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Feature Poll

After the huge amount of content that was Chapter 7, I’m going to do some smaller (but still fun!) updates before tackling Chapter 8.

I’ve had some trouble deciding exactly what, so I’ve opened it up to voting. These ideas are from various blog comments and discord posts that I’ve A) seen recently, B) liked and want to implement, and C) remembered to jot down.

If you’re currently a Patreon or BMT subscriber, head over to the researcher intranet to cast your votes. You can vote for as many or as few features as you like.

The options are listed below (click Continue Reading if you’re on the main blog page).

Continue reading

Chapter 7: Aquatic Aquarium Released!

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!

Easier Private Build Menu

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!

r36.9 WIP Released – Chapter 7 Missing Text Build

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 & Next Update Status

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~