks but as keradi01 said the option just takes money. Also it seems that there are no real "sister" scenes except if you actually get her to watch a movie with mom.

Seems like it has promise, I'll keep an eye on it to see where it goes.

[vrengames]

I've just released version 0.1.1 and updated the link in the original post.

Change Log v0.1.1
- Fixed error with cafeteria scene with Alexia that was preventing progress for one scene.
- Cafe option with Alexia now removes money as intended, and is possible only once.
- Cost of option to get Stephanie a drink made clearer.
- Fixed display issue showing Nora in the lab over Stephanie. Also moved image timings to match with dialog better.
- Scene with Alexia at cafe was repeatable when it should not be.
- Refactored code to allow for easy modification of purple and red syrum temporary influence increase amounts.
- Increased influence gain of both purple and red by 50% (About the same as one or two succesful scenes respectively now)

Thanks to keradi01 for his bug reporting, they helped me track down and resolve a bunch of problems. I'm hard at work at v0.2 now, which will come with a large batch of new major scenes. More scenes also means more content included in v0.1 will become reachable, as about half of it requires higher influence than you can get right now.

[Draconias]

I like this game so far. Only thing that bothers me is the invisible dick during in the CG. It's disconcerting to see the women pleasuring a dick that isn't there.

[Zeus Kabob]

In the other hand this...

100% ERECT.

[MobileGrunt]

How do you get the door code? Is it a scene that happens randomly with a low chance?

Edit: Well, just got the scene where I can search the desks not long after posting this. So nevermind. Really low chance for the scene and the chance at finding the codes it seems. Also, as a bug I found, if you look for Lily in the morning of any day and you catch her looking for her< I assume, vibrator, it skips ahead to the next day automatically. Doesn't do this at any other time of day.

[Sonarbliss]

Hi guys. Can someone help with a walkthrough please? I started everything over like 10 times and I still can't get the sister scene @ night in order to unlock the main event with the mom. (I'm at over 121 days...) still nothing. Same for Alexia. I only used the blue syrum to validate the make out option and nothing more happens after that. I've been treating her to coffee like forever and nothing budge.

Moreover, the scene where Nora catches you making the blue syrum only appears once. I've been trying for several hours to access this scene again to take a look at the other services, in vain. It's very frustrating. :/

@ vrengames: Your game is very nice, but the mecanism to unlock scenes with the help of the syrum needs to be clearer/easier please. It's really a pain in the @ss to start everything other each time you make a mistake to unlock an event. Anyway, good job

[MobileGrunt]

You don't need any event with Lily for a Mom scene, I had done both the Mom and Mom w/ Lily scene from watching the movie, then I found a scene with Lily by heading to bed early instead of letting the game force you to bed. You can quicksave and then just reload and try over and over again.

You'll need the code to the lab before you can do the second Alexia scene. I had that problem, it's a random scene with a low chance followed by another low chance at finding it from the choices in that scenes.

[vrengames]

Hey everyone. Glad to see people are enjoying the initial version of Lab Rats. Development of version 0.2 is underway and looking to be completed in about two weeks, three if the holidays get in the way of my work schedule. Values for random events are temporary for now until more content is in. For something as important as the lab door code I'm planning on adding multiple ways to obtain it, so you can stumble upon it while doing different things.

@MobileGrunt Thanks for the bug report, it was actually a fairly major one (it would have effected all scenes that took place in the morning) so I'm glad it got caught early.

@Sonarbliss Major scenes can only happen once per game, and right now none of the characters have enough major scenes to raise their influence enough to unlock all the options. As time goes on and more major scenes are added it should become less of a problem screwing up one or two, because the rest will give you plenty of opportunities to raise your influence to a high level. It will take a while to reach a critical mass of content, but it should start feeling a lot more natural and less achievement hunter-ish.

Now I'm off to write another scene! Wish me luck!

[Alexandar04]

[quote="vrengames"][/quote]

Didn't actually need the quote I just wanted to make sure you were alerted to this message. So I found your game on one of my sites and since it looked interesting decided to give it a go. After playing the game I went ahead and made an account here on LoK just so that I can talk to you about it. That's how much potential/liked your game.

With that being said I also have some criticism for it and so I want to ask you if you want to hear it? You're making this game for free and if you're enjoying how it's coming along and such then more power to you and I'll keep quiet. After all we all deserve to enjoy our hobbies without other people ruining them. However if you want to hear constructive feedback then let me know but be warn, I am passionate about porn games and game design. I don't sugar coat problems I see in the game nor do I pull punches because I feel that is an insult to the artist. And helping the artist is ultimately my goal.

[vrengames]

Didn't actually need the quote I just wanted to make sure you were alerted to this message. So I found your game on one of my sites and since it looked interesting decided to give it a go. After playing the game I went ahead and made an account here on LoK just so that I can talk to you about it. That's how much potential/liked your game.

With that being said I also have some criticism for it and so I want to ask you if you want to hear it? You're making this game for free and if you're enjoying how it's coming along and such then more power to you and I'll keep quiet. After all we all deserve to enjoy our hobbies without other people ruining them. However if you want to hear constructive feedback then let me know but be warn, I am passionate about porn games and game design. I don't sugar coat problems I see in the game nor do I pull punches because I feel that is an insult to the artist. And helping the artist is ultimately my goal.

Go for it. I've got a patreon up and I'm accepting money, so people deserve to have the best game possible made for them.

[vrengames]

Version 0.2.0 has just been released to all of my $5 or higher patrons for bug testing over the next week. The public version v0.2.1 will be released in a week, with a few more image sets in addition to all of the content already included in the v0.2.0 update.

Change Log

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

- Added a texting section to the game.
- Added texting options for Alexia.
- Added a major Scene with Alexia at your house.
- Added a major scene with mom at night.
- Added images to Alexia lab scene.
- Added images to mom night scene.
- Added a major scene with Nora at an office party.
- Added images to sister night scene.
- Added a major scene with Lily at the movies.
- Added texting options with Stephanie.
- Added a major scene with Stephanie playing tennis.
- Added patreon button the menu.
- Added texting options with Nora.
- Added a major scene with Nora at your house.
- Added a major scene with Nora and mom at your house.
- Added a major scene with Alexia at the mall.
- Added image for new outfits for Stephanie, Nora, Alexia, and Lily.

- Fixed lab threesome being repeatable.
- Fixed some variable typos that were causing errors.

[Alexandar04]

Ok, also keep in mind that I haven't played your latest updated version you just released. Your game is currently on the fast track to being what I call a "Walkthrough-only" game. Basically, the only way to beat/see every sex scene in your game is with a walkthrough, or by dumping HOURS into your game trying to brute force every possible combination of events in order to figure things out.

Your game currently doesn't make it clear at all what the player should be doing or what events are affecting what stats (assuming their even affecting any stats). Does talking to Lily, the mom, etc. do anything when a specific scene isn't triggered? Do I have a reason to jack off to porn on the computer or it it just a time skip? Think about when you're playing a game like Zelda, when Link swings his sword at an enemy they normally stumble backwards or flash red or something; this lets the player know that the enemy has taken damage aka that there move is effective. Likewise, if something else happens this lets the player know that they need to do something else. Nothing happening tells the player nothing and leaves them wondering if what they're doing is effective or not.

This is made even WORSE by the fact you have random RNG thrown in. I currently have no idea how many scenes each character has, how on earth to trigger them or if they're different from each other at all. For example I know that Stephanie has a scene where you can drug her morning coffee but I have no idea if those sex options are options that will appear every time you successfully drug her or if they're specific to this one situation and will change the next time you successfully drug her (thereby making the order in which I drug her important for scene selection). Will another drug change ONLY unlock when I use this one or are they all open from the start?

And that's not even getting into the problem of having no idea of where to look for a scene. I was taken completely by surprise that Nora apparently just has a random chance of getting a scene when you're working on making the blue medicine. Does she have more than one scene if I keep doing the same thing? What about if I do regular work or watch porn? Can a scene trigger there? RNG takes the already limited information the game gives me on what I'm supposed to be doing and makes it worse since now I don't know if a scene is not triggering because I'm doing the wrong thing or because I'm just unlucky and RNG is screwing me.

For example, I still have no idea how I'm supposed to make the red medicine. I know it has something to do with chemicals but I have no idea how I'm supposed to get them. I thought it had something to do with Nora maybe or the lab but I've talked to Nora and went into the lab a lot and nothings happen, so I don't know if I'm on the wrong track or if RNG is just screwing me.

As it stands now I gave up on playing the game because without at least a walkthrough to guide me I don't feel I could complete it, and even with a walkthrough I don't like the idea of having to constantly reload my save just to get the freaking RNG to trigger the right way. I don't know about others but to me, nothing is more annoying than having solved the puzzle, know what to do, and then get stuck waiting for like ten or so minutes because RNG is determined to screw me over.

This is a shame because the game is GOOD, the artwork is good, the scenes seem well thought out/nice setup and the concept is sound. Plus you have lesbian and incest lesbian which is always a great add in my book

My suggestion is 1. Add a stat page so that the player knows where they're at with the corruption of the girls and if their actions are having any direct impact on anything. 2. Personally, I would like the RNG element to be completely removed from the game and just have direct actions lead to scenes but since I know that not everyone might agree with this I ask that you add in some kind of Quest log/notepad/book in the stats page. Make up the excuse that the PC (playable character) is taking notes on his subject or something and is writing down their behavior patterns and marking when is the best time to try and drug them.

So that way if someone didn't know that you have a chance of getting a scene with Nora when you make the blue medicine it could appear in the Quest log "Occasionally when I make the blue medicine Step walks out of the room. This would be a perfect chance to drug Nora and I should keep my eye out for the CHANCE that it happens." You can even make the Quest log tied into how often the player interacts with that character, with the more they interact with that character the more they learn about their behavior (aka after three interactions with Nora, the note telling you about the scene with the blue medicine appears).

And those are my thoughts. I apologize if I came off a little strong but i am passionate about this.

[Wee]

Enjoying very much where this game is headed so far! Keep up the good work!

So, I've been playing around a bit with 0.1.1, and had a few thoughts.

Right now, the Major events are not repeatable, but have multiple levels. You currently can only complete one level, however, so the other 3-4 subevents end up being 'wasted', as you are locked out from those events afterwords.

Being very intrigued I took a peek under the hood, and played around a bit. I came up with a way to allow major events to be repeatable, with the full (sub)event award only occurring once, and a minimal award for subsequent repeats. I also came up with a way to tier these, so that the racier events don't appear until the gal in question hits a certain sluttiness level.

I'd also suggest having certain 'talking only' events giving minimal awards, so that you can help get a girl more interested in you, with the sluttiness triggers raised accordingly to account for the accumulation of these new points. The idea here would be to allow and encourage the player to work on the various relationships, as opposed to relying on the serums exclusively.

Another thought is to tie some additional awards into an event/subevent, say for example if the player has been 'good' that week.
Example: You helped mom out with the bills on Monday, so you are offered a little something extra/more options during the next Major event you have with her that week...

With 0.2.0 being prepared for a public release soon, there isn't much point with sharing the entirety of I have come up with (code wise) publicly, but IMHO this would make the Major event tiers and various conversations that much more interesting. Plus it's vrengames game after all, so I wouldn't feel right with sharing without his blessing...

@vrengames
if you are interested, I'd be happy to share what I have with you...
Also, I came up with some code which displays some additional game info, in case you haven't tackled this yet...

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Code: Select All Code

    text ("  Day: %i - %s %s      Serums (Supplies: %i)                                        Relationships \n  Money: $%i                                    Blue: %s  Purple: %i  Red: %s         Mom: %i  Sis: %s  Alex: %i  Steph: %s  Nora: %i" % (day, day_name, time_name, player_syrum_supplies, player_money, player_blue_syrum, player_purple_syrum, player_red_syrum, mom_slut_score, sis_slut_score, alex_slut_score, steph_slut_score, nora_slut_score))

This is 'quick and dirty' code, ideally you'd probably want to 'float to center/right' the Inventory and Relationships instead of relying on spaces...
* Note that I truncated the Day and Time a bit, to make more room for the inventory. I added some spaces to the "Day" and "Time" names (defined above where Date and Cash appear) to keep things from bouncing around as well, in the meantime (not included in code above, can share if interested)

Here's a pic showing what I'm talking about (ignore mom's green halo on the right, that's my bad):

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

The relationships values are higher than what is normally possible in 0.1.1, but this gets the idea across.
You may or may not want to display the sluttiness levels normally, but this is very helpful in tracking awards during playtesting. The inventory tracker is useful in any case.
I'd love to help out a bit if you are interested in some help, not really looking for anything in return (maybe early access?)...
Thanks again, vrengames!
Nice game!
Keep up the good work!