Research Blog

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.