Alright, I know I said three days ago that I was finished with my optimization work, but I couldn't leave it at "trust me, it's faster." I wanted to pin down exactly how much time the new cropping methods had sped up the drawing process, as well as do some investigation to see where the new bottleneck was.
Before the cropping update a character image draw would look something like this (roughly, I forgot to keep my logs from before the changes):
Preparing flat character image: 0.4...
2020-06-18 08:20:59 +0000 UTC
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It took a couple more days than I was expecting, but I've finished the image optimizations that will be appearing in v0.30! The tl;dr is that image displays are now much faster, especially if animations are disabled.
The core problem that I was addressing was this: All character and clothing images for Lab Rats 2 were stored as images that were as large as the base character. This made compositing a character simple, all the images were just stacked on top of each other, but it resulted...
2020-06-15 10:13:39 +0000 UTC
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Last update cycle I took some time to look at the way images were displayed and profile what was taking up the bulk of the time. I had expected the bulk of the time to be taken up by the animation system having to convert the displayable into a flat .png, but the answer was more complex than that. The conversion was inefficient, but it was taking up closer to 50% of the time needed to display rather than dominating the process. Additionally, I was noticing a strong correlation between the com...
2020-06-11 09:48:09 +0000 UTC
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Lab Rats 2 v0.29.1 is Live! Download it here:
PC: Lab Rats 2 v0.29.1-PC
Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.29.1-Mac
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.29.1-A...
2020-06-08 09:57:36 +0000 UTC
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I've spent the last couple of days bug fixing v0.29.1, as well as adding a few bits of content here and there to round out the pregnancy content. My focus right now is combing through all of the existing dialogue and modifying any previous comments about "getting pregnant" to reflect a girls birth control status.
Assuming everything goes to plan I should have a couple of free days before the release of v0.29.1 to plan out some new content for the future. I think the set of faces in LR2 ...
2020-06-05 09:38:22 +0000 UTC
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I have released a patch for LR2 v0.29.0 that should fix a couple of major bugs that were blocking progression. A new version of the game (v0.29.0a) has been uploaded and is now available from the links on the release post (here).
If you are on Mac or PC you can save yourself the image file download and just download the updated .rpy files here:
2020-06-02 07:06:30 +0000 UTC
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Lab Rats 2 v0.29.0 is Live! Get it here!
PC: Lab Rats 2 v0.29.0a-PC
Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.29.0a-Mac
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.29.0a-And...
2020-06-01 10:38:33 +0000 UTC
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I planned to put a little more time into this progress update tonight, but I've ended up spending all of my time adding new content and features so this will be a quick one!
First, I've added a whole suite of pregnancy related serum traits to the game. These traits can be used to affect things like birth control effectiveness, fertility, and pregnancy progression. I have also added a new special trait that can be unlocked by bringing a very slutty pregnant girl to Nora for additional re...
2020-05-28 10:23:16 +0000 UTC
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I've spent the last few days splitting my work between some new dialogue for flirting and working on the new pregnancy system. The new flirt dialogues add unique responses for girls who you are dating or having an affair with. This should help make those relationships feel more impactful every time you interact with a girl.
The core mechanics of the pregnancy system are just about finished now. When starting a new game in v0.29 you will be able to select one of three pregnancy content o...
2020-05-24 09:59:05 +0000 UTC
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Today I want to talk about the current plans I have for the new pregnancy content. First, I want to make it abundantly clear that if this isn't your particular fetish that's fine and that all of this content will be optional and easily avoidable. A more developed system for it will also let me move the existing teasing dialogue (the "I hope you did/didn't get me pregnant" kind of stuff) into a more focused section of the game. I understand that not everyone is going to be interested in this, ...
2020-05-19 10:21:45 +0000 UTC
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A couple of days ago I held a poll for patrons to get some input on the direction for development for the v0.29 update cycle of LR2. The results lined up with my own opinions; the top three results were:
1) Pregnancy content (34.6% of all responses included this as a priority)
2) More unique dialogue and events (23.6% of all responses included this as a priority)
3) Optimization and performance improvements (17.7% of all responses included this as a priority)
My focus ...
2020-05-15 08:45:08 +0000 UTC
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For the last few days I've been doing general bug fixing, but it's time to sit down and focus on what's going to be new for v0.29. There are a few different options I think are all a good idea to start working on, so I figured it was a perfect chance to make use of Patreon's poll feature and get some patron feedback on what you'd like to see next!
Some of these focuses would be relatively simple content additions, but some involve rather large changes that might require multiple updates...
2020-05-12 06:23:56 +0000 UTC
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Lab Rats 2 v0.28.1 is live! Get it here!
PC: Lab Rats 2 v0.28.1-PC
Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.28.1-Mac
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.28.1-...
2020-05-08 10:27:39 +0000 UTC
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Part of my work over the last week has been cataloging all of the random and triggerable events in Lab Rats 2. This is part of my effort to add more events in the future, but this list may also be useful to modders or completionists who want to know what events haven't been triggered and how to trigger them. I have a few more role specific random events to add, but the bulk of the events in the game have been written up. As a reward to all you wonderful patrons, here's the list!
2020-05-07 09:33:38 +0000 UTC
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v0.28.0 is out in the wild, and as usual that means it's time to do some bug fixing alongside work that's not likely to introduce new bugs at the same time. This week I'm doing something that should be a work multiplier - cataloging and organising all of the current game events.
Over the last two updates I've had a little bit of writers block when I tried to add new events. The problem wasn't coming up with interesting concepts (I have tons of them written down) or writing the ...
2020-05-04 09:54:48 +0000 UTC
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Lab Rats 2 v0.28.0 is live! Get it here!
PC: Lab Rats 2 v0.28.0-PC
Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.28.0-Mac
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.28.0-Androi...
2020-05-01 11:09:44 +0000 UTC
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The release of v0.28.0 is nearly here (24 hours away!) and I'm still busy finishing off the last few bits of content, bug fixes, and improvements before it's time to test and ship it. Tonight I was finally in the right state of mind to sit down and finish a feature I had experimented with at the beginning of the month: Multithreading.
First, a quick course in program execution and multithreading. You can imagine a program to be like a list of instructions you give to a friend. This list...
2020-04-30 10:16:34 +0000 UTC
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I've just about finished with the personality specific flirt dialogue. All I have left is the high Love tier for Jennifer, which I'm going to be writing just as soon as I'm done this update post! With that big chunk of writing out of the way I'll have a few days before the v0.28.0 to add some new content. My current plan is to spend that time adding in some new random or triggerable events that provide opportunities to give girls doses of serum. In effect this is replacing the generic "sneak"...
2020-04-26 09:51:58 +0000 UTC
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It's been a few days since my last progress update, mainly because I haven't been working on anything exciting to write about. I have been working on adding personality-based flirt dialogue. I always find these relatively short chunks of dialogue time consuming to write, mainly because I have to mentally change between styles of speech for different characters. Each personality type has three different tiers of responses to flirting depending on their Love and each tier has a few different va...
2020-04-21 09:21:22 +0000 UTC
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Just a quick update on what I've been working on over the last couple of days. First, I finished updating all of the existing clothing items with their new constrained regions. Once I was done with that I wanted to make sure there were no significant performance decreases caused by most items having a few regions. The time it takes to draw a character has remained pretty much identical, but after taking a look I do have a few ideas for improving the responsiveness of the game that I am going ...
2020-04-14 09:36:30 +0000 UTC
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Before I get into my main post for tonight, I have a request for Mac players. I am trying to pin down the cause of the strange animation scaling, if it is affecting you please take a moment and fill out this bug report form: Mac Bug Form
For a long time I have been bothered by some systematic by some systematic clipping issues with the clothing system of Lab Rats 2. The clipping issues were a result of how...
2020-04-11 09:21:36 +0000 UTC
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Lab Rats 2 v0.27.1 is live! Get it here!
PC: Lab Rats 2 v0.27.1-PC
Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.27.1-Mac
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.27.1-Androi...
2020-04-08 11:11:41 +0000 UTC
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In addition to bug hunting I like to spend the time between the patron and public release of any new version of Lab Rats 2 experimenting and prototyping potential future features. This week I have been exploring additional ways to make use of some of the assets and functionality I added for the animation system. In particular I am trying to use region maps to hide or make sections of clothing partially transparent without requiring item specific maps to be made.
My current concept for t...
2020-04-04 09:54:50 +0000 UTC
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Lab Rats 2 v0.27.0 is Live! Get it Here!
PC: Lab Rats 2 v0.27.0-PC
Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.27.0-Mac
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.27.0-Android &nb...
2020-04-01 09:53:34 +0000 UTC
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There are just a few days left before it's time for the patron release of Lab Rats 2 v0.27.0, and I'm hurrying away to finish off the last of the work. I've finished all of taboo break dialogue for Rebecca and Gabrielle, which was a sizeable writing project all by itself. I've also completely reworked the "flirt" action to act as the Love focused way you seduce a girl.
The flirt action has gone from having 14 lines, plus a few extra based on what personality a girl has, to a whopp...
2020-03-29 09:45:22 +0000 UTC
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My last few days have been spent hammering out the specifics of the new seduction mechanics for Lab Rats 2. The old "seduce" button has been replaced by three unique avenues for seducing someone: groping, commanding, and flirting. These three options correspond roughly with Sluttiness, Obedience, and Love. Each one is made available once you have a small amount of the relevant stat (or slightly above average, for Obedience) and has a few variants/options until you reach a point where you ente...
2020-03-24 09:31:15 +0000 UTC
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I've talked about the modding policy for Lab Rats (both 1 and 2) before, but I noticed a few comments about it and figured I'd bring it up again for anyone who is new. My general attitude towards mods is pretty straight forward: I love them! This community is pretty amazing about supporting me in doing what I do, so in return I make sure everything I do is available to the community with as few limitations as is reasonable. That's why I make Lab Rats free (minus the bug testing relea...
2020-03-20 09:45:00 +0000 UTC
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In my last update post I wrote about my plans to replace the current general seduction mechanics. Less than 24 hours after that post I had gotten myself sidetracked, but I think the results make the detour worth it. It was the business policy system that grabbed my attention, and I made three major improvements to it.
First, I added a new business policy state. Each policy can now be unpurchased, inactive, or active. Most policies can be toggled between active or inactive after they are...
2020-03-15 09:46:37 +0000 UTC
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Lab Rats 2 v0.26.1 is out, and I've spent the last couple of days doing some bug fixing and trouble shooting. There are a few technical issues I'm still hunting down (A memory leak being the main one), but if everything goes well that should be handled soon. That means it's time to do some planning and get to work on new content for v0.27!
Since the early days of LR2 an important part of development has been putting in what I like to call "gameplay scaffolding". These are parts of the g...
2020-03-11 08:26:25 +0000 UTC
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Lab Rats v0.26.1 is live! Get it here!
PC: Lab Rats 2 v0.26.1-PC
Mac: Lab Rats 2 v0.26.1-Mac
Android: Lab Rats 2 v0.26.1-Android ...
2020-03-08 10:53:54 +0000 UTC
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