4.60 star(s) 65 Votes

slick97

Active Member
Dec 2, 2021
654
1,633
fwiw, this game absolutely whips ass... it just needs someone to bite the bullet and make a guide or start a wiki where we can better catalogue all its options.
Developing a guide for this game in particular is an absolute nightmare. Vren already developed quite a few complex questlines before going on hiatus, but Tristim, Starbuck, and others have taken it to another level as new questlines and characters are introduced.

Additionally, some questlines can be skipped entirely just due to how the triggers are set up - such as anything time sensitive or RNG based (I'm looking at you Ashley...). I had Stephanie's obedience questlines trigger in my first ever playthrough, but have never managed to trigger it again in subsequent playthroughs despite my best efforts. I've also completely skipped over Iris's introduction, failed to trigger the intern mechanic (which is tied to Kaya's questline, which only triggers if you hire Alexia), and managed to skip the trigger for personal serums several times.

I've been giving it some serious thought about making a comprehensive guide for the game, but I'm honestly intimidated by said complexity. If anything, I may just keep it to the questlines for unique characters only, but even then that'll take quite a bit of time to produce.
 

pythia23

Member
Aug 2, 2017
108
40
Developing a guide for this game in particular is an absolute nightmare. Vren already developed quite a few complex questlines before going on hiatus, but Tristim, Starbuck, and others have taken it to another level as new questlines and characters are introduced.
I agree that it's a huge job. But, as evidenced by the six thousand times someone has asked some version of the same question in this thread, it seems necessary. That's why I think a wiki of some type might be better. at least that way, it's not just one person having to do it all--the community can add to individual character pages or quest guides as they find triggers for stuff, and every once in a while actual quest writers like tristim and starbuck can dip in and quality control/verify things.
 

slobber

Member
May 19, 2019
104
89
yeah a guide would be way too PITA. easiest way is if someone dissected the code and basically translated the code to english
 

BIGJOB37

Newbie
Feb 15, 2018
55
13
If I understand the code right, those two events are separate from each other, meaning you can trigger both when you follow the instructions for each route.
So, i don't know two quest triggers. in obedience route, i don't understand why she doesn't react to anything (unlocking tier 1, researching tier 1 serum, designing tier 1.)
In love route, i see her in R&D room on Saturday early morning, but i don't know next route. she have appeared in Gym at the same time.
 
Sep 21, 2019
175
137
Honestly, I feel like the more characters/quests are added, the more painful it will become to maintain and understand all the spaghetti. At this point it might be better to nuke the program architecture into the ground (concerning quests/unique characters) and create something easier to maintain, modify and track. Maybe then the different triggers and relationships will be more readible. However I have zero idea what is the best architecture to do that... The current one does not seem that bad.
 
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AdventAnyx

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Game Developer
Feb 2, 2020
740
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What's painful about the current quest system? Every character that has some sort of story to them is already marked as essential with a little star. Then you just open their card and read what you need to do next. Some tooltips might be slightly cryptic though.
But overall the system is already in a good shape and don't need to be "nuked" at all :unsure:

I'd say the game is pretty good as it is. Now they just need to add depth to its different aspects, and have some sort of super-end-goal or something. Also, it's a shame that it's player-character-focused, could be a lot of fun turning your office lab into a brothel of some sort. Like having additional duties for all sorts of client satisfaction and all that (corrently only adds some mini cash bonus and no text-viasuals-events at all). But I get it if they don't want to go the publicly hated ntr-sharing sort of route, it's their game.
 
Sep 21, 2019
175
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What's painful about the current quest system? Every character that has some sort of story to them is already marked as essential with a little star. Then you just open their card and read what you need to do next. Some tooltips might be slightly cryptic though.
But overall the system is already in a good shape and don't need to be "nuked" at all :unsure:

I'd say the game is pretty good as it is. Now they just need to add depth to its different aspects, and have some sort of super-end-goal or something. Also, it's a shame that it's player-character-focused, could be a lot of fun turning your office lab into a brothel of some sort. Like having additional duties for all sorts of client satisfaction and all that (corrently only adds some mini cash bonus and no text-viasuals-events at all). But I get it if they don't want to go the publicly hated ntr-sharing sort of route, it's their game.
Maybe I was not clear, gameplay wise it's ok and I somehow agree with you. Maybe a menu with unique characters listed just like the staff review menu is more than enough, just so we do not need to individually track the characters by moving where they are. I was talking about dev side.

If a developer wants to contribute and add a new quest that involves more than one character, he needs to make sure the tooltip is present on every character. At the moment, some tooltips exist on one side and not the other, and honestly I can't blame them: it's extra work and somehow tedious. The more interactions there will be between characters (if added), the messier it will become and harder to check, especially for bug tracking.

For example, maybe a single file with all listed quests where character sheets could just check whether or not they are involved in one of the quests would be easier for developpers for example. That way, you just create the quest, and character menus would automatically check whether the character is involved in a quest or not, and that would also work for side-quests on non-unique characters. This obviously does not solve every problem and I don't think it's a perfect solution. I am just worried as people add more stuff, it will be harder to track stuff for devs.
 

yliilrr396

New Member
Jun 25, 2022
6
7
What's painful about the current quest system? Every character that has some sort of story to them is already marked as essential with a little star. Then you just open their card and read what you need to do next. Some tooltips might be slightly cryptic though.
But overall the system is already in a good shape and don't need to be "nuked" at all :unsure:
First of all, as you are the author of one of the best games here, I'm sure that you'll get to that yourself in your future playthroughs.

The hints in the description of characters are a good start, but they are incomplete and can be misleading. See the example from BIGJOB37 on this page: the hint about the love route describes only the first step that introduces you to the new character schedule, which you have to memorize, and the hint doesn't update. You have no way to know how to progress further as there's no second event with the same conditions.

So you have multiple routes for 24 unique characters to memorize. Some events will have an indicator on the map, which is great, but you'll have to open the map every turn to make sure not to miss anything. Some require special interaction with the character or a specific action on a specific map tile - those are unmarked. And some are chance-based, tied to actions and/or locations.

There is also no way to discover some of the storylines other than stumble upon. Say, you played the management part of the game and did great, so you quickly stopped doing any jobs in the office yourself, never had Attention to rise above the threshold, and didn't have many employees. Unfortunately, there's a good chance then that you completely missed a few storylines and you don't have any way to know that. Perhaps this is good for replayability, but it can also quickly get frustrating.

Overall, the system works well when you just explore and enjoy random content, and I'm grateful to have it. It doesn't help much in continuing playing after a break or completing the storylines.
 

Bocoboco

Member
Jan 18, 2018
167
187
Personally, I'd just like a list of every unique NPC and how to meet them, especially any that might require going through another character first.

EDIT: If that already exists, uh, ignore me.
 

AdventAnyx

Active Member
Game Developer
Feb 2, 2020
740
2,904
Say, you played the management part of the game and did great, so you quickly stopped doing any jobs in the office yourself, never had Attention to rise above the threshold, and didn't have many employees. Unfortunately, there's a good chance then that you completely missed a few storylines and you don't have any way to know that. Perhaps this is good for replayability, but it can also quickly get frustrating.
Damn, I missed that by not being a noob :LUL::cool:

Hey, I agree with you guys. But what you're talking about is more of an "attention to detail" kinda thing. There has to be someone on the dev team who would sit his ass down for a couple of days, and write a lot of tooltips, in-detail for every possible condition.

I had MC's mom quest say something like "Reach 40 love with Rebecca". I was like "Who the fuck is Rebecca?" And then a week later the questline about aunt started, and her name was Rebecca. That's where some dev should, ideally, sit and write a several conditional tooltips to make it less confusing. Like "you will meet a new character soon" and "reach 40 love" should be two tolltips with different conditions, but basically about the same state of your current relationships. That's the type of work that is very fucking boring if the alternative is creating new content. At least for me. The tooltips in my game also weren't done until mid dev, and then no matter how much you refine them, there's always that unique person who still is lost in the game :HideThePain:

As to already great "Event!" functionality, to make it slightly better, I'd add some sort of extra "empty / red" button if there's an event, to the UI somewhere:

Screenshot_1.jpg

That way you don't have to check the worldmap every turn. If the button is red, there's SOME event out there; if it's not, don't bother, click some action. Can also show a number of active events instead of just the color.

And about that encyclopedia about every character. Not every game needs all the info about everything within itself. Unless it's some major content blocker, finding random little stories all by yourself, randomly, could be cool. Having a chance of missing big chunks of content because of some obscure trigger though...that's just bad game/trigger design, I think. Can we lose a lot of content because of some weird trigger now? I don't know. I honestly didn't explore personal stories with characters that much. I'm much more interested in mass-corruption and seeing how characters change in the world. Kinda still sad about HHS+ being in dev hell for 10 years :cry:

edit:
this might be a much more recognizable sign instead of a red button
Screenshot_2.jpg
 
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slick97

Active Member
Dec 2, 2021
654
1,633
I've spent more time than I care to admit digging through the code and learning just how skilled Tristim and Starbuck are when it comes to coding. AdventAnyx brought up a few great points that I'd like to address in detail.

There has to be someone on the dev team who would sit his ass down for a couple of days, and write a lot of tooltips, in-detail for every possible condition.
That's where some dev should, ideally, sit and write a several conditional tooltips to make it less confusing. Like "you will meet a new character soon" and "reach 40 love" should be two tolltips with different conditions, but basically about the same state of your current relationships. That's the type of work that is very fucking boring if the alternative is creating new content.
There are currently two types of tooltips within the game: one tied to the character sheet (obedience, love, sluttiness hints), and another tied to the world map in the bottom left hand corner in the form of a question mark. The character sheet hints are initialized in the character's "<char>_definition_ren.py" that imports a custom python script where the lists are built in the first place ("Person_ren.py").

The second tooltip I haven't been able to find where it's builder function is, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's buried in one of the python files in the "map" folder. This one seems like legacy code because some of the hints in the tooltip always appear while others only appear when speaking with a specific character (i.e. when you u lock special traits from Nora). My best guess is that it was primarily used for helping players progress quest that weren't necessarily tied to a character's obedience, love, and lust traits, but Sarah kinda debunks that theory since she has hints in both locations (character sheet and bottom left corner in the map).


As to already great "Event!" functionality, to make it slightly better, I'd add some sort of extra "empty / red" button if there's an event, to the UI somewhere:
The "Event!" function is tied to story events which the player has triggered - whether that be through the right stats or favorable RNG. The addition of another indicator or even showing a warning screen before progressing could be useful if appended to the already defined "Event!" function as any other implementation would double the work for story events.

Can we lose a lot of content because of some weird trigger now? I don't know. I honestly didn't explore personal stories with characters that much.
Luckily I can answer this question! The answer is you can completely skip over characters and storylines. For example, if you utilize trances and change Lily's opinion on incest to be favorable, you can completely skip over Iris's introduction. Additionally, if you don't opt for Nora's route early on with serum testing, you will skip over the following: Emily and Christine's introduction, powerful serum traits, and interns.

You can also completely miss the trigger from Ashley for personal serums by accident or just refusing to hire her. Not hiring Sarah results in several business related storylines being skipped. Not hiring Ellie results in the loss of nanobot research. Not hiring Alexia results in the loss of Kaya's introduction and the ability to hire interns. Hiring Mom or Lily too fast breaks the triggers for their respective storylines.

Furthermore, you can completely miss out on the brother brothel if you either: don't explore the streets to unlock the building, fail to blackmail Gabriella, fail to invest in the sex shop, or refuse to buy the building. You can also miss Christina's introduction if you don't engage in public sex.

There are some business events that can fail to trigger because of poor RNG, such as unisex bathrooms. You can also skip out on company yoga if you fail to progress Erica's story or cause her to ghost you (which resets her entire questline). Erica is also required to progress Kaya's questline so that serves as another facet of the intern mechanic.



There are a few more mechanics which you can inadvertently skip, but the above paragraphs list out most of the major events. While some players say it's a complex mess because of it, my personal opinion is similar to yours in that it just requires a ton of boring work polishing the already built systems and adding clarity where needed.

Adding a wiki is an interesting idea and has been done for other games of similar complexity. The best option would be setting one up through Miraheze as they definitely allow NSFW content to be posted. Ultimately though, it depends on whether Tristim and Starbuck want to submit a request to the site for obtaining a wiki since they're the current IP holders for the game and can set trusted players up with admin permissions.

Apologies for such a long post, there were a lot of great points to discuss and I wanted to have a comprehensive breakdown of the current state of the game that I can reference in the future.
 
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AdventAnyx

Active Member
Game Developer
Feb 2, 2020
740
2,904
Luckily I can answer this question! The answer is you can completely skip over characters and storylines.
Damn oh wow, looks like I missed half of the game :HideThePain:
Gonna replay again once I'm done with BG3 for sure. I have an itch for these types of management games.

As to programming details, I'm a complete clueless noob, so I won't even bother. When I just started my own game, Vren's Lab Rats 1 was where I tried and see how simplest stuff looks like in code of a Renpy game. But Lab Rats 2 is on a whole other level of complexity inside, for me personally. I won't even touch that o_O

So hey thanks for the characters info ;)
 
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Sep 21, 2019
175
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I've spent more time than I care to admit digging through the code and learning just how skilled Tristim and Starbuck are when it comes to coding. AdventAnyx brought up a few great points that I'd like to address in detail.



There are currently two types of tooltips within the game: one tied to the character sheet (obedience, love, sluttiness hints), and another tied to the world map in the bottom left hand corner in the form of a question mark. The character sheet hints are initialized in the character's "<char>_definition_ren.py" that imports a custom python script where the lists are built in the first place ("Person_ren.py").

The second tooltip I haven't been able to find where it's builder function is, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's buried in one of the python files in the "map" folder. This one seems like legacy code because some of the hints in the tooltip always appear while others only appear when speaking with a specific character (i.e. when you u lock special traits from Nora). My best guess is that it was primarily used for helping players progress quest that weren't necessarily tied to a character's obedience, love, and lust traits, but Sarah kinda debunks that theory since she has hints in both locations (character sheet and bottom left corner in the map).



The "Event!" function is tied to story events which the player has triggered - whether that be through the right stats or favorable RNG. The addition of another indicator or even showing a warning screen before progressing could be useful if appended to the already defined "Event!" function as any other implementation would double the work for story events.


Luckily I can answer this question! The answer is you can completely skip over characters and storylines. For example, if you utilize trances and change Lily's opinion on incest to be favorable, you can completely skip over Iris's introduction. Additionally, if you don't opt for Nora's route early on with serum testing, you will skip over the following: Emily and Christine's introduction, powerful serum traits, and interns.

You can also completely miss the trigger from Ashley for personal serums by accident or just refusing to hire her. Not hiring Sarah results in several business related storylines being skipped. Not hiring Ellie results in the loss of nanobot research. Not hiring Alexia results in the loss of Kaya's introduction and the ability to hire interns. Hiring Mom or Lily too fast breaks the triggers for their respective storylines.

Furthermore, you can completely miss out on the brother brothel if you either: don't explore the streets to unlock the building, fail to blackmail Gabriella, fail to invest in the sex shop, or refuse to buy the building. You can also miss Christina's introduction if you don't engage in public sex.

There are some business events that can fail to trigger because of poor RNG, such as unisex bathrooms. You can also skip out on company yoga if you fail to progress Erica's story or cause her to ghost you (which resets her entire questline). Erica is also required to progress Kaya's questline so that serves as another facet of the intern mechanic.



There are a few more mechanics which you can inadvertently skip, but the above paragraphs list out most of the major events. While some players say it's a complex mess because of it, my personal opinion is similar to yours in that it just requires a ton of boring work polishing the already built systems and adding clarity where needed.

Adding a wiki is an interesting idea and has been done for other games of similar complexity. The best option would be setting one up through Miraheze as they definitely allow NSFW content to be posted. Ultimately though, it depends on whether Tristim and Starbuck want to submit a request to the site for obtaining a wiki since they're the current IP holders for the game and can set trusted players up with admin permissions.

Apologies for such a long post, there were a lot of great points to discuss and I wanted to have a comprehensive breakdown of the current state of the game that I can reference in the future.
Wow many thanks. This is very informative. Never apologize for a long post. Especially for dev related stuff, it's super important to be clear. (Maybe this post should referenced within a faq on the first post)

EDIT: I am not sure if you implied it, but I completely agree that legacy code can be a pain in the ass ;).
If the code is not fully understood yet, better not nuke it then my bad lol. Or at the very least make a third experimental branch, to not mess up the develop branch.
 
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4.60 star(s) 65 Votes