MUTALAB
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
WORK IN PROGRESS.
Feedback from this initial release will determine priorities for new features or potentially if I go with a more interesting 3D management game.
The game:
You play as a new employee of Mutaries Biotechnologies, and will be tasked with accepting contracts to turn people into animal hybrids. Hire staff, find subjects, aquire genomes and create custom serums to achieve this. Watch as subjects develop new traits (and whoops, maybe it went a bit further than staying upright!)
I didn't get time or patience to implement saving & loading (WHOOPS!) so uh, don't close the game if you don't want to lose your progress. I think there's only about an hour or less of content anyway.
Content:
9 animals, 12 contracts
Rated soft-mature, contains transformation (duh), udders and eggs.
Themes:
Transformation (animal, anthro, feral, gender), sci-fi
Known issues:
Some windows will only properly update if you close and open them again.
No point hiring guards right now :)
Future plans:
Saving & Loading
Dedicated area for production morphs to produce resources
Some minigames to perform actions rather than progress bars
Dynamic events system
More contracts + animals + biomes
Enable loading external .paks for modding capability
Make gender expression less reductive and more dynamic
Probably a few complete reworks of main systems
Lots of other smaller tweaks and things
Feedback
Tell me straight up, is it fun? What would make it more enjoyable?
Download
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Comments
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I'm looking for feedback on what you'd like to see out of the game in terms of potential NSFW content. I'm of mind to err to purely anatomical, scientific descriptions, though I know many will want some more detailed...things, but I also understand there are those that prefer to keep it at least plausibly deniable.
Currently I'm aiming for middle-of-the-road, but I could be swayed either way. However, please keep any comments nested here on the side of tasteful and not explicit.
Maybe instead of actual visual aids, we see silhouette of their body through a window or something, it keeps things vague and pg
I don't pretend to know about what kind of people play this sort of game, but as I see it, you play the game for the gameplay, obviously, but also for the NSFW content. If there are people who are offended by the NSFW or something like that, they'd probably not be playing the game anyway. Although I see where your coming from though. I think that leaning more toward the NSFW end would be better (and generally what I'd prefer personally) but have some sort of option for making it less explicit. I don't know exactly what you have in mind, but for example: the transformation dialogues in the observation chambers. Each one could have a shorter, more clinical description, and a more detailed NSFW description that could be toggled between via an option in a settings menu or just an option you pick before starting a game.
I don't know if you're thinking about adding visuals at any point, and if not, I see why. Having the focus be mostly on the text adds a lot more room for the imagination to give you a bit of wiggle room. Plus, there are a lot of really good games that are mostly or entirely text-based, so they are by no means necessary. Personally, I would love to see visuals, but I understand that it could be really difficult. I don't know if you're an artist, but even if you are, the amount of variations could be problematic (although you do have a pretty convenient framework for modularity built with each transformation being assigned to a body part). I agree with another commenter that silhouettes would be better, for the "imagination" point, and also the fact that it'd be easier to do a modular art system of body parts.
I think that middle-of-the-road is... not the best choice, since you'll be losing out on both sides from people who want a game that is more lewd, and from those who want something more tame. Plus, it makes your game stand out less. I'm not saying you have to go super hard into either end, just that it'd be best to stick to a side and keep in mind that they are your majority when making design decisions, even if only by a bit.
Anyway, TL;DR, I'd personally want to go the more NSFW route, but I think an toggle or setting of some sort is the best way of doing things. Although, keep in mind, that one side is always going to be your "default", as it were, so design for them first. (although take all my advice with a grain of salt. I have never designed a nsfw game in my life, and only ever designed a game of any sort on technicality.)
Could always use the detached, clinical descriptions for test subjects and hornier ones for staff, or have them on different modes (the audio/visual feed vs. the official written report).
Different clients and transformations. Example is where either someone brings an animal or a subject that has a missing limb and you have to transform someone into said missing limb for them, and it could be something else than a missing limb. Could be an organ, a bodypart, ect. It could help boost the health of an animal to then sell to the public for more money for your experiments!
Honestly I'd love to see what is already present developed more. But when it comes to NSFW stuff then Maybe an internal log for what the workers are doing? You have (presumably) a base in game that you are managing. right now all the employees are just names on a list. It would be cool to have a "Security Log" That describes day to day interactions between employees. "Matt and Stacy went to the janitor closet. sounds of thumping and moaning were heard afterwards" those events could be further modified if the employees in questions have certain mutations. "Bull Anthony locked himself in the bathroom for 30 minutes. when he left few bottles of 'milk' were left behind." etc.
So, I've checked this out for a little bit, and I have a couple suggestions.
First of all, like others said, it'd be good to have a way to "discard" unneeded test subjects, as I got myself into a spot where I had a bunch of mismatched subjects and couldn't accept more to actually finish any quests. This could easily be fixed in the short term by just making the "internal request" for more workers repeatable instead of a one-off, since it accepts any non-human girl.
Secondly, this is somewhat of a problem that branches off my first issue, but the starting set of quests, that being the Horse farmhand one, the Mission Statement sheep one, and the Cow one, all take 3 subjects to fulfill, which is exactly your capacity. I think it'd be better if you had at least some capacity to work on two things at once at the first stages of the game.
Third point: The game was quite unclear on what exactly the qualities of sample even do. I would assume that they increase the number of mutations that any given serum provides, thus increasing the chance for a full transformation (presuming it was even intentional that I had two subjects injected with a Chicken mutation that just... stayed human until the dose wore off), but that doesn't seem to be the case. Also, you aren't told what the three stats even do. Presumably they aren't implemented yet, so I understand that part, but to get a bit of a sneak peek into it would be nice. I would assume Combat associates to Guarding, but I can't figure out whether Production or Social would go to Agent or Scientist, since neither seem exactly fitting.
Fourth point: There are too many different DNA samples in the Farm to get so it becomes irritating waiting for it to get you the right ones of Cow, Sheep, or Horse. I get that it's tempting to show off all the features you have, and that is all well and good, but in this case, it gets in the way of gameplay, as the sample collection not only consumes time, but also money. Not to mention the fact that any experimenting with transforming any of these extra, unneeded mutations, just eats up one of your observation cells.
However, I can see a lot of really good ideas for features. For example, the different morphs having different stat increases is interesting in the context of mutating your employees, as picking the right one for the right job might increase their productivity. Also, the fact that you can hypothetically mess around a lot with the "genes" as it were, and try and splice them, makes me quite curious for the future of the missions, like trying to make an egg-laying cow, or an extra-strong chicken. I can imagine in the late game having to splice the right traits together to make a cockatrice out of chicken and snake DNA. With enough polish, this could be up there with Transformation Tycoon for those more interested in the furry side of that game.
Also, minor gripe, but I find it odd that the Egg-laying can develop before the subject becomes female, since it mentions ovaries. It calls into question what exactly the judgement is on whether a subject is male or female, and the "masculine" and "feminine" traits complicate things further, since they aren't really defined. Do they both mean, like, someone with traits from both genders? With feminine having more female traits than male and vice versa for masculine? Or is it more like "staying the same sex as originally, but with more feminine/masculine traits" like a tomboy/femboy? In either of these cases, wouldn't any gender transformation end up stopping on at least one, if not both of those, during its course?
I'll definitely check this out again if it updates, but for now, I'll be waiting, and I hope you appreciate my feedback.
Hey, thank you for the very detailed feedback! A bunch of this will be changing in the next update (it's a big one) that eases most of your issues. Some examples below:
Internal request should be repeatable and procedural, so it shouldn't be the same and will give variable rewards each time.
Statwise, I think we will be looking to redefine the stats and have them be a little more detailed so as to have a few more levers to pull and reasons to make some species over others, for different purposes.
Quality doesn't yet affect anything but it is something we're working on.
You will ideally be able to make your own species by taking a sequenced gene and adding or replacing parts from other sequenced genes, and then using that as the base for a serum.
We'll also be looking to rework sex/gender in the game, though it may increase the maturity rating of the game. It will likely be more explicit in what exactly is changing, because as it stands the nebulous masc/fem labels are confusing more than they enlighten. The original intention was male = all male parts & mutations, masc was female parts but can have male mutations, intersex they can have any of either, fem is male parts but female mutations, and female is all female parts & mutations. A female serum used on a male will pick between feminine/female/intersex, and the patient will eventually end up there, but can gain the related mutations before that full change actually happens.
It'll be clearer in the next update where that will be spelled out in plain anatomical detail, but I'm still to determine if we go further and have mutations for such parts. I understand many gamers enjoy the lewd aspect, but many also prefer a purely scientific approach. I'm in two minds about it, and it probably warrants a checkbox.
There is a LOT that's changing and being added to the next version, I think you'll like it!
Thanks for the reply. I don't know if this would be practical, but if you're worried about making it too mature, I'd say add some sort of option to enable/disable more NSFW descriptions. I, for one, would love to see more of that lewd sort of thing, but I can't speak for other people. By the way, I forgot to mention this before, but there's a bit of issues with overlapping transformations. One example I've seen is in the Chicken transformation, where you can get the "fully wingified arms" transformation, and then have it be overwritten by the "feather fingers" transformation, or something like that, which seems like a de-transformation. Also, I'd really like an answer on why it was that a subject injected with a Chicken serum just stayed human after their transformation ended, if possible. I assume that's a bug, but if not, I would wonder what it would be.
I'm not sure, but we are going through and reworking basically everything for the next update, so chances are the bug will be gone then.
Alright, great. I'll be looking forward to the updat
I'm too stupid to figure out how this works lol, but it's cool
I just downloaded the game and I can't get it to run.
Such a fun and interesting idea, well implemented as well. There are some things to change, like beign able to "fire" volunteers because otherwise i have a sheep on the room and can't make space for a new human to com e and convert it to cow.
Anyway, thanks for uploading. This could make a very good game on steam if you polish those things and make it fullscreen. Also, for some it had too tiny letters, and for me (1360*720px) it was everything too big.
Hope to hear news about it soon!
Sorry, but the text size is too small that it burnt my eyes.
That was a lot of fun. Spent good 3 hours exploring everything. I ran into some bugs (one of the test subjects is flagged as mutating despite nothing happening) and I can't figure out how to fire people. also I don't know what is the point of mutating hired personnel but sounds like a fun idea (Would love to have my lab guarded by beefy werewolves and minotaurs :P) Maybe a "return to human" program might be nice if mutated clients come over and pay to get back to normal? Anyway this is fun and I'd love to see more.
Decided that I will be continuing with this instead of starting new projects all the time, since it'll be easier to rework this as I need to. It'll take a bit of time to get all the reworks I need to do in place, but the game should function a bit better when I'm done.
Very very high on the list is save/load, but because I was kinda stupid and under time pressure to get it done I made some bad development decisions which make it difficult. It's WIP though.
I'll keep updating the comment thread as I work away at it. Thanks for trying what's here so far, I think with people's suggestions in mind I'll be able to make this into something really cool. ^^
The game has a solid design but I've noticed some bugs. I've run into issues where the alternate location hasn't shown up for expeditions and one of the quests wouldn't let me select the transformed people.
It is a very solid game otherwise.
so, tried the game, and it as a lot of potential, the gameplay loop is good as it is, and not having artwork and making it seems like you are doing clerical work in front of a pc add to the charm, it needs a save function (obviously) and a lot of more content, but what's there is still pretty solid, I would say that if you keep going down this road you are going to make a nice little game, approved!
Can't believe how late I just got into this, but it's pretty much what I want from a tf game.
Unfortunately, it falls short in its current state, but I'll be following this closely because it shows a LOT of promise.Ran into a few bugs I'll list for note.
*Turning the volume down doesn't disable the music entirely.
*Serum didn't record a stop leading to debt, might just be a kink in the between genders setting (instance with female horse high, anthro, masculine).
*Pause button stuck preventing resuming.
Best fixes right now for playability though is a save system and a .txt insturction/guide in the file. Theres a bit of QOL that can be done, but this will allow players to work around most minor bugs. A .txt will allow the player to review things from outside the game for one who's dedicated. An in-game .txt is usually skipped, especially when there's time involved.
In the future, rebalancing the start may be good. Not necessary, but there's a lot thrown at the player very quickly, and not much room for mistakes before going under. A guided tutorial option could help, but that's not super important.
Otherwise very solid, I hope there's size stuff in the future as well, but idk where this is going to draw the line with it, it's pretty ambitious as is. Great work!
Rather late, but I finally got around to trying this out. Overall, I like the concept, though I ran into some issues with the UI - because I've got a high resolution display, I can actually just keep all the windows open. Unfortunately, they don't always update unless I close and re-open them (the contract list was especially bad about this).
The main things I felt lacking during my playthrough where the amount of content and complexity, but that may just have been me not getting far enough into the game. In particular with the complexity, I'd want to see more ways to fail or for things to go wrong - I think the half sports team manager idea you mention in your comment would help with this.
Also, a minor thing, but being able to pause or unpause the game with the spacebar would be really nice. I usually play simulation/management games at max speed and just pause when I need to do stuff.
Thinking about this concept more, there's some things I think I could improve at a foundational and conceptual level.
Things I like about my game:
Things I don't like about my game:
This is the largest game I've made in Godot and it feels pretty small still. There's a lot more I could do with it but I'm not sure the core concept is what I want to go with for the future.
However, there is some merit to it and I think there's a version of it that ends up being kind of fun, but maybe not as fun as another way to rework the game from the ground up would be.
I'm thinking something like half sports team manager, half mad science TF game. You'd make your creatures out of former (fictional) sports players, and send them out to fight other chimeras in an underground arena. You need to contain them, prevent breakouts and outbreaks, manage your resources to keep them fed and happy (and paid, if you want to do that). I'll need to plan it out in more detail, but it'd solve a lot of the issues I have with this (and I do want to add some modular portraits too).
I want to focus on GUI design and deep, interconnected systems because I see a LOT of gameplay potential for how to build and deploy chimeras and how best to present this to the player.
I will try to fix as many obvious bugs with MUTALAB as I can, but I think beyond that I might need to evaluate a full redesign from the ground up.
Let me know what you think!
Here are some ideas for these issues for you to consider or ignore, I don't know much about development, but I know what's worked for others.
You've established 3 stats, these can be used as guidance for a different kind of contract work. First, a storage area for inactive experiments might make this easier. Second, a new tab for subject contracts. From needing a breeder bull to a self defence chicken for a thief, maybe even a sociable horse for a hospital event. The other events aren't as interesting, but they could net a smaller amount of cash without losing the subject completely. Plus, traits could give a bonus or negative, but I think that's already factored into the stats. The fight pit can exist too with this kind of system, but you might have something more in-depth in mind for that.
If you decide to change these stats it's going to add a whole new level of complexity to the game. I think going more with a traits-based approach you have now you might keep it toned down. I understand the desire for more stats because I think it would be cool too to manage it, I worry about the complexity spiraling.
Simplifying the windows and outputs, keeping one tab up at a time, could maybe help, locking the window for it. Combining a lot of the apps is the simpler solution I see, but that removes the desktop feel. I don't know much on the dev side so this might just be stupid blabbing.
I don't know about the coding side too much, but it seems like you know what you want there which is good. Managing as much as there is sounds like a nightmare, redoing it seems daunting. If that's what it needs though it's probably worth doing.
Anyways, great work with this! I hope it becomes what you've envisioned! I think it's a very promising project you've built!
Feels like this game breaks the mold in the right ways. A straight forward interface that allows some player freedom. I'd love more options and effects, but I can see the potential as a proof of concept. I'm hooked.
I wish the speed of the game was under 4 options. Paused, Normal, Fast, Fastest.
Clarification on when you can gain research points by examining people.
Allowing examine people who have changed to a new form to grant more research points after they were examined previously.
Auto sort sequenced genomes by race > gender > quality.
Research does not cost research points nor require a set threshold nor a hired scientist.
Contracts can be completed by submitting nothing.
A beautiful TF/TG Game, seems well balanced and in-depth.
Not perfect for me personally just because graphics aren't available, a paper doll system would be neat to "Observe" changes. Maybe even make it a spot the difference-esque minigame?
I really like where this one's going. I think this is oddly a game I've been waiting for but didn't know it. The only bugs I've run into are the chicken NULL thing, and the fact that the Petshop contract gives you a new area notification for every letter of PET-SHOP but doesn't actually unlock the biome.
Oh, well that explains what I've done wrong there exactly thank you ^^
This is a great proof of concept and I'd absolutely love to see it expanded on! In particular I feel there's a lot of potential in the serum creation system, namely the implication that we'll be able to combine serums to create a hybrid mixture and by extension a completely different species.
In that regard I think the best thing to do is to add as many species, biomes and modifiers as possible. I'd love it if stranger, more unorthodox groups of species like bugs, aquatic animals, and potentially even stranger stuff in addition to the standard mammals, avians, etc.
That being said, I think there are some kinks that need to be worked out first. Distendo covered most of what I had a problem with below (especially the lack of ability to save, get rid of test subjects, and lack of bulk serum production/material purchase). I also don't quite know what a good bit of the tags on fully transformed characters are meant to imply besides being useful in contracts. I think if you expanded on this as well it could make for some very interesting gameplay.
I've encountered all of the bugs already mentioned and I trust you'll fix them in time so I won't bother going over them again. The "chicken <NULL>" bug (at least that's what I'm calling it, lmao) in particular is quite annoying as it has the potential to essentially softlock the game by setting research points to <NULL> if observed. The other major bug I noticed is that the "pet shop" biome (and I assume the "canine" species) is completely unavailable even after completing the contract required to unlock it. Whether this is because that section of the game isn't finished yet or because it's a bug is unclear.
All in all I really, really hope you decide to continue development and expand on the concepts offered here. You've built something extremely compelling.
Thank you! It does need a lot of expansion on species/biomes etc as I built most of the systems to allow for a lot of options. Still a few reworks to do on some things but that'll come with time.
Proof of concept is okay... but lacking in basic features:
- Save function absent (this should be a first priority, for both gameplay and debugging)
- Unable to get rid of test subjects
- Unable to bulk purchase materials
- Unable to batch produce serum
- No known method to increase serum production speed
- No known method to fire staff
- No penalties to contract breaking
Bugs:
- Accepted contracts shown as available at turn of day (00:00)
- Internal contracts unable to accept eligible candidates (potential bug)
- Game loops when trying to implement forced masculine transformation
Thoughts and Observations:
- I like the tutorial. It is sufficiently informative and backgrounded, handholding this player at the very initial stages and letting him figure out the rest.
- These 'tags' on characters are interesting, but I can't infer what their purposes could be from a game development PoV.
- I tried stacking transformations by injecting different serums. The base morph stays but the stats stack. This could potentially be game-breaking as employee performance is (as far as I can tell) tied to these stats.
- Not sure what the 'social' and 'performance' stats do in-game.
- This game looks like it could branch in many directions. Off-hand, I can think of three categories: 1) In the variety of transformations; 2) In the scope of gameplay (eg., tycoon-like competition, supply chain integration); 3) On the game mechanics of the transformations (eg., having certain transformations will lead to certain effects or consequences on the lab or world-state)
- Right now the vision for this game is a bit lacking. It may be that you would want to leave space for unrestricted feedback but it's a slight challenge (at least for me) to offer it without understanding your priorities as a developer.
Wish List:
- Personally, I like to see polished one of two features in transformation games. One is the fetish aspect. The other is a well-designed, deep and immersive game environment.
- I'm a sci-fi/fantasy fan!
P.S. I hope my brusque feedback is not off-putting to you. The more highly I think of a game, the greater its improvement I look forward to.
No worries, thanks for the detailed feedback! There's a lot of things I want to change and fix so this gives me a good list of important stuff to start with.
One more thing actually - research doesn't seem to consume points. Not sure if it's a design feature :)
If you're still hunting for the masculine tf bug, the loop goes like this: the tf log reports every few hours that the subject has developed physically masculine traits, but the tf doesn't progress from there. I can't remember which genome the serum was based on.
I ran into the bug with mas anthro horse TF
I wish there was a sandbox version with unlimited money.
So I could experiment freely more without having to worry about going bankrupt.
Bug: The music's volume is controlled by the window's size. At 1440P, it's inaudible even with the in-game slider maxed out, but it gets increasingly louder as the window is scaled down.
It looks like your AudioStreamPlayer2D node is set to fade out as it approaches 2000 pixels from wherever the listener is. Using an AudioStreamPlayer node instead seems like it'd fix that
(I'm not super familiar with Godot, but it seems like the listener is defaulting to being located (0,0), so just putting the node there might also work?)
That is actually kinda funny...I'll fix it though.
If I can ask what are the 9 species. I've only seen 8 after MANY expeditions, and only seen deer once.
You need to unlock the other biome by completing one of the contracts.
I waited 4 ingame days after doing said contract but still nothing.
Is there a way to remove clients, have a few that I can't use in any way and just take up space. Accidently gave the wrong serum to one, then tried giving the client the serum for a correct contract but they became unusable in any future contracts. Also once you give someone the chicken serum they become unusable clients as well. (Which I did see your reply to someone else about chickens.)
I can say though from the concept and the few hours I played, albeit a some bugs, I really loved the concept and would love to see more content and improvements.
I probably missed something then ^^ I'll have a look at that as well. Thanks!
When I do contracts, I can't complete them and it shows 1/3. How can I select multiple?
Shift select, sorry should make that more clear
Thank you! Been enjoying the game so far :)
A UI scaling option would be appreciated. Everything is illegibly tiny on a 4k monitor.
I'll see what I can do
One of my test subjects bugged and their changes never finished, meaning they stayed in the "mutagen observation" phase and couldn't be used to complete a contract.
Is there a way to remove a test subject without completing a contract with them?
I can add a means to do this, do you know what exactly happened to make the changes never finish? Serum type, any modifiers, gender etc
I was using a female sheep serum with the "masculine" modifier on a male subject.
Chickens are super buggy for some reason? it only seems to be chickens, but job woun't accept any chicken-morph despite having correct traits, and sometimes when admistering chicken surum all stats for the subject gets replaced by NULL, and observing a null subject will set reaserch to NULL, which is a bit of a problom.
Thanks for letting me know, chickens were the last thing I added and I didn't get a lot of time to test them, so I'll have another look
Struggling to get the chicken morph state when using the anthro mod on a pure sample, couldn't complete the job because they were all still labled human, i'm wondering if it's trait count that determines whether or not something is human vs morph.