Author: Skye

Infiltrate the Mulberry Aquarium and become one of the exhibits!

r37 is now released and contains the full release of Chapter 7.

In order to beat this chapter, you’ll need to use each of the advantages and get around the disadvantages of three different species:

• Mermaids are beautiful, however, their active libido gains lust twice as quickly as a human would.  They’re great swimmers, but their heavy tail with its girly pink-purple scales makes moving around on land basically impossible for them.
• The anthro sharks are strong, and given they have both legs and a tail, are highly versatile on land and on water.  Mermaids adore them, and always act subservient toward them (and if you become a mermaid, you will too).  But those powerful tails won’t easily be hidden inside pants.
• Anthro whales are tremendously heavy — the largest transformed species by weight yet discovered.  Though their tails and fins could potentially be hidden, their fat bodies are simply too heavy with whale blubber to allow them to fit into any practical clothes.  As if getting out of the aquarium’s main exhibit tank wasn’t difficult enough, the new whale’s body will continue to put on more weight, making it difficult or impossible to even climb out.  If she somehow does manage to get onto land, she might find herself soon becoming a beached whale as her thighs thicken and walking eventually becomes impossible — not even able to properly ask for help since she can only make low whale calls.

Regardless of which species a subject ends up as, they’ll find it challenging to escape the aquarium.  Baosheng has taken over this facility and is rapidly helping visitors turn into exhibits — and they’re not keen on any going home.  Will you be able to complete your mission, or will you end up as a permanent addition to the wildlife?  Certainly visitors will enjoy getting to watch your exploits in the tank, as its an area rife with sexual activity.  The visitors also love to tease you in a hands on area the aquarium management like to call the petting zoo.  Perhaps they’ll even buy a pin-up of you, if you give the staff photographer a good opportunity to capture the right (incredibly slutty) moment.

The aquarium hosts a variety of new enemies to fight:

• The Octomaid keeps a vigilant eye on the proceedings in her lair — get too close and she’ll lovingly dominate you.  She knows exactly where to stick all those leaky tentacles.
• Shark dickgirls love to find new partners, although she cares a lot more about her own satisfaction than anyone else’s.  She can often be found shoving an eager mermaid against the tank’s glass and fucking her in front of an enraptured crowd of visiting tourists.
• The male whale is lonely as the only whale in the aquarium, but he’s optimistic he’ll be able to make a new mate.  Once he’s got one, he’ll work hard to keep her docile by making her even more fat than he is.
• A swarm of mermaids in the aquarium’s main tank is quite welcoming to newcomers, with mermaid orgies being a regular occurrence.  Get too close to one of the open pools and it’s likely they’ll abscond you into their horny ranks.

In terms of word length, Chapter 7 now has the most content in the game of any chapter thus far, with over 35,000 new words across the ch7 intro, the octomaid enemy, and this r37 update (itself about ~25k words).

Aside from this, r37 includes a number of other changes, as well:

• Weight can now go much higher than before.  Currently only intended for the Whale species, very fat researchers will eventually no longer be able to wear clothing, then will have difficulty walking, and eventually won’t be able to move at all on land.
• Several new faction points to discover and unlock.
• Added ability for certain enemies to move (currently only used on one enemy).
• New text variables: Species & Hair.
• VCiV now has a barracks (including a treadmill).
• Fixed situation where you could attack enemies in other rooms.
• In-game subscribe link now links to this website instead of Patreon directly.
• Fix for shark and whale fin TFs not occurring.

Active subscribers can access the build right now via the researcher intranet.  Legacy users will receive access to this build two weeks from now, or can elect to temporarily subscribe without losing their legacy status (reminder that purchases via BMT are activated instantly, whereas Patreon would not activate until it is billed next month).  As with all chapter content after chapter 3, this content will never be released in the free demo.

If you’ve been following along in #research-lab in discord, you know this chapter has been a big development undertaking with many components — thanks for your support and I hope you enjoy this latest chapter of the story!

The private build menu was getting a bit ridiculously long, so it’s now cleaned up and simplified.

Old Menu:

(and continued on for several more years of old builds)

New Menu:

Also, Chapter 7 is nearing completion and will be available to play soon!

WIP build r36.9 is now available to WIP backers.  This build contains the full set of functionality for chapter seven, however, doesn’t have much of the text to go with it.  This means you can now beat chapter seven with this build, but without the text to hint at the solutions, it will be very difficult to do so.

As always, it’s recommended to save to a different slot for WIP builds. Some of the text is copied into the save file, so some missing text will carry through save files if you play on WIP and then play on a Private build.

Most players will prefer to wait for the full Chapter 7 release before they play. Once the story text has been written, it will be a more complete experience.  But you may wish to try it if you want a sneak peak of what’s coming in the full Chapter 7 release, or to see what a chapter build looks like when it’s in development.

Steam Version Poll: I am currently considering adding Steam as a third location to subscribe to The Underworld (joining BMT and Patreon).  This actually involves a number of considerations, so I’d like to get the community’s feedback on it before proceeding.

Regardless of if you are a Steam gamer or not, please see this quick poll to let me know your thoughts.

Next Update:  The next update is coming along well — it’s taking longer than usual because the next update is Chapter 7:  Aquatic Aquarium!

As for release date, chapters always take a long time to make due to all the interconnected game logic and associated writing.  I try to avoid giving specific release dates because I’m terribly bad at estimating them.  Unofficially, I’m hoping to have it out within the next month.

The release cadence will be phased as follows for this release:

1. WIP Build – game logic only, no writing.  Not recommended to be played by anyone, but will release to curious WIP backers.  As per previous WIP builds, you won’t be missing anything by not playing this — it’s a lot of “insert text here” type interactions that won’t make much sense without the writing.
2. Private Build (Active Subscribers) – once writing is in and chapter is ready for play, it will be released to all active subscribers.  This is the real release of chapter 7, however, with any big update there will probably be some random small bugs (especially with save/load, as there’s always a couple weird save/load issues after a chapter release)
3. Private Build (Legacy Purchasers) – for legacy backers without an active subscription, chapter 7 will be available two weeks later.  It will contain all the same chapter 7 content as the active subscriber build.
4. As per usual for chapter content that occurs after chapter 3, this chapter content will not be released to the demo build.

This should be a fun chapter.  I don’t want to give too much away just yet, but I have some fun things planned for this one~

Patreon is delayed again for many users due to an API bug on their side.  I apologize for the delay!

If you are a Patreon backer and need immediate access, please back via BMT instead and e-mail me, I will refund your Patreon charge.

March 11th Update – It appears Patreon has finally finished updating their information for this month.  If you had a charge on March 1, but still don’t have access (and you already linked your Patreon account), please contact me.

For some users, Patreon processing seems to be extra slow this month.  I’ve reached out to Patreon support to see what’s going on, but in the meanwhile I apologize for the delay!

Update:  There is a known issue with patron status that Patreon is working to resolve.

Update 2:  So despite the above issue being marked “resolved”, I still see a couple people stuck in Patreon limbo.  I’m not sure how long this will continue, although it seems people’s accounts are slowly being fixed over time.

If your account is stuck, I’d recommend you switch to BMT, which does support instant access.  Note, however, that BMT does not support PayPal or AMEX cards.  If you want to do this switch, just subscribe normally via the researcher intranet portal.  Then send me an e-mail or Patreon PM with your game account name and Patreon account name so I can refund your most recent Patreon payment.

Again, sorry for this issue — I share your frustration on how unreasonably and needlessly slow this is.

Update 3:

• New patrons / Patrons whose first charge was in February:  Patreon is still working through this issue, sorry!
• Existing patrons / patrons who had a charge before February:  If you are not a new patron, your patron access should now be updated — if not, please try to relink your account. If after 30 minutes, you do not have access, please contact me.

Update 4 – Now Resolved (Feb 15th):

Patreon has fixed the issue, and now all backers who had a successful charge for February should now have access to the game. If not, please try to relink your account. If after 30 minutes, you do not have access, please contact me.

r36.01 is now released to backers and fixes an issue where the mermaid arousal text displays when not a mermaid.

r36 is now released to backers and includes Mermaid TF and Water, two new features needed for the upcoming Chapter 7.  You can try both out in a small test area in the debug rooms.

Mermaids are another species with a bunch of one-off gameplay limitations and custom logic — other devs are smart enough to avoid these when possible, but I keep putting them in the game because I love TFs with inconvenient repercussions :3

Grab the Fish Pendant from the Debug Rooms to become transformed into a mermaid!  The pendant is in curse room 3, in the far west of the curse rooms.

Mermaids are weighted down by their heavy tails, and will struggle to climb out of any water areas.  Even if they do, they’ll be unable to drag that tail very far, and end up returning to the water sooner or later.  If you get stuck out in the middle of land, a helpful aquarium worker will come by and dump you back into the water (currently in the debug rooms, but will eventually go into the Chapter 7 areas).  Same with respawns:  once you’re a mermaid, you’ll respawn back in the water as well.

This species is also particularly lusty, earning the nicknames of ‘merslut’ and ‘sea bimbo’ that other species sometimes playfully call them.  Any successful lust attacks against mermaids hit for double damage, so watch out!

That’s not to say there aren’t any advantages to being a mermaid.  r36 also adds support for rooms to be either covered in water or totally submerged.  Humans will have to hold their breath underwater, and will eventually start taking health damage if they don’t return to the surface.  Mermaids and sharks, however, can easily breathe underwater (something that will definitely come in handy once the Mulberry Aquarium is done).

All mermaids are female, so expect an appropriately buxom gender TF to be included if you’re male before putting on the pendant.

There’s not too much to do as a mermaid yet, however, you can play with the Octomaid, who is also hanging out in the water test area.  All the octomaid’s teases are hooked up for mermaids, so she’ll tease you about being a merslut and such as she dominates you.

Currently, it’s very easy to get stuck as a mermaid, so you may not want to save after putting the pendant on.  Unless you’re carrying some other items, you’re likely to end up fully transformed into a busty mermaid and trapped in the pool with the octomaid forever.  Although maybe that isn’t such a bad fate… 😉

Misc tech stuff

• Some new parameters are available in the mod API for species who implement checkPlayerMobile
• The game now has the ability to have rooms that are loaded, but not yet discovered.  This was useful for water checks, but will also be useful for having entities that are doing stuff in areas that you haven’t explored yet.
• These extensions to species have been added, but not yet exposed to the mod API.  If you’re working on an species that needs it, let me know in #modding on discord and I’ll try to get it added to the API.
  • Arms/Legs exist functions are now usable by all species.
  • Support for species to have lust damage modifier and flavor text was added.
  • Support for species that can breath underwater was added.

New Monster: Wyvern Male

The Wyvern Male is now available on the mod portal to active backers. This green wyvern is eager for a mate, and it’s rumored he has a spare collar in his nest that can transform any wayward research subject that meet his rigorous standards into his new female breeding wyverness (which is anyone who seems interested in his massive, dual cocks).

He’s a loving, but firm mate. The wyvern will use his breeder regularly, making sure she’s always full of eggs. Since the new wyverness won’t be able to play with herself due to having wings instead of hands, she’ll soon come to treasure these sessions. In every case observed, even the most shy of research subjects are soon lustily begging their new mates to be filled up once their strong wyverness breeder desires kick in.

The male wyvern will protect his mate, too, ensuring she doesn’t wander out of the nest — it can be dangerous out there when you’re weighed down by so many eggs you can barely move. When her four large breasts are full of milk, the male helps out by milking her. He does quite enjoy seeing how lusty his mate gets after a good milking.

If defeated by an unmated wyverness, the male will tuck tail and fly off. However, once mated, the wyverness typically finds herself naturally submissive toward her mate, becoming quite docile.

As with the Wyvern TF instinct system, there’s lots of teasing you through the fourth wall (get ready to be treated like a proper horny wyverness breeder, you slut <3). Actually, there’s a lot of content in here in general as the male wyvern will take different actions depending on his state and your state. All told, he’s got about 7k words of content — almost as much text as all of Chapter 2.

Modding: LUA Powered Monsters

r35 is also released today to support the Male Wyvern mod. The primary feature is the new MonsterAdvanced mod type. This type combines the existing Monster Mods system with the power of LUA based scripting, so you can have monsters do all sorts of things.

For a straightforward example of this, see the MonsterAdvanced sample.

Modding: Object to Object Communication

Another very powerful new feature for modders is the ability for entities to call custom functions on other entities. See the Radio sample for an example of a radio remote control object communicating to a radio object. To expose a function to other entities, simply add the LUA function name to the “customPublicFunctions” JSON array. This can be very useful for creating more complex behavior.

Under the hood, this involved connecting separate LUA virtual machines. Because of this, I recommend to only pass and return primitives — however, more complex types like Entity references and full tables do seem to work fine so far. See the updated LUA Implementation Notes for details on limitations.

Modding: Additional Functionality

• New Text Variables exposed: [[MUSK]].
• The player class has exposed a few pregnancy related functions, such as incBellyPreg(), setBellyPreg(), and resetPregnancySilent().
• MainScreen has a method for inserting continue scenes via continueSceneToMapScene().
• Room related functions now pass room information.
• Calling LUA functions with parameters from AS3 now passes parameters correctly.

Chapter 7 Planning

Work is still ongoing for building out the remainder of the second half of Chapter 7.  All the gameplay for it, including the various transformations, endings and puzzles have now been planned out and ready to begin implementation.

Update 1/12/19: There is a new version of this art here.

Our first ever fan art for the Dinoian transformation in Chapter 6!

Here’s a snippet from the chapter description about them:

What should have been an easy ride across the desert turns out to be much more than you bargained for.  The convoy rides on specialized creatures that are genetically engineered to withstand the tough conditions of the desert.  These dinoians could best be described as a distant anthropomorphic cousin of a velociraptor, or perhaps some sort of wingless riding dragon.  One of them, Hanako, is planning her prison break, and you haplessly stumble into her plans.

Soon she’s stealing your identity.  She forces you to wear her old leather bindings, transforming you into a dinoian that looks just like she used to.  She had unintentionally acquired the reputation of convoy slut, and now that you have her identity, she intends to make sure you live up to her old behaviors so as to not be suspicious.  Every time you disobey her, she increases the size of your cleavage, making you hornier as you’re forced to expose your nearly-naked body to the world as she rides you.  To make matters worse, thanks to your monstrously large dinoian vagina, you won’t derive any joy from copulating with humans — so your body will work against you to force yourself to mate with your fellow beasts.  But they’re in a similar predicament, former humans trapped in lusty bodies that have no choice but to serve their riders and their base desires.

Try as you might, dinoians are forbidden from speaking thanks to their vocal cords which can only make animalistic noises.  Though you desperately want to explain your situation, no one can understand you.  Even removing the bindings themselves is impossible as they self-replicate to ensure you can never be freed.  Stick around long enough, you’ll start to enjoy serving your rider.  You may even begin to enjoy being tied up with your wrists bound, further restricting your opportunities for escaping this life.

Will you succumb to your dinoian need to be filled up and lay clutch after clutch of eggs?  Or will you find a way to escape your fate and complete the mission?

Also, next game update should be out in the coming week~