Ren'Py Abandoned Lab Rats 2 [v0.51.1] [Vren]

[boblicticious]

I just don't get it. Is it because it's easily customizable with the clothes? Then so what? If I wanted to play dress-up with ugly models, I'd just get a homeless dude drunk. He'd probably have a better haircut too.

The whole idea with modern SW development is that you create the minimum feasible product, get a demo out quickly and then adapt to the feedback. Once the critical features work satisfactory, you can add more features incrementally with the same process. Vren does the opposite. He makes the product as complex as possible from the start and keeps on ignoring the single biggest complaint in favor of piling on ever more features and content.

Apparently now the models are animated too. Why would you put your resources there? Sure, some people like animation, but not of ugly chicks. Imagine the ratings if he had just stuck with the old HoneySelect pics? Sure, he'd might have to reduce the customization and completely dump the dress-up, but it would be well worth it.

The worst part is that Vren has great writing talent and thinks originally, so he could get away with just a single picture for each girl and many people would still love the game if it was an attractive picture and other aspects got the attention it deserves (like the building of your empire). Games like Strive4Power, TiTS and MonsterGirlDreams have proven that. If he'd want to put in the extra effort, have a pic for each type of mood and let our imagination deal with the scenes.

At the end of the day, this site is super saturated with what you are looking for. F95 is a cornucopia of plenty for people who are looking for simplicity paired with beautiful renders and decent writing. The point with Lab Rats 2 is that we're getting something that is actually a game and not just a visual novel.

It seems to me that Vren really enjoys complex systems, pushing the limits of renpy, and making a more sandbox style management game than most of what you find on this site. And for some of us, this dynamic style adds a lot of replay value. There's even a dedicated group of modders working to add content and improve the game. Every month a new release is out, the modders have their mods up and running for the new release by the time the beta is complete and the .1 bug fix version is released to the public.

So yeah, there are a lot of voices here clamoring for something more simple with better models... but it would be really unfortunate if he caved and created this site's 1000th mostly linear "game" with pretty looking models and very low replayability. If you think you are disappointed by lab rats 2 when the style of game you want is ever-present here already, imagine the disappointment those of us who really like the direction lab rats 2 is going if Vren decided to give you what you want and left us with even fewer dynamic games in an environment where such a thing is already really rare.

I played through lab rats about 3 times... after that there wasn't really a point, I'd done everything with every character. Lab rats 2 isn't even complete and I've played from start to obscene financial wealth and full harem company at least 20 times at this point. You can't get replayability like that from something as static as what you are asking for.

 

[gregers]

How do you make serums that alter breast size? I'm doing as much research as I can and I don't see that effect anywhere.

You probably haven't unlocked it yet. Research the traits available to you then talk to your head researcher (Stephanie) about furthering your research, go meet Nora and do her a few favours. It'll pop eventually.

 

[boblicticious]

How do you make serums that alter breast size? I'm doing as much research as I can and I don't see that effect anywhere.

you need to upgrade your research tier. Each new tier unlocks several new traits you can research and add into serums.

Talk to your head of research (by default it's stephanie) about advancing your research. To go from the 1st tier to the 2nd tier you'll need a sample serum to test on her.... to go from 2nd tier to 3rd tier (which the 3rd tier I BELIEVE has the breast grow/shrink traits), you'll need to either spend 2000 dollars to obtain other company's serums to test, or you have the option to instead talk to Nora and you'll do some tests for her that will unlock the 3rd tier.

There's also a 4th tier after that that unlocks a few more traits... but keep in mind that some of these tiers will be locked behind your head researcher's obedience, intelligence, and sluttiness levels. The 4th tier I don't think can be done with stephanie as your head researcher (unless giving her a serum that increases intelligence gets you past her intelligence requirement of 5... I don't recall).

 

[Nonya Bizz]

you need to upgrade your research tier. Each new tier unlocks several new traits you can research and add into serums.

Talk to your head of research (by default it's stephanie) about advancing your research. To go from the 1st tier to the 2nd tier you'll need a sample serum to test on her.... to go from 2nd tier to 3rd tier (which the 3rd tier I BELIEVE has the breast grow/shrink traits), you'll need to either spend 2000 dollars to obtain other company's serums to test, or you have the option to instead talk to Nora and you'll do some tests for her that will unlock the 3rd tier.

There's also a 4th tier after that that unlocks a few more traits... but keep in mind that some of these tiers will be locked behind your head researcher's obedience, intelligence, and sluttiness levels. The 4th tier I don't think can be done with stephanie as your head researcher (unless giving her a serum that increases intelligence gets you past her intelligence requirement of 5... I don't recall).

You can "cheat" and make a serum that raises her intelligence enough for her to get the idea, may have to keep her serumed up until done with research, I'm kinda waiting for another update or so before diving back in.

 

[Deleted member 379289]

At the end of the day, this site is super saturated with what you are looking for. F95 is a cornucopia of plenty for people who are looking for simplicity paired with beautiful renders and decent writing. The point with Lab Rats 2 is that we're getting something that is actually a game and not just a visual novel.

It seems to me that Vren really enjoys complex systems, pushing the limits of renpy, and making a more sandbox style management game than most of what you find on this site. And for some of us, this dynamic style adds a lot of replay value. There's even a dedicated group of modders working to add content and improve the game. Every month a new release is out, the modders have their mods up and running for the new release by the time the beta is complete and the .1 bug fix version is released to the public.

So yeah, there are a lot of voices here clamoring for something more simple with better models... but it would be really unfortunate if he caved and created this site's 1000th mostly linear "game" with pretty looking models and very low replayability. If you think you are disappointed by lab rats 2 when the style of game you want is ever-present here already, imagine the disappointment those of us who really like the direction lab rats 2 is going if Vren decided to give you what you want and left us with even fewer dynamic games in an environment where such a thing is already really rare.

I played through lab rats about 3 times... after that there wasn't really a point, I'd done everything with every character. Lab rats 2 isn't even complete and I've played from start to obscene financial wealth and full harem company at least 20 times at this point. You can't get replayability like that from something as static as what you are asking for.

Did you not actually read my post? I mentioned both TiTS and Strive which are far more complex games, so I'm clearly not advocating for yet another linear VN. One of the reasons those games work is because they didn't put so much focus on making visual effects for all the various customizations. They just have single pictures, as I suggested. If you really want those fully customized visual effects, then at least do it right. An example is StationMaster where the models look good (or at least acceptable) and there's even far more options. Sure, the animations look like crap, but you can just keep them out.

Also, pushing the limits of renpy isn't a good thing, but a sign you should use another platform. Still, LR2 could make much better use of it if it weren't stuck in the mindset that everything needs to be text-based dialogue options. Get some inspiration from other renpy games like SuperPowered. Remove all that crap from the middle screen and show me the girls instead. To interact, let me click on them and show some interaction symbols - not text. Keep the girl info box on top of the screen and add some action symbols to the left. This includes a map symbol with a proper map inside instead of a bunch of hexagons. Take the hair salon. Why is that not a pair of scissors? Use weights for gym, bed for bedroom etc. Remove all other unnecessary text like "you change the research to X" or "you spend time in the lab synthesizing". I know I did. That's why I just pressed the button that said I would do this exact thing.

Again, to not be a complete jerk, the reason I'm so direct in my criticism is because the past game was so good and I want Vren to succeed in this new one or at least pick another approach where he will. The only way is with honest feedback. If I didn't think the man had talent or the game was salvageable, I'd just ignore it.

 

[boblicticious]

Did you not actually read my post? I mentioned both TiTS and Strive which are far more complex games, so I'm clearly not advocating for yet another linear VN. One of the reasons those games work is because they didn't put so much focus on making visual effects for all the various customizations. They just have single pictures, as I suggested. If you really want those fully customized visual effects, then at least do it right. An example is StationMaster where the models look good (or at least acceptable) and there's even far more options. Sure, the animations look like crap, but you can just keep them out.

Also, pushing the limits of renpy isn't a good thing, but a sign you should use another platform. Still, LR2 could make much better use of it if it weren't stuck in the mindset that everything needs to be text-based dialogue options. Get some inspiration from other renpy games like SuperPowered. Remove all that crap from the middle screen and show me the girls instead. To interact, let me click on them and show some interaction symbols - not text. Keep the girl info box on top of the screen and add some action symbols to the left. This includes a map symbol with a proper map inside instead of a bunch of hexagons. Take the hair salon. Why is that not a pair of scissors? Use weights for gym, bed for bedroom etc. Remove all other unnecessary text like "you change the research to X" or "you spend time in the lab synthesizing". I know I did. That's why I just pressed the button that said I would do this exact thing.

Again, to not be a complete jerk, the reason I'm so direct in my criticism is because the past game was so good and I want Vren to succeed in this new one or at least pick another approach where he will. The only way is with honest feedback. If I didn't think the man had talent or the game was salvageable, I'd just ignore it.

I did read your post. Here's the thing about strive for power and TITS... those games have custom artwork. It's why the images look ok. Vren is not an artist... it's why he used honey select to create character images for LR1, and it's why he's using purchased models for LR2. I recognize that they don't have the best appeal, but they complement this type of game well enough.

For a game that is less fantasy genre and more just (relatively) realistic business sim, the choice to use 3d models is actually pretty solid. The dynamic nature of which characters wear which clothes in which situations is part of the appeal, and even if Vren did decide to hire an artist... drawing an image for each variation (clothes, hair, body size, etc...) for each pose or situation would just be unwieldy. Even then, seeing how Vren operates, it seems likely to me that he's not interested in hiring anyone to help. He's not making a ton of money on patreon and he still has a day job, so LR2 is clearly a labor of love and he doesn't seem to want to hand any of it off to anyone. And it's that dynamic nature that is making the game interesting. Take away the variety and stick us with generic images (even if those generic images look phenomenal) it's going to hurt the replay value. This isn't a text-based game (despite how text-heavy it is), there is as much show as there is tell... and generic images would kill much of the appeal (and would orphan half of the systems the game has in place that make it fun).

Granted, Vren is definitely pushing the limits for what renpy can handle... the performance issues slowly get worse as the complexity in the game goes up. It seems like we're getting pretty close to final release though, so perhaps he'll decide to change engines for his next game. Whether he does or he doesn't... I expect his next project will be right up my alley.

In any case, lab rats was decent... but it does not hold my attention like LR2 does. I'm not the only one who thinks so, as I mentioned the modders running the LR2 mods discord and git repository are working on the game constantly. There's not much to inspire doing that much work on a game like Lab Rats where at the end of the day it's 7 static characters, 4 or 5 static locations, about 10 unique scenes per character, and a handfull of different endings. All those combinations together (which is a generous estimate since most of those unique scenes are tied to 1 character and 1 location) would mean creating just around 350 images (a dynamically sequenced slide show with an interface overlayed is all the game really is). Play through the game a couple times and you will likely have seen 99% of the images and story elements. The game part is VERY light, all you do is manage time slots... so there's really just not much there to want to bother making mods for (and just not much there to make me want to play more than a couple times).

 

[gtz-god]

how to date cuz

 

[alex2011]

you need to upgrade your research tier. Each new tier unlocks several new traits you can research and add into serums.

Talk to your head of research (by default it's stephanie) about advancing your research. To go from the 1st tier to the 2nd tier you'll need a sample serum to test on her.... to go from 2nd tier to 3rd tier (which the 3rd tier I BELIEVE has the breast grow/shrink traits), you'll need to either spend 2000 dollars to obtain other company's serums to test, or you have the option to instead talk to Nora and you'll do some tests for her that will unlock the 3rd tier.

There's also a 4th tier after that that unlocks a few more traits... but keep in mind that some of these tiers will be locked behind your head researcher's obedience, intelligence, and sluttiness levels. The 4th tier I don't think can be done with stephanie as your head researcher (unless giving her a serum that increases intelligence gets you past her intelligence requirement of 5... I don't recall).

I did read your post. Here's the thing about strive for power and TITS... those games have custom artwork. It's why the images look ok. Vren is not an artist... it's why he used honey select to create character images for LR1, and it's why he's using purchased models for LR2. I recognize that they don't have the best appeal, but they complement this type of game well enough.

For a game that is less fantasy genre and more just (relatively) realistic business sim, the choice to use 3d models is actually pretty solid. The dynamic nature of which characters wear which clothes in which situations is part of the appeal, and even if Vren did decide to hire an artist... drawing an image for each variation (clothes, hair, body size, etc...) for each pose or situation would just be unwieldy. Even then, seeing how Vren operates, it seems likely to me that he's not interested in hiring anyone to help. He's not making a ton of money on patreon and he still has a day job, so LR2 is clearly a labor of love and he doesn't seem to want to hand any of it off to anyone. And it's that dynamic nature that is making the game interesting. Take away the variety and stick us with generic images (even if those generic images look phenomenal) it's going to hurt the replay value. This isn't a text-based game (despite how text-heavy it is), there is as much show as there is tell... and generic images would kill much of the appeal (and would orphan half of the systems the game has in place that make it fun).

Granted, Vren is definitely pushing the limits for what renpy can handle... the performance issues slowly get worse as the complexity in the game goes up. It seems like we're getting pretty close to final release though, so perhaps he'll decide to change engines for his next game. Whether he does or he doesn't... I expect his next project will be right up my alley.

In any case, lab rats was decent... but it does not hold my attention like LR2 does. I'm not the only one who thinks so, as I mentioned the modders running the LR2 mods discord and git repository are working on the game constantly. There's not much to inspire doing that much work on a game like Lab Rats where at the end of the day it's 7 static characters, 4 or 5 static locations, about 10 unique scenes per character, and a handfull of different endings. All those combinations together (which is a generous estimate since most of those unique scenes are tied to 1 character and 1 location) would mean creating just around 350 images (a dynamically sequenced slide show with an interface overlayed is all the game really is). Play through the game a couple times and you will likely have seen 99% of the images and story elements. The game part is VERY light, all you do is manage time slots... so there's really just not much there to want to bother making mods for (and just not much there to make me want to play more than a couple times).

The real problem isn't that they are purchased instead of custom, it's that they are ugly as sin and the ones that represent already established characters, specifically the returning characters from LR1, are completely different and can't even be recognized as the characters they represent. He didn't need to purchase models, he could have used Honey Select again and it would have been fine. Yes, it's a lot of work to get the same level of customization as he would have to render every single character with every possible clothing option meant to be available for that character, but it would have been worth it.

 

[srksrk 68]

The real problem isn't that they are purchased instead of custom, it's that they are ugly as sin and the ones that represent already established characters, specifically the returning characters from LR1, are completely different and can't even be recognized as the characters they represent. He didn't need to purchase models, he could have used Honey Select again and it would have been fine. Yes, it's a lot of work to get the same level of customization as he would have to render every single character with every possible clothing option meant to be available for that character, but it would have been worth it.

You don't know what you are talking about. That level of customization would not have been possible without a fully scripted and automated approach, as Vren explained often and in detail. You may not like the models, but there are as many ugly as there are pretty ones imo.

I agree that he could have made custom models for LR1 characters, maybe mounting the old faces onto new bodies or such. And yet again, maybe he still will do it.

 

[Sihy]

I don't know why but, Gym, Clothing store, Sex store, Office supply store and home improvement store do not work, they all look like the "Mall" central section and I can't interact with the locations.

 

[Hermenegild]

I don't know why but, Gym, Clothing store, Sex store, Office supply store and home improvement store do not work, they all look like the "Mall" central section and I can't interact with the locations.

No shops are actually implemented yet. You can't interact with any shop at all. You need to wait for a few versions... It's planned, but I don't recall Vren mentioning it recently.

 

[electricat]

I don't know why but, Gym, Clothing store, Sex store, Office supply store and home improvement store do not work, they all look like the "Mall" central section and I can't interact with the locations.

The mods you can find in the mods thread add some artwork and functionality to the gym and sex store, among other things, but the vanilla game doesn't do anything with them right now.

 

[alex2011]

You don't know what you are talking about. That level of customization would not have been possible without a fully scripted and automated approach, as Vren explained often and in detail. You may not like the models, but there are as many ugly as there are pretty ones imo.

I agree that he could have made custom models for LR1 characters, maybe mounting the old faces onto new bodies or such. And yet again, maybe he still will do it.

There are zero pretty ones in this game. The assets used come from a program that is perfectly capable of making pretty ones, but Vren used ones that were not. I never said we would have this level of customization, only that we could still have had some. With Honey Select, he would have had to render an image for every girl in every outfit that girl was supposed to be capable of using. It would not be a single model with multiple clothing assets swapped in and out, but entire models already outfitted with every possible outfit being swapped. There are games that do this already using other Illusion programs, such as Glassix. Preserving the look of the character is much more important anyway, especially with characters like the ones that carried over from the previous game. The clothes are secondary, the girls could have just been added nude and left that way and the game would still be much better off visually than with ugly models.

 

[srksrk 68]

There are zero pretty ones in this game. The assets used come from a program that is perfectly capable of making pretty ones, but Vren used ones that were not. I never said we would have this level of customization, only that we could still have had some. With Honey Select, he would have had to render an image for every girl in every outfit that girl was supposed to be capable of using. It would not be a single model with multiple clothing assets swapped in and out, but entire models already outfitted with every possible outfit being swapped. There are games that do this already using other Illusion programs, such as Glassix. Preserving the look of the character is much more important anyway, especially with characters like the ones that carried over from the previous game. The clothes are secondary, the girls could have just been added nude and left that way and the game would still be much better off visually than with ugly models.

I suggest you write your own perfect game and show him.

 

[The Grifter]

There are zero pretty ones in this game. The assets used come from a program that is perfectly capable of making pretty ones, but Vren used ones that were not. I never said we would have this level of customization, only that we could still have had some. With Honey Select, he would have had to render an image for every girl in every outfit that girl was supposed to be capable of using. It would not be a single model with multiple clothing assets swapped in and out, but entire models already outfitted with every possible outfit being swapped. There are games that do this already using other Illusion programs, such as Glassix. Preserving the look of the character is much more important anyway, especially with characters like the ones that carried over from the previous game. The clothes are secondary, the girls could have just been added nude and left that way and the game would still be much better off visually than with ugly models.

HS and other Illusion posing games are simply not a viable option considering the pure amount of randomly created female NPCs in the game. Creating a picture for each possible position and combination of clothing and make-up...? Let's not speak of the time involved, but the pure amount of data per character would make it impossible.
Glassix has a limitted number of NPC characters, with a fixed number of positions, scenes and costumes involved. The amount of pictures created there is managable, but not for a game like LR2. Check boblicticious's posts on the page before for why Lab Rats 2 is different from other games.
Now, about the models being ugly, that poor dead horse gets getting beaten time and again here. Don't get me wrong, if that is your opinion, great, more power to you. But this "OMG those girls all look horrible" thing has already been brought up ad nauseam squared. Now, I'll admit that I find Face1 and 6 not very attractive. That's why I change those to 3 and 4. But claiming all models in the game are ugly? As I wrote elsewhere: this vorcha politely disagrees.

 

[The Grifter]

How to open console? After changing \Lab_Rats_2-v0.xx.0-pc\renpy\common\00console.rpy "SHIFT+O" is not working. Basically nothing happens.

Be sure to delete any 00console.rpyc after editing console to True, then start the game.

 

[yoda123]

Man this animation system is really bad.

Yeah, we got smaller girls made of jelly in a box that covers the background. Not very much to like about that. Not a fan of using warping to make animations, that never looks good.

 

[alex2011]

HS and other Illusion posing games are simply not a viable option considering the pure amount of randomly created female NPCs in the game. Creating a picture for each possible position and combination of clothing and make-up...? Let's not speak of the time involved, but the pure amount of data per character would make it impossible.
Glassix has a limitted number of NPC characters, with a fixed number of positions, scenes and costumes involved. The amount of pictures created there is managable, but not for a game like LR2. Check boblicticious's posts on the page before for why Lab Rats 2 is different from other games.
Now, about the models being ugly, that poor dead horse gets getting beaten time and again here. Don't get me wrong, if that is your opinion, great, more power to you. But this "OMG those girls all look horrible" thing has already been brought up ad nauseam squared. Now, I'll admit that I find Face1 and 6 not very attractive. That's why I change those to 3 and 4. But claiming all models in the game are ugly? As I wrote elsewhere: this vorcha politely disagrees.

At the same time, the models used are not viable for characters that existed before said models were used. Quite frankly, he would have been better off making the game without including them at any point if this is how they came out.

 

[alex2011]

I suggest you write your own perfect game and show him.

Why would I do that? If a majority of his players complaining that the models are ugly and don't look anything like they are supposed to for specific characters didn't get him to change them, me wasting my time developing an entire game certainly won't. And no, I am not saying that my one string of comments is a majority, I'm saying I'm not alone in this line of thought.

 

[partanen]

Why would I do that? If a majority of his players complaining that the models are ugly and don't look anything like they are supposed to for specific characters didn't get him to change them, me wasting my time developing an entire game certainly won't. And no, I am not saying that my one string of comments is a majority, I'm saying I'm not alone in this line of thought.

Well, how about you then make prettier models? It's much easier than making whole game. Make a Mod for Lab Rats 2:

"Not-Fugly-Lab Rat 2-Models-by-Alex2011".​

Just UnRen Lab Rats 2 first to see how many pictures you need for one pretty face and start making beauty. You'll get a lot of respect for doing making prettier models. And Modders of Lab Rats 2 are more than happy to help with coding part of mod...