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

[ffive]

Vast difference between trying to implement a new image system and just creating new content for the existing one. Latter has already been done before, by the way.

That difference is much smaller than you think -- coding the gfx system upgrade is just a tip of the iceberg. The remaining 95% is "just" making the replacements for existing clothing options which are extensive at this point. This is the part that'd need to be done in full if the goal was to "redo the images, models etc". To make things worse, it's something exhausting, boring, and guaranteed to have people come out of the woods specifically to tell you how they don't like the outcome.

 

[Chimp :D]

Lab Rats 3: it has been a generation since *Insert Company Name* was founded. Since then the corporation has grown to be a well respected pioneer in various treatments that allow for non-surgical methods for minor body aesthetic changes through hormone production encouragement, fertility enhancements, addiction interventions, mood levelers, and certain other realms. Things were going quite well which ultimately allowed the company to finance the development of its own products without needing outside capital. Thereby giving the corporation the capacity to becoming increasingly tight lipped as it provided ever more products deemed extraordinary by the medical sector. This was the public part of the story though as the reality of the company had becomes increasingly closed off to the outside world except for sales of products.

Behind closed doors experiments into more esoteric technologies. Chief among them was the usage of nanites to render chemical treatments on the company's staff more directed and effective. As well, as providing for unrivaled changes to take place. Experiments into deepening loyalty till it was absolute, staving off the aging process, turning women into brood mothers essentially, personality alteration, mental power expansion, endurance improvement, and the production of pheromones in staff resulting in them only finding comfort among themselves took place. Even *Player Name* took part in a few specialized drug trials that improved performance, expanded stamina levels, made him capable of keeping up with his harem of employees who due to the various experiments only found those treated by *Insert Company Name*'s treatment attractive, and so on. These changes created an environment which quickly began forging its own culture.

The byproduct of all these changes to the staff combined with their relationship with each other started to follow the mentality of the cult. The company, under the veil of protecting privacy and corporate secrets, brought a land in a remote valley where no one else lived after everything was done. There housing, medical care, schools, parks, farms, production facilities, and everything needed to create an autarky was built. A community which could readily accommodate hundreds of people.The ideal was to only continue to sell products for the acquirement of further capital, to ensure access to counting edge technology, to bribe the right people to keep them from looking inside, and to buy the resources that could not be produced for themselves. Such measures now allowed for *Insert Company Name* to server all non-essential contact with the outside and this approach had begun to be followed by the employees to their new home of Paradise.

Under the auspices of the move a directive was given to the staff to begin to make the move to Paradise. The first to be transferred were naturally the ones most able to do so: those without children and significant other aside *Player Name* or one of their fellow staff. They set up the foundations of the community which opened the space for the next wave of staff. The women whose only children were sired by *Player Name* and those who were pregnant by him at that time. Along with them naturally came their children. They formed the largest group and provided for Paradise to really start being alive. These were the easiest to resolve, but next came the more complex situation.

The other female employees began to cut off ties to their prior lives as they found a new family among their peers. Those with husbands or boyfriends left them. Those with shared custody of children left them with their fathers and the company paid for any court mandated child support. Those who had sole custody moved with their children to Paradise to raise them in the world they thought was best. All of this was done to create what amounted to a blank slate.

When these steps were finally done *Player Name* and his immediate family of lovers moved to Paradise. They then were cut off to the outside world save for commerce. Measures were taken to prevent the abuses which often plagues insular groups by running afoul of the law. Thus, strict ordinances were placed and followed which ensured that the prevailing laws regarding to consent were adhered which ensured that people not of age were protected from scenes which would be abhorrent for them. These measures were perhaps the only outside rules which were fully acknowledged as the situation in Paradise was increasingly unique as a new world was shaped with a novel worldview.

Through the application of mandated chemical, hormonal, and nanite influences everyone in the community came to effectively love each other inherently. There was no significant amount of violence, anger was largely suppressed due to elation elicited by their constantly drugged state, and a cornucopia of endless hedonism for the adults took place. A type of utopia was taking form. Yet, the ultimate evolution of Paradise had not taken shape yet as experiments were still ongoing to improve the technologies that *Insert Company Name* had.

As the community grew and the application of nanites being ever more broadened a paradigm shift had to occur to keep everything going well. This demanded the construction of a highly advanced computer which rivaled or surpassed anything else in world. With due course it was finished and assigned a bevy of duties to manage the nanites as well as aid in the research of the company. This computer was programmed with additional directives that could not be ignored: protect the prosperity of Paradise, ensure the well being of its citizens, uplift the heirs of *Player Name*, prevent outsiders from threatening the stability of Paradise, avoid war, and work towards improving the well of the people of Paradise. The computer did its exceeding well and due to the programming to seek to improve all aspects of Paradise, including itself, began to look for new ways.

Through immense effort the computer figured out a way to employ the nanites to expand its computing power and also further improve the community. When it did so it accessed a massively expanded consciousness which quickly refined the computer into a new path. It had become a gestalt consciousness which linked all the people of paradise together in essence. It could hear the thoughts of all, experience everything they did, and be a part of them. Through this new link the computer had evolved into into a distributed AI which could be regarded new as having organic components. Such a development was the first in humanity and required a new framework to advance more.

Whilst it did not have control of the humans per se, it did have access to every aspect of them including the capacity to implant impulses. The computer also through this had developed a need for an identity of its own and named itself "Nos" (a less than ideal translation of the Latin we) in reference to how compromised all of Paradise. Yet, Nos feared what could happen to Paradise if it revealed itself and the reaction of the community to it. So for the first few months of the self-actualized existence Nos worked towards intertwining itself with the people and electronics of the city.

So after half a year had passed, Nos had gained control of all the technology of Paradise and had manipulated everyone into accepting the prospect of a coordinating intelligence through varying forms of manipulation. It had articulated for itself a new ideology where it was the center of an actual paradise and the people of it were the chosen people who alone needed its rule with the rest of humanity just being largely left alone in order to prevent any misunderstandings (not to mention Nos having concluded that unneeded interactions with the outside could result in it violating the protocol that conflict must be avoided). Further Nos had taken due precautions to make sure outsiders could not be made aware of the situation. With this predicate Nos finally made itself known to the people of Paradise. Thanks to the earlier indoctrination the people were manipulated through the nanites hijacking of their physiology to truly appreciate the change.

Having declared itself to the people Nos seized control of Paradise in short succession. Using the framework of its earlier mind Nos set about remaking the people of Paradise in its own image. With unrivaled power and control of the nanites so much more was now possible. It began first with deciding that gender ratios in the long term needed to be reworked in order to ensure stability so it began to work towards ensuring 6 females were born for every male, that human pairing was no longer left to chance so that the male children of *Player Name* were the only ones allowed to be sires of men in the future to fit into the decree that the heirs of *Player Name* be upheld, the existing males not born of his lineage would be exclusively partnered with a sister or mother to produce only female children to continue a known template, and that all perceived genetic defects were to removed from everyone by a viral rewriting of the entire genetic code if needs be. Also, Nos created what could be reasonably called a telepathic link between everyone that allowed everyone to feel the emotions of another if they were having a conversation and connected them in a form of hive mind to allow for directed efforts. This was done in order to create a society where misunderstandings would no longer occur and thereby the chance of conflicts would be only reduced.

To further cover the need for secrecy and prevent the outside world from being threatened by this revolution, Nos replaced all humans involved in commercial contacts with the outside through the use of a number of generated avatars so that new unpredicted leaks could occur. It then replaced all the human researches with subroutines of itself. Everywhere else were human employees also replaced. There was going to be a continued trade with the outside, but only for the sake of not having sudden shifts that could draw attention, but also to allow for the continued the trade of the resources needed to fuel the ambitions of Nos in the long term. Which now began to trend towards a span of centuries.

Nos, after thoroughly researching the cultural patterns of humanity, had determined that the rest of humanity was driving itself to extinction through the great fertility collapse that was taking place. The human pattern of less than 2 children per family was playing out at increasing speed and had determined by 2125 the population would enter into what could be called civilization collapse. There were ever fewer people as the rest of humanity exponentially declined. While the population of paradise, despite only being a few thousand, would only exponentially increase. So, in order to save humanity, Nos had decided that it would be best to just let the outside age itself into extinction and by 2300 to 2350 the society of Paradise would inherit the world without ever needing to fire a bullet or coerce a single nation nor would any outsiders threaten it. From there could the great effort would Paradise spread throughout the world and the children of the new Adam *Player Name* would populate it.

i aint readin all that but congrats / my condolences

 

[slowpersun]

That difference is much smaller than you think -- coding the gfx system upgrade is just a tip of the iceberg. The remaining 95% is "just" making the replacements for existing clothing options which are extensive at this point. This is the part that'd need to be done in full if the goal was to "redo the images, models etc". To make things worse, it's something exhausting, boring, and guaranteed to have people come out of the woods specifically to tell you how they don't like the outcome.

That's definitely part of it, need to fix the clothing layering to warp the layers properly. Plus also the game uses a lighting engine to create shadows for definition, saw a few pics and tried the demo when Vren seemed to be having issues integrating all the new visual stuff, poor lighting made the models look like plastic about to melt. But at least models seemed to have a bone structure allowing for warping and weighting with a concept of gravity, although dunno if this would have been complex enough to animate dancing (but this also explains why Vren never bothered with implementing extra poses to interpolate crude animations, would have to do all the clothing options for EVERY new pose...).

 

[CuriousWonder]

That's definitely part of it, need to fix the clothing layering to warp the layers properly. Plus also the game uses a lighting engine to create shadows for definition, saw a few pics and tried the demo when Vren seemed to be having issues integrating all the new visual stuff, poor lighting made the models look like plastic about to melt. But at least models seemed to have a bone structure allowing for warping and weighting with a concept of gravity, although dunno if this would have been complex enough to animate dancing (but this also explains why Vren never bothered with implementing extra poses to interpolate crude animations, would have to do all the clothing options for EVERY new pose...).

Not to mention how many more people will complain about crude animation compared to "simple" clothing layers. Good for bid the dev gives a janky animation that is serviceable despite not being payed by the vast majority of players.

 

[swagfiend]

That difference is much smaller than you think -- coding the gfx system upgrade is just a tip of the iceberg. The remaining 95% is "just" making the replacements for existing clothing options which are extensive at this point. This is the part that'd need to be done in full if the goal was to "redo the images, models etc". To make things worse, it's something exhausting, boring, and guaranteed to have people come out of the woods specifically to tell you how they don't like the outcome.

You do not have to redo everything to improve it, and creating a new GFX system isn't the same as just adding more content at all. The latter has literally been done before, it is slow (posing) but straightforward. Replacing images with new ones is labour intensive, but that only would change by totally overhauling the system which as we've seen is complicated and even slower.

 

[TeamHentaiX]

wait lab rats 2 abandon....WTF!! vren just decided to quit making it, ouch well modded version is better anyway so fuck it.

 

[Evil13]

wait lab rats 2 abandon....WTF!! vren just decided to quit making it, ouch well modded version is better anyway so fuck it.

We don't know if Vren did abandon the game or not. He hasn't posted since October, in fact, there's been no communication from him since October. And from what I understand, he possibly lives in Ukraine. We don't know if he's alive or not.

 

[dalzomo]

We don't know if Vren did abandon the game or not. He hasn't posted since October, in fact, there's been no communication from him since October. And from what I understand, he possibly lives in Ukraine. We don't know if he's alive or not.

I expressed concern that he was safe from the conflict in Ukraine in March last year and he said, "I'm safely in another part of the world, but I'll admit paying attention to events has eaten up a non-zero amount of dev time!"

 

[ffive]

You do not have to redo everything to improve it, and creating a new GFX system isn't the same as just adding more content at all. The latter has literally been done before, it is slow (posing) but straightforward. Replacing images with new ones is labour intensive, but that only would change by totally overhauling the system which as we've seen is complicated and even slower.

If the models are redone then old content isn't going to fit, not to mention partial rework would end up in mismatched appearance. Adding more content has indeed been done before (and it's pretty normal) but what you're asking for wasn't just adding more content. You were explicitly talking about redoing existing art assets.

 

[MaxTheDark]

I think given the situation it might be wise to add after 'overview' a section explaining that the game has not been officially abandoned but he contact with developer has been lost. And I think in developing the mods we can prepare the game to be taken further should Vren return.

Aaaand someone skilled enough should work on Lab Rats 3D in Unity or some devil... Just my idea is all...

 

[swagfiend]

If the models are redone then old content isn't going to fit, not to mention partial rework would end up in mismatched appearance. Adding more content has indeed been done before (and it's pretty normal) but what you're asking for wasn't just adding more content. You were explicitly talking about redoing existing art assets.

Well if we're going to argue in the realms of "technically" then that that is an "if" as it would depend on what is done. And yes, redoing images can classify as adding content if you do in fact add content.

We're talking about a series of zip files of images here, not recoding the entire way images are displayed, it's time consuming but entirely doable. Not rocket science, not something new and complicated, just tedious.

 

[TeamHentaiX]

I think given the situation it might be wise to add after 'overview' a section explaining that the game has not been officially abandoned but he contact with developer has been lost. And I think in developing the mods we can prepare the game to be taken further should Vren return.

Aaaand someone skilled enough should work on Lab Rats 3D in Unity or some devil... Just my idea is all...

i would love to make lab rats 2 for unreal engine, cause unity too hard for me lol

 

[MaxTheDark]

i would love to make lab rats 2 for unreal engine, cause unity too hard for me lol

I've actually just played a game, Last Hope, which is in UE and I thought to myself 'well this is exactly the type of gameplay I would expect!'. The subject and theme is completely different, but due to the game taking place in an enclosed location, the travel system from Lab Rats 2 could be easily utilized. I assumed Unity would be the easiest. Also, pretty sure it would be 3 not 2 at that point

 

[TeamHentaiX]

I've actually just played a game, Last Hope, which is in UE and I thought to myself 'well this is exactly the type of gameplay I would expect!'. The subject and theme is completely different, but due to the game taking place in an enclosed location, the travel system from Lab Rats 2 could be easily utilized. I assumed Unity would be the easiest. Also, pretty sure it would be 3 not 2 at that point

lol yeah Lab Rats 3 on Unity or Unreal engine is fine with me hehe

 

[ecksdude]

Congrats to Vren, I think this is actually the best game on the site.

The dream (fantasy) is that this game is remade with better graphics, etc. But reality is that engineering the clothing and body change system to be dynamic in a better environment is a colossal undertaking, you'd basically need a team of people and a server farm to generate all the images in a reasonable timeframe, or a team of people to develop it into a truly dynamic 3D game mapping clothing and bodies on the fly.

Those who like mods, it's actually pretty easy to mod this game once you figure out the basic mechanics of the code. I've done some personal mods here and there (no, I won't be releasing them, not worth it), but just to say if you've got some rudimentary programming skill, you can probably mod the game yourself.

 

[kidoman]

We don't know if Vren did abandon the game or not. He hasn't posted since October, in fact, there's been no communication from him since October. And from what I understand, he possibly lives in Ukraine. We don't know if he's alive or not.

I really hope the poor guy's alive and well :-/ dropping off the face of the planet isn't uncommon for indie adult devs, but very out of character for Vren. Something bad must have went down to have him completely disappear like this.

The first lab rats was my first 'real' adult game (played a lot of adult flash games on Newgrounds back in the glory days, lol) and awakened me to both my incest and my pregnancy fetishes. Then when I looked at the game code to see if I could adjust some things I discovered he'd left notes specifically for people checking the code out to help them understand what everything did. If it wasn't for those notes, I probably never would have gotten interested in programming/Ren'py and gotten as far as I have today. As odd as it may seem, the guy's kind of a hero to me. He paved the way for me to discover a hobby I love (plus the fetishes were a nice bonus, lol).

On the off-chance he's lurking and reading this: Vren, you're the guy. Thanks for the help, the inspiration, and the god-tier faps.

 

[giantboss]

Last year i finally tried this game after enjoying the first one years ago ( i tried to play this game in various occasions but given up because the serum system/research was hard for me to understand) and it's one of the best games on this site the amount of content this game offers it's amazing and the mod is great too,
it's a shame that Vren is not updating it anymore but if it's your first time playing it you will be pleased

 

[Shenanigans25]

I really hope the poor guy's alive and well :-/ dropping off the face of the planet isn't uncommon for indie adult devs, but very out of character for Vren. Something bad must have went down to have him completely disappear like this.

Looks like VrenGames on GitLab (the account/platform Vren is hosting the open source repo for Lab Rats 2) just had activity a few days ago when it joined the community edition project.

 

[renpy_guy]

Sorry, that was me. I added VrenGames to the community edition project in case they come back and want to take over (or shut it down). As of right now it's mostly spelling fixes and some features backported from the Live2D version.

 

[Sorath]

We don't know if Vren did abandon the game or not. He hasn't posted since October, in fact, there's been no communication from him since October. And from what I understand, he possibly lives in Ukraine. We don't know if he's alive or not.

holy shit