Ren'Py - Lab Rats 2 - Reformulate [v2024.5B] [Tristim/LZ_Starbuck/Trollden]

Legit gold here, especially for fans of management games.

Scenarios and systems are good enough that the art or lack of animations doesn't really matter, using imagination is hot enough.

What it does need is more polish around the UI and stuff. The systems themselves are really good there's just a lot of systems to learn and currently you have to sort of figure it out on your own.

Still top stuff, idk how a game like this runs in Renpy, its bordering on the more complex unity games and stuff already

Great game for management game fans.
It's also not hard to get going if you're into managing games, I don't even play them often but I like them and I did not find it difficult though obviously it's not as polished as a decent non porn games in the genre.
The grind also doesn't feel like work at all, it's quite satisfying, in fact it might just be one of the better games I've played in this regard. Other games with 1/10th the grind felt like a huge drag by comparison though again, this is probably not true for everyone, it depends on what genres you like.
The story and relation between the characters, especially the non main characters, needs adding features and polish. Don't imagine this is a story driven game but there is a story and it does make it more interesting.

While this game is not perfect, it is really good and, more importantly, very unique. It gives an H-game experience you can't really get anywhere else. In short, the premise is that you run a company who makes "unethical" pharmaceuticals. Amidst this premise is gameplay, story, and H content that is just exceptional in many ways. As leader of your company, you direct where your resources are spent, you direct what drugs to research, you direct which to manufacture and what the unique properties those you do will have, you setup selling, marketing, staffing, etc. Each of your employees (and every other person you come across) is a named, randomly generated female with her own life (single, married, kids, young, old, conservative, wild, etc.). There is a reason you do all this - to get drugs that let you fuck whatever you want to fuck, basically. Drugs that make women act wilder, make them horny, make them happy, make their tits grow, make them lose weight, make their hair change color, make them want to get pregnant, etc. Some of these things are more dubious than others and you will attract attention from the government!.. Thankfully the government sends women to investigate you

And there's more, but hopefully you get it. So yes, very deep, but you might be dissuaded by this depth. That's a lot of mechanics, and it doesn't stop there. Is it really worth all that faff? Well, I'd say yes, but I'd also offer that you can avoid the faff. Built into the game is a very good, access at any time cheat UI. You can change your own stats or the stats of any woman you meet whenever you want. Add money, insta complete research, change the things a girl likes or doesn't, etc - all whenever you want. This was wonderful for me as, yes, the game can be quite grindy if you let it. However, whenever I found myself needing to repeat the same action with a girl to grind out a certain stat, for example, I could just cheat it. I knew how to increase it, so I'd just cheat it a few points and see what happened. Nothing changed? Cheat it a few more. Eventually a barrier would be passed and I could play normally again. It's great! I wish more devs would build cheats into H games - these are not like normal games, nothing worse than an unnecessary blue balling.

Anyways, there is actually a story (which you can mostly pursue or ignore at your choosing), a wide array of named and significant characters amidst the sea of randomly generated ones. Dialog is very kinky and adaptive/self-aware (ex: if they're married they might talk about how much better you are than their husband). If I were to knock it anywhere, it would be that it doesn't have animation, but I have no fucking idea how it could have animation in renpy given that every character is randomly generated and has the ability to have their body changed with tons of clothing options, etc, etc. There are many still poses (ex: during a blowjob the girl is kneeled with mouth open, during doggy she is on her hands and knees with her ass facing you, etc.), so I think this is fine.

All in all, it's not perfect, but I don't know that it ever could be given how accommodating it is trying to be to different preferences and play styles. It does still allow you to craft your own near-perfect gameplay despite this, so I have to give it 5 stars. If you're looking for a detailed sexual business management sim game, this has it all. If you're looking to just jerk off, this also has it, and everything in between the two. Highly recommended, and I now must figure out how to squeeze this in my 5 star list while under duress of the F95 "about page" character limit lol.

Edit: since writing this review I have came back to this game at least 3 or 4 times for... you know... Now I'm basically to the point where I am forcing myself not to play it lol. It's good, lots of replayability, but damn I can't be doing this shit lol

The concept behind this game is a fun idea. The thing is it's really hard to pull off because it is so complicated. If you are going to "reformulate" the game, you should reformulate it. What are the downsides and what can you do to make it better?

Downsides:
No MC... I mean there is an MC, but you never see him. You can start off by giving us a generic-looking MC and then create a character creation system much like there is for the girls.

No animations. It's a personal preference for me. However, I know that it is a major preference for many players. This is why I mentioned no MC at first. Mostly you need to set up simple animations for the sex system already in place. It would be nothing too fancy, just the action of what is already being played. Then you can build more custom animations for completing quests with the main girls.

The UI... It really needs to be reformulated. It looks like a UI from the 90s. You could probably make it look more streamlined, but the research and drug creation is probably the worst of it. Those 2 are kind of a mess. You should probably have tier tabs at the top that you can cycle through. Each tier should have subcategories to help make the experience more user-friendly. The UI for work uniforms and outfit creation also needs some love.

Drug Names. Each drug you can create should have a name already build into the system. This will help players a lot. The forums and walkthroughs can help struggling players. Maybe have it so that the most useful combinations have names and all others can be named by the players. That way if a player makes red hair dye with a medical application they can name it themselves.

The background art. It's just super basic. It is just a 2d looking picture and the characters are 3d. Make a 3d background that the characters interact with. That way when you bang a girl on your desk... you actually bang the girl on the desk.

A hint system. It needs it. Once yous start a quest have a hint button that will let you know what quest you are on and what you need to do.

Indifference opinions:
The grind. I mean the grind is real in this game. I'm not upset, because that is the basic premise of how this game functions. If you don't like grindy games, then don't play this one.

Incest. I mean you can probably put the game on Patreon if you make them step-family or landlady, roommate, etc. Then have a patch. That way you don't drive off people who don't like that kind of thing.

The ending. I'm not sure how you are going to end the story. I'm not sure how you are going to end this game. I guess it's rather difficult. I mean, I have a few ideas, but we will see how it goes.

Upsides:
Customization. This is what makes the game really fun. Girls outside the main ones are randomly generated and all pick different outfits to wear based on their opinions. You can also make custom work uniforms for your company. If you put up a few then the girls will choose for themselves. You can even make uniforms for each department. It's a lot of fun to play around with. After you fix everything else you can expand with more female and outfit customization, but maybe that is too much.

The storylines. It's good for the most part. You can tell that some main girls got a lot more love in their storylines than the others. I would say touch up and polish more of the main girls and make it more of a progression like it was for the mom and sister. Some people might hate me saying that, because it would add to the grind, but oh well. It makes the story more engaging.

Conclusion:
All and all it's a 5-star idea with a 3-star execution. I mean, it's a difficult game to pull off. I don't see how this is a revamped game. It's just a handful of changes That's nice, but it doesn't fix some of the problems of being a current game. It's still not going to stack up next to more current games with better-looking UI, graphics, and actual animations. If you want to "reformulate" a game then bring it up to speed with everything else. I had fun revisiting it, but then the novelty wore off and I got bored of seeing stills of 3d girls on a 2d background.

Here's a quiz:

1. Do you love ludicrously overcomplicated and stupidly confusing interfaces?
2. Do you love extensive tutorials that don't actually explain anything?
3. Do you love endless, endless, endless, endless, endless, endless amounts of grind?
4. Do you love games that make you feel like a suicidal hamster running on a wheel made of broken glass and salt?

If you answered "Yes" to two or more of these questions, then "Lab Rats 2: Electric Boogaloo" is the game for you. Download today and experience the electronic equivalent of getting hit with a crowbar square in the knee!

The original game was good, but this version is pretty bloody awesome. Hits a LOT of the feelings that the original had, but is even better. The expanded stories from the base game, the new features all work together to turn this into one of the best games out there.

There is an clear inverse relationship between how pretty are the girl models in a game and how much freedom you can give to the player. For this mod, as the original game, it heavily realies on the second trait. Said that, this mod fixes a game wich was quite amazing in its corruption, management and girl customization. Few games came into my mind more replayable and entretaing even if the girls aren't the pretties.

This might be the corruption game with the best replayability of any othe game out there. It is very dynamic, with new people, new serums, new effects and so forth on each playthrough.

This is the same game as its predecessor, but with an extremely good mod wrapped in that adds a lot of content and quality of life improvements.

The gameplay loop is that of a management game, which is actually fairly fun. You can always use the cheat menu to skip over parts of that if you just want to get to the nsfw parts.

The Positives here are:
Replayability
Really good corruption
Length of gameplay
Fun gameplay loop
Ability to customize your own gameplay
Lots and lots of outfit combinations

Negatives:
Girls are bit on the ugly side

Lab rats 2 was a great management game.
it was about using chemistry to mind control, corrupt, bimbofy and everything else that feeds your inner mad scientist needs.
sadly it was abandoned.
this is that just with lots of gameplay/UI improvements.

Reviewed Modified Version: 0.51.3.1

Lab Rats is one of the games I have been following from the start, and it has been a complex ride. However, it is one of the few games I keep coming back to play every 6-8 months.

But to enjoy this game, there are a lot of caveats that you have to accept:

-Sandbox game: There is no clear goal; it is a playground for you to explore, use, and abuse as you desire.
-Randomly generated characters and models: The modeling system is genius, but it limits the graphics and will never match custom-made renders.
-Steep learning curve: There are a few essential actions you must take at the beginning of the game; otherwise, you will lose. This is somewhat mitigated with the easy difficulty setting.
-Setting up your company for the first time can be frustrating and confusing. I will try to provide a quick guide at the end of this review.

Once you get past the initial setup at the start of the game for the first time, it becomes easier to repeat and redo for your second or subsequent playthroughs.
And with the setup done, you can enjoy the game's strong points: a world of randomly generated girls for you to charm, corrupt, and defile. Additionally, there's a mod team that keeps adding small stories and other nifty shady mechanics for you to explore.

I hope you make it through the initial learning curve so that you can take a vacation in Lab Rats 2 when you feel like taking a few days off for some personal time.



For my final trick, here's a quick start guide to achieving a stable income by getting your company started:

First, you need a product to sell. In R&D, you can invent them, but you need to add some traits to make them valuable.
-Research and develop a few traits.
-Design a new serum with a target profit of 50 or more.

Next, you need to start production:
In the main offices, you can hire more staff. Don't worry; you can fire them and hire others once you have settled in. What you need is cheap labor to manufacture your product, so look for wages at 30 or below.
-For production workers, aim for wage < or = production.
-For supply workers, aim for wage * 2 < or = supply.
-Aim for supply = production.

Eventually, you'll want a marketing and HR team as well, but you can handle that part of the company until you have upgraded your maximum employee count.

This should be enough to get you started. I wish you good luck and happy corruption.

Probably one of the best modding community out of all games on this site. The mods add a metric ton to the game. It's seriously insane how great the experience is becoming. Highly recommend.
It would be nice if we got more documentation of what/when exactly the mod would get triggered/general info about it, but it's also quite fun to figure it out yourself.

[ v2024.5]

Incredible corruption options and for lots of people, plenty of different yet related stories and many systems to play with.

It's basically a perfect game, just has a few flaws.

• A majority of clothing has clipping issues
• There is no explanation for game difficulties nort a way to adjust them in-game
  (bonus: normal difficulty is a fkin grind)
• Lack of some convienenve options (like mass compliment, critique, $bonus at work)
• A large portion of business options are not directly useful- either tiny bonusess, necessary, or "story" progress locked.
• Trance state tinkering has weird balancing
• Some events (like sleeping exposed) are repeatable
• Some clothes choosing inloves NPCs preferences and stats, some don't
• Some social interactions don't make sense (when and what the NPCs prefer, react without indicationb before or after)

Otherwise, the amount of entertainment on both game and porn it provided me is incredible.

v0.51.3.1

I've played the original and this version various times over man updates and i honestly think this is the best game on the site and the modded version is absolutely the best version to play hands down

The UI improvements alone make this mod a must in my opinion. In all aspects this mod is a strict improvement over the base game and is the definitive way to experience the game. The mod also changes some of the story beats so they make more sense and added features that expand on the mechanics of the base game. The only issue is the low quality of the face models and some clipping in the clothes choices but those issues can be easily fixed

I've only played the full game download version of this game, and not the original, and I have to say this is one of my favorite adult video games, period. I would describe this as somewhere between Rogue-Like and the sandbox mod in Strive for Power in how it blends visuals with varied, interactive gameplay. There are also a lot of options to configure the game to the player, so once the ideal settings are figured out, and the gameplay is figured out, it can be quite fun.

The main problem I have is the lack of proper explanation of all the different options of the game, so initial gameplay can be awkward and frustrating for quite a while, but once I was able to figure out enough to get going, it really does become a great game for power fantasies.

I haven't even gotten through all of the content in this mod yet and it's still amazing. There is a vast amount of content in this and is truly amazing how much is added and improved from the base game. Vren should definitely look into having the modders hired to work with this game. I played the base game a lot of times, but this is dramatically different and adds life to the game. Honestly I don't think I could play the base game, unless this was added to it permanently. It's that drastic of a change they made to the game.

Amazing job modders.

There is only one problem with this mod - vanilla game is pretty much unplayable without it once you try it. It adds so much content that Vren should just look into incorporating it into the vanilla game and maybe even hiring the contributors.

If you dont like vanilla, this mod will not change your mind. If you like vanilla, this mod will make you love it.

What a mod. I wrote a rather scathing review of Lab Rats 2 calling out a bunch of problems with the base game, and this mod seems tailor made to fix all of them.

The biggest problems were mechanical - the base game is too unapproachable, particularly in its difficulty curve and complexity. This mod helps soften both by buffing certain stats and adding TONS of features for the player to take advantage of. On one hand, it's solving a problem of complexity by adding more complexity. On the other, the new additions are very straightforward, and include things like an easy mode and cheats menu for players who find the gameplay more frustrating than fun.

That said, not every addition is for the better. I feel like this mod adds too many new characters. That might sound like a weird complaint, and even hypocritical since I've complained about the lack of content in the base game, but adding a bunch of new characters solves that problem by introducing another. After a certain point each new character starts to take away from the others, lessening the appeal and novelty of each one individually. I like the new characters, but I'm not sure we need so many. Lab Rats 2 was already a game that felt, "Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle," in its writing, and some of these new additions only serve to widen that puddle. Personally I'd rather have new content and especially artwork for the existing cast (granted the mod does provide some, it's just not the main focus).

Obviously that's much, MUCH easier said than done - VRen's code is famously difficult to work with. Putting my nitpicks aside, this mod is a major accomplishment. At this point I basically think of it as the real Lab Rats 2, while the base game feels more like a beta release to test new features.

So thank you perverts, I mean developers.

It is one of the best in video games, it completely powers the original, it makes it more agile and friendly. A great mod. Completely advisable.
excellent excellent excellent excellent excellent excellent

Okay, I think this is the 2'nd mod I have tried installing for a game in 5 years of being on this site, so that is saying something about my desire for the contents of the mod.

Tried LR2 a few years ago, and while the game has progressed since then, it is severely lacking in story and meaningful engagement. This mod fixes A LOT of those issues.
Combine this with the (IMO) far better UI than the base game, and this mod is a must-have in my eyes.