Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.49.1, 2/8/2022)

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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.20.1, 9/8/2019)

Postby Briheas » Sun Sep 15, 2019 4:12 pm

I am finding it very hard to raise sluttiness over 50 for characters. The problem is the temporary +70 slutiness bonus for having a certain level of love with the character that occurs during sex. This pretty much instantly increases sluttiness to 100 once you seduce them, making it impossible to increase sluttiness any further. This would be fixable by allowing slutiness to go above 100 during sex, so then once the temporary bonuses wear off, they will still retain the increases.

However, I also found a workaround to this, which isn't reliably duplicatable, but if you luck into it (like I did), it's extremely powerful. And that is a random side effect which gave one of my serums a -20 sluttiness trait. Because the -20 slutiness is (like all serum traits) only temporary, you can use this to temporary lower slutiness to levels where it's now easier to raise. For example, if a character has 40 slutiness, and sex isn't giving additional gains due to the problem above, I just give the character 2 doses of the -20 slutiness serum, dropping them to 0, then proceed to flirt with them. Since they're now at 0, I can increases slutiness back up to 20 by flirting, and then when the serum wears off, they'll now be at 60 slutiness.

If you can't fix the 1st problem, could you at least turn the -20 slutiness into a normal researchable trait? Since it's actually a benefit and not a penalty and I actually want it on some my serums.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.20.1, 9/8/2019)

Postby RunningAroundInCircles » Sun Sep 15, 2019 10:41 pm

Briheas Wrote:I am finding it very hard to raise sluttiness over 50 for characters. The problem is the temporary +70 slutiness bonus for having a certain level of love with the character that occurs during sex. This pretty much instantly increases sluttiness to 100 once you seduce them, making it impossible to increase sluttiness any further. This would be fixable by allowing slutiness to go above 100 during sex, so then once the temporary bonuses wear off, they will still retain the increases.

However, I also found a workaround to this, which isn't reliably duplicatable, but if you luck into it (like I did), it's extremely powerful. And that is a random side effect which gave one of my serums a -20 sluttiness trait. Because the -20 slutiness is (like all serum traits) only temporary, you can use this to temporary lower slutiness to levels where it's now easier to raise. For example, if a character has 40 slutiness, and sex isn't giving additional gains due to the problem above, I just give the character 2 doses of the -20 slutiness serum, dropping them to 0, then proceed to flirt with them. Since they're now at 0, I can increases slutiness back up to 20 by flirting, and then when the serum wears off, they'll now be at 60 slutiness.

If you can't fix the 1st problem, could you at least turn the -20 slutiness into a normal researchable trait? Since it's actually a benefit and not a penalty and I actually want it on some my serums.



Love doesn't influence sluttyness during public sex.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.20.1, 9/8/2019)

Postby Briheas » Tue Sep 17, 2019 5:55 am

RunningAroundInCircles Wrote:
Briheas Wrote:I am finding it very hard to raise sluttiness over 50 for characters. The problem is the temporary +70 slutiness bonus for having a certain level of love with the character that occurs during sex. This pretty much instantly increases sluttiness to 100 once you seduce them, making it impossible to increase sluttiness any further. This would be fixable by allowing slutiness to go above 100 during sex, so then once the temporary bonuses wear off, they will still retain the increases.

However, I also found a workaround to this, which isn't reliably duplicatable, but if you luck into it (like I did), it's extremely powerful. And that is a random side effect which gave one of my serums a -20 sluttiness trait. Because the -20 slutiness is (like all serum traits) only temporary, you can use this to temporary lower slutiness to levels where it's now easier to raise. For example, if a character has 40 slutiness, and sex isn't giving additional gains due to the problem above, I just give the character 2 doses of the -20 slutiness serum, dropping them to 0, then proceed to flirt with them. Since they're now at 0, I can increases slutiness back up to 20 by flirting, and then when the serum wears off, they'll now be at 60 slutiness.

If you can't fix the 1st problem, could you at least turn the -20 slutiness into a normal researchable trait? Since it's actually a benefit and not a penalty and I actually want it on some my serums.



Love doesn't influence sluttyness during public sex.


True, but it suddenly becomes private again when you change positions. And I usually do kissing --> strip underwear --> some other position as my usual pattern, since kissing seems to be the most efficient way in terms of building arousal while minimizing my own arousal. Both blowjob and deepthroat generate too much arousal for myself to be very useful, and all other options are (initially) blocked by clothing.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.20.1, 9/8/2019)

Postby MaxTheDark » Wed Sep 18, 2019 4:48 pm

I've had this with version 19 around day 400, was hoping version 20 solves the problem, but sadly around day 500 I got this when trying to save:
Code: Select All Code
I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:
  File "game/script.rpy", line 7964, in script
    call screen main_choice_display([people_list,actions_list])
  File "renpy/common/000statements.rpy", line 519, in execute_call_screen
    store._return = renpy.call_screen(name, *args, **kwargs)
  File "renpy/common/00action_file.rpy", line 364, in __call__
    renpy.save(fn, extra_info=save_name)
MemoryError: out of memory


I really think you should consider changing game engine, because even tho you've done some fucking miracles with it, I think you're slowly hitting glass ceiling... Maybe releasing a separate, light version, with textures compressed?

Or try learning Unity... :twisted:
I believe text dump is not a valid form of storytelling in video games. Video games are for interaction, not reading, therefore the story should be woven into gameplay instead.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.20.1, 9/8/2019)

Postby RunningAroundInCircles » Thu Sep 19, 2019 10:42 am

Briheas Wrote:
RunningAroundInCircles Wrote:
Briheas Wrote:I am finding it very hard to raise sluttiness over 50 for characters. The problem is the temporary +70 slutiness bonus for having a certain level of love with the character that occurs during sex. This pretty much instantly increases sluttiness to 100 once you seduce them, making it impossible to increase sluttiness any further. This would be fixable by allowing slutiness to go above 100 during sex, so then once the temporary bonuses wear off, they will still retain the increases.

However, I also found a workaround to this, which isn't reliably duplicatable, but if you luck into it (like I did), it's extremely powerful. And that is a random side effect which gave one of my serums a -20 sluttiness trait. Because the -20 slutiness is (like all serum traits) only temporary, you can use this to temporary lower slutiness to levels where it's now easier to raise. For example, if a character has 40 slutiness, and sex isn't giving additional gains due to the problem above, I just give the character 2 doses of the -20 slutiness serum, dropping them to 0, then proceed to flirt with them. Since they're now at 0, I can increases slutiness back up to 20 by flirting, and then when the serum wears off, they'll now be at 60 slutiness.

If you can't fix the 1st problem, could you at least turn the -20 slutiness into a normal researchable trait? Since it's actually a benefit and not a penalty and I actually want it on some my serums.



Love doesn't influence sluttyness during public sex.


True, but it suddenly becomes private again when you change positions. And I usually do kissing --> strip underwear --> some other position as my usual pattern, since kissing seems to be the most efficient way in terms of building arousal while minimizing my own arousal. Both blowjob and deepthroat generate too much arousal for myself to be very useful, and all other options are (initially) blocked by clothing.


Also true.
Oral can raise obediance. With 120 you can modify outfits and 50 sluttyness should be enough to get one with skirt and without panties making all options available from the beginning. Missionary tends to be a good one to start with.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.20.1, 9/8/2019)

Postby vrengames » Tue Oct 01, 2019 11:13 am

Lab Rats 2 v0.21.0 is live and ready for it's week of patron bug testing! If you're already a patron you can find the links here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/lab-rats-2-v0-21-30395263

This update adds a couple of cool new features and some fun new content. Intercharacter relationships are now tracked, letting girls form friendships or rivalries with each other. Some events are only possible between friends, while others can only happen between characters who dislike each other. Familial relationships between girls is also tracked now, making it possible to have a mother and daughter work for your company. There have been improvements to the system used to render girls, allowing me to introduce lighting effects based on your location and time of day, as well as the long overdue addition of properly represented eye colours.

One area of content that has been given a particularly large amount of love this update is the dating system. Two new types of dates have been added to the game, supplementing the previous dinner date you could invite girls on. These new date types are lunch dates and movie dates and they now form a smooth progression to take a girl from an acquaintance to someone who is in love with you. The requirements and rewards for chatting, flirting, and dating a girl have been tweaked to line up with this progression. Unique responses and modifiers for family members and girls who are already in a relationship have been added, giving extra weight and feedback to the process of corrupting a girl.

I hope you enjoy the new version! Here's a changelog to go with it (v0.20.1 to v0.21.0):
Spoiler (click to show/hide):

*CHANGES AND ADDITIONS*
- Added priority variable to menu actions so that they can be given a fixed order to appear in.
- Disabled actions are now always grouped at the bottom of a menu, instead of appearing scattered throughout.
- Added intercharacter relationships. Characters will form friendships and rivalies with people around them, which may influence events.
- Character relationships are currently always displayed on thier "defailed information" page, but this may change in the future.
- Added familial relationships for other characters. Characters may now have their adult children or siblings added to the game during some events.
- Added "Family interview" random event, possible when one of your employees has adult children.
- Added "Work Relationship" random event. Two of your employees become friends or rivals, depending on their likes/dislikes.
- Modified "Catfight" random event. Now occurs between two employees who dislike each other (are either rivals or nemeses) instead of low obedience employees.
- Eye colour is now properly rendered for all characters. Eye colours are drawn from a central list, then have a small varience applied.
- Added internal ability to procedurally generate daughters for a character. A daughter has the same skin type and is likely to have similar hair colour, eye colour, height, body type, and/or breast size as her mother.
- Seperated sex responses into four classes: Foreplay, Oral, Vaginal, and Anal to provide wider range of responses during sex scenes.
- Wrote sex response variations for all major personality types for new foreplay, oral, and anal responses.
- Modified existing sex scenes to make use of the new sex responses.
- Added "lighting" characteristic to locations.
- Lighting can now vary depending on the time of day.
- Added support for rendering characters in different lighting characteristics.
- Added lighting values for all existing locations throughout the day.
- Added support for different background images depending on the time of day.
- Added in dark background versions for several key locations.
- Early morning and evening now both commonly use the "dark" version of a background.
- Added two new types of dates: A lunch date and a movie date.
- Restructred Love gain from dates to progress roughly from lunch dates to movie dates to romantic dinner dates.
- Restructred date sub-menu and requirements to play nicely with the new love requirements.
- Added background images for a restaraunt, movie theater, and bathroom.
- Added unique respones to date requests for your cousin and aunt.
- Added "incest" opinion to the list of sex opinions a character may have.
- Added displayable prediction to main display, removing lag when hovering over character boxes.
*BUG FIXES*
- Fixed bug preventing you from searching Gabrielle's room.
- Fixed bathrobe appearing with maxed brightness.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.20.1, 9/8/2019)

Postby MaxTheDark » Wed Oct 02, 2019 9:06 am

Do you still get a memory error when trying to save at around day 500?
I believe text dump is not a valid form of storytelling in video games. Video games are for interaction, not reading, therefore the story should be woven into gameplay instead.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.20.1, 9/8/2019)

Postby vrengames » Tue Oct 08, 2019 11:30 am

Lab Rats 2 v0.21.1 is live! Get it here! https://www.patreon.com/posts/lab-rats-2-v0-21-30593459

Lab Rats 2 v0.21.1 is finished it's week of bug testing! This update adds a couple of cool new features and some fun new content. Intercharacter relations, like friendships, mother-daughter, and sister relationships have been introduced and are tracked between characters. Girls both inside and outside of your company can now form friendships and rivalries, and new events have been written that make use of these new relationships. Improvements to the way characters are rendered and drawn to the screen have allowed for the introduction of a simple lighting system, with different lighting conditions for different locations and times of day. At the same time character images have received a long overdue update to allow for properly shown different eye colours.

One area of content that has been given a particularly large amount of love this update is the dating system. Two new types of dates have been added to the game. You can now take a girl on a lunch date or, once your relationship has developed further, a movie date. The requirements and rewards for chatting with, flirting, and dating a girl have been updated to form a smooth progression from acquaintance to lover. Unique responses and modifiers for family members and girls already in a relationship have been added, giving extra weight to the eventual corruption of a girl.

I hope you enjoy the new version! Here's a changelog to go with it! (v0.20.1 to v0.21.1):
Spoiler (click to show/hide):

*KNOWN ISSUES*
- The skintone of some face and body images do not match perfectly. An update will be posted once the cause has been found and a new image set produced.
*CHANGES AND ADDITIONS*
- Added priority variable to menu actions so that they can be given a fixed order to appear in.
- Disabled actions are now always grouped at the bottom of a menu, instead of appearing scattered throughout.
- Added intercharacter relationships. Characters will form friendships and rivalies with people around them, which may influence events.
- Character relationships are currently always displayed on thier "defailed information" page, but this may change in the future.
- Added familial relationships for other characters. Characters may now have their adult children or siblings added to the game during some events.
- Added "Family interview" random event, possible when one of your employees has adult children.
- Added "Work Relationship" random event. Two of your employees become friends or rivals, depending on their likes/dislikes.
- Modified "Catfight" random event. Now occurs between two employees who dislike each other (are either rivals or nemeses) instead of low obedience employees.
- Eye colour is now properly rendered for all characters. Eye colours are drawn from a central list, then have a small varience applied.
- Added internal ability to procedurally generate daughters for a character. A daughter has the same skin type and is likely to have similar hair colour, eye colour, height, body type, and/or breast size as her mother.
- Seperated sex responses into four classes: Foreplay, Oral, Vaginal, and Anal to provide wider range of responses during sex scenes.
- Wrote sex response variations for all major personality types for new foreplay, oral, and anal responses.
- Modified existing sex scenes to make use of the new sex responses.
- Added "lighting" characteristic to locations.
- Lighting can now vary depending on the time of day.
- Added support for rendering characters in different lighting characteristics.
- Added lighting values for all existing locations throughout the day.
- Added support for different background images depending on the time of day.
- Added in dark background versions for several key locations.
- Early morning and evening now both commonly use the "dark" version of a background.
- Added two new types of dates: A lunch date and a movie date.
- Restructred Love gain from dates to progress roughly from lunch dates to movie dates to romantic dinner dates.
- Restructred date sub-menu and requirements to play nicely with the new love requirements.
- Added background images for a restaraunt, movie theater, and bathroom.
- Added unique respones to date requests for your cousin and aunt.
- Added "incest" opinion to the list of sex opinions a character may have.
- Added displayable prediction to main display, removing lag when hovering over character boxes.
- Added indicator to sex scene when your position is locked in.
- Added large new at-work event.

*BUG FIXES*
- Fixed bug preventing you from searching Gabrielle's room.
- Fixed bathrobe appearing with maxed brightness.
- Fixed Nora's reseach traits not properly being unlocked during her quest line.
- Fixed position_locked variable when having sex with someone not being carried through past the first round. Now properly locks position for full encounter.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby Yllarius » Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:10 pm

The game still feels very...unfun, as a game.

Corrupting one girl means you've pretty much seen all you can see, the term 'Wide as the ocean, deep as a puddle' comes to mind, and with each update the game seems to get wider but no less 'deeper'.

There doesn't really feel like there's much point to unlocking any new serums, because once you get through about tier 2, you have all you need, the onlything interesting beyond that is breast growth/reduction, which feels kinda 'meh' since the girls are procedurally generated anyways.

There's not a whole lot of point to growing the company, because you can just make a slight profit then go about your business slowly corrupting girls and ignoring that side of the game altogether, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it just makes the game all the more boring from lack of depth.

The game DESPERATELY needs some static scenes, and actually scenes, not just a nude picture of your mom as she gives you a handy in the morning.

I'd also like to see some ways to adjust a girls likes/dislikes as well, especially now that 'incest' seems to be an option. With that though, I'd like to see obedience tweaked, while I like the idea of having a sex-slave that does whatever you want, I find that the free-spirited ones are far more interesting, because they actually take initiative on things instead of waiting for you to sex em up like lifeless dolls, but even then it doesn't add enough personality to them.

Really, your doing a good job, but the game is just boring, there's no real personality to it, and instead of working on making it wider with more mechanics, I feel it really needs much more depth.

Establish a baseline of scenes, start with established characters, make legitimate CG scenes, add in requirements for those scenes and maybe actions within scenes (Like you did with the mom-wakeup, requiring obedience for blowjob) once there's a solid amount of things to chase, make pregen chars fall into archetypes with scenes as well, start with a few, then add more as you go.

Once the characters feel like /Characters/ instead of lifeless dolls with likes/dislikes and stats that do nothing to change who they are, the game will truly start to shine!
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby dannub » Sat Oct 12, 2019 5:43 pm

Yllarius hit on what I've been saying since the earliest revisions. It's not as fun when you just have a bunch of generic girls. The only personalities and storylines I care about are in the unique named characters (mom, sis, Nora, Alex, Steph). The generics are dead weight. To put it bluntly, if you eliminated all the generic girls entirely and just had nameless, faceless NPCs working for you that you never interacted with, nothing of value would be lost. The only time I ever interact with my generic workers is if I need their lust stat high enough for the next tier of serum, and as Yllarius put it, you don't need it at tier 3 anyway. I'm just insane and worry about progression.

So here's my suggestion for establishing depth: forget the generics. They just take up space. Replace them with nameless, faceless mooks that just improve the efficiency of the department they're in. In their place, make the focus of the game hiring the various named characters from LR1 (and your aunt and cousin) and further corrupting them. Steph already starts working for you, you can already recruit Alex to be your marketing guru/model, and the rest can come in for other departments. Mom works in supplies and learns to prostitute herself, Lily works the front desk/company efficiency, Nora does production, etc. There can be plenty of events focused around the workplace like the guy who comes in to offer start-up capital, and then other locations like the sex store or strip club can be incorporated.

I'm hoping that there's more depth added to the game rather than just expanding what can happen with the generics, because they're just that: generic. They're superfluous. You already have named, unique characters you can work with. You don't need the generics anymore.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby Briheas » Sun Oct 13, 2019 5:11 pm

I disagree with the 2 above posts. I think the randomly generated characters are perfectly viable characters and I see no need to remove them from the game. Worst case, the player can use their own imagination to give the generics a personality and characterization. For example, I tend to imagine that the characters that prefer to be called "Mrs. so-and-so" are more of the distant, professional type of character, so I'm less inclined to try to interact with them. And once I have 2 people hired in marketing, I tend to character them as best friends. And I see the one I hired for HR to be more of a personal assistant for my character. (Though, admittedly, I don't really interact with supply and production characters too much - there's just too many of them for me to keep track usually.)

In addition, interacting with the generic characters is actually useful - higher love/happiness/obedience means they're less likely to quit (and supposedly you can pay them less, but I'm not trying that). Named characters, due to their lower stats, aren't useful to hire, so I don't have much of an incentive to interact with them, aside from the fact that they're there. The sole exception to this is feeding your sister serums with bad side effects to increase its mastery, and this only works BECAUSE she's not a part of the business, so the negative side effects won't hurt my business.

Though what I think the root cause of our disagreement is how the player views the game. I see the game as a business sim first and foremost - so my primary goal is growing the business. Interacting with characters (especially named characters) is, in my view, a secondary feature that can be safely ignored because they don't help advance the goal of growing my business. In fact, I tend to view interacting with named characters as detracting from growing the business, since time spent with them is time that you can't spend on growing the business. The 2 posters above seem to view the game as a dating sim or something similar - so I guess their primary goal is interacting with characters? (I don't really know, so I think I'll let them explain what they view as the primary goal themselves.)

I hope that someday, these 2 goals are more intertwined together, so that advancing one of the goals helps advancing the other as well and vice versa. I think that would tie the game much closer together and encourage players to develop both aspects of the game instead of just focusing on 1 and ignoring the other.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby dannub » Mon Oct 14, 2019 1:58 am

The problem is you can't give personalities and characterization to the generics because they all say the same thing. The only thing that's different is their likes and dislikes, and that doesn't factor greatly into the game. And ultimately this game isn't a business sim; it's a corruption game, the same way LR1 was, but with a business as the setting rather than a college chemistry lab. The focus is on the corruption of the various girls in the game, not making money (aside from staying in business and purchasing policies).
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby Briheas » Tue Oct 15, 2019 5:08 am

I disagree. In my opinion, the game has 2 aspects: business sim and the corruption side. Trying to sacrifice one for the other is going to make the game much weaker as a result. Both aspects are important to the game, and while an individual player might want to prioritize one aspect over the other, I think removing either aspect is a bad idea.

In fact, I'd argue, based on the in-game tutorial and introduction, that the business sim is supposed to be the primary part of the game, and the corruption is the secondary aspect. After all, the tutorial and introduction are entirely about getting the business up and running, and corrupting people isn't mentioned anywhere. I think that speaks volumes to what the dev intends for the player to do.

Generics are blank slates. That means you absolutely can give personalities and characterization to them. Actually, you can ONLY give personalities to generics - the other characters already have pre-set personalities that the dev decided on, so you can't really make up a personality for them. So you might as well give that personality to a generic.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby dannub » Tue Oct 15, 2019 5:05 pm

Yeah, the game has a business sim aspect, but that doesn't mean it's any good. It isn't. It's very shallow and easy to ignore once you have a profitable serum going. And removing the generics wouldn't eliminate the business sim mechanic, it would just mean you wouldn't have to interact with the dull generics and could spend more time focusing on the actual named characters (which, I should add, is what development should have focused on to begin with).

And are you really looking at the tutorial for what vrengames intended with this? Lab Rats is a corruption game. Every single update brings more corruption content to the table. The actual business side of things hasn't seen any significant improvements in quite some time.

Also, if the only personality you give the generics is in your own head, then they don't actually have their own personalities. Like you said, they're blank slates, except they all have the exact same responses to everything. They're boring and unnecessary.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby Briheas » Thu Oct 17, 2019 5:09 am

I enjoy the business aspect of the game. I think it's quite good. But just because the generics exist in the game doesn't mean you have to interact with them. Just like I don't have to interact with the named merely because they exist (and I generally choose not to). If you don't want to interact with generics, then don't. Problem solved.

If we don't look at the tutorial, what should we look at for guidance? How else will a new player who picks up the game figure out what he should be doing? It certainly isn't clear to me that the point of the game is corrupting people - as I said, my impression of the game leads me to play it as a business sim. And I think the game is quite fun like that.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby dannub » Thu Oct 17, 2019 5:16 pm

If you enjoy it, that's fine, it's no skin off my nose. But LR has never been focused on the sim aspect. It's been a corruption game first and foremost, and the business side of it is just meant to support that. And this:

If you don't want to interact with generics, then don't. Problem solved.


Is at best a complete misrepresentation of the game in its current state, or just plain trolling at worst. You have to interact with the generics to progress. The game is not currently in a state where you can progress without at least making sure everyone's happy enough to not quit on you, let alone getting everyone's sluttiness to a high enough level for tier 3 serums. Unless of course you want to just run the business solo, in which case why are you even playing this and not an actual business sim that's actually fun?

It certainly isn't clear to me that the point of the game is corrupting people


Did you not play LR1? Do you not know what website you're on? The business sim side of the game supports the main focus, which is corruption. Not the other way around. Just because the tutorial went over the only aspect of the game that's actually new from LR1 doesn't mean this is meant to be a business sim first and foremost.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby Yllarius » Fri Oct 18, 2019 7:52 pm

The problem with the BUSINESS SIM aspect is that there's nothing to work TOWARDS. In other games you get money to make side-tasks easier, or cosmetic items ect. Gimme bed upgrades to increase my stamina. Lemme buy toys for girls ect. There's no point to spend money other than to grow the business, and there's no real reason too once you reach the sustainable point. Hell, at the very least give me repeatable researches.

Since there's no goal with the business sim aspect, the weight of the game has to fall on the corruption aspect, which at is current point is just as stale, because, again, once you've seen one girl naked, you've seen em all. There's nothing unique about any of the characters.

In comparison to say, the rather successful CUSTOM ORDER MAID, where each girl has stats that unlock a plethora of scenes, and you can't really unlock everything with just one character. That at least makes the procedurally generated characters interesting, and gives you plenty to do with the fund you acquire from your business. (although it's a bit of a different story as it's a /brothel/ sim game.)

Either way you look at it, it's skinner-box manipulation. The player needs rewarded for progressing the game, whether it's a better, more efficient business, life, or new and interesting scenes for the girls.
Without any real rewards, the game becomes dull.
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Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby Briheas » Sat Oct 19, 2019 2:32 am

You can keep your employees happy by giving them a daily dose that increases their happiness/obedience. I don't interact with my supply or production employees (too many of them, I can't remember who is who), but once I start giving them daily doses, no one ever wants to quit again. And I usually get the final tier of research by giving 3 of my (junk) employees multiple doses of serums that temporarily increase slutiness/obedience to the necessarily levels. I've tried interacting with them before to get it high enough, but it just takes too long compared to using serums. And I don't care about the drawbacks since I was planning on firing them eventually anyway, and if they quit it just saves me the trouble.

And I started playing this game first. I didn't play the original until after a bunch of the characters from LR1 were added, just to see who they were. (I didn't get very far in LR1 - I found this game to be much more fun, so I felt if I was going to play a game, I might as well stick with this one.) In any case, a new player (like how I used to be) won't know anything from LR1, and will only see what's available in game, so it's very possible they'll perceive the game much like how I do.

Also, sex games don't always have to have sex as the goal of the game. It can also have sex as a means to accomplishing some other goal. Which is how I'm guessing this game will turn out. Of course, I could be wrong and the win conditions might turn out to be "get 10 girls to 100 slutiness". We'll just have to see.

I also agree that there should be more interconnectedness between the two aspects of the game. I said that in my first post. But since the dev hasn't created that part of the game yet, we just have to be patient. It's a drawback to playing a game that's still in development.

For the record, I usually just play until I get everything researched and have my business in a position where I'm happy. Then I quit and wait for next month's build and start all over. It's the process of building up the company that's fun for me.
Briheas
 
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 3:10 am

Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby dannub » Sat Oct 19, 2019 5:55 pm

Briheas Wrote:You can keep your employees happy by giving them a daily dose that increases their happiness/obedience. I don't interact with my supply or production employees (too many of them, I can't remember who is who), but once I start giving them daily doses, no one ever wants to quit again. And I usually get the final tier of research by giving 3 of my (junk) employees multiple doses of serums that temporarily increase slutiness/obedience to the necessarily levels. I've tried interacting with them before to get it high enough, but it just takes too long compared to using serums. And I don't care about the drawbacks since I was planning on firing them eventually anyway, and if they quit it just saves me the trouble.

This really just proves my point that the generics are meaningless and don't add anything to the game. They're disposable. Get rid of one and you can have infinite more. It's why I was so harsh on the game in its early stages: there was nothing hooking me as a player because the business side was pointless and the generics gave me zero connection like the original characters did. This game should have been built around them from the start rather than mannequins nobody could ever care about.

In any case, a new player (like how I used to be) won't know anything from LR1, and will only see what's available in game, so it's very possible they'll perceive the game much like how I do.

Just because you miss the point of the game doesn't change the nature of the game. If you looked at Mario as a coin-collecting game, that doesn't change the core gameplay or what the developers intended. Just because you enjoy it as a business sim doesn't mean people are going to start downloading it not expecting corruption and sex, because face it, it's that kind of game.
dannub
 
Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2012 5:08 am

Re: Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.21.1, 10/8/2019)

Postby Briheas » Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:37 am

I think you are misunderstanding me. I didn't start playing this game with an idea of what the goal of the game is. I think the business sim is the main part of the game because that's how the game presented itself to me.

Look at the introduction and tutorial. Both of them highlight the business sim aspect and then shows you how to do it, meaning this is a very important feature. Second, consider the loss condition: running out of money. That also suggests that the business is an important part of the game, because if you ignore it, you'll run out of money and lose. Third, there is a clear set of advancement for the business sim. Doing well in the business unlocks other parts of the business via business policies, which allow you to do even better in the business. This positive feedback loop emphasizes and rewards the player for doing well in the business. When I take of all of these parts of the game together, it suggests to me that the business sim is the most important part of the game and that it should be my main focus.

I am curious which parts of the game suggests to you that the corruption is the main part of the game.
Briheas
 
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 3:10 am

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