Hello, good masters!

After half a year of hard work from our wonderful team, we are ready to share VU2's Playtest. We updated many things and some of them are very delicate, so let's get right to it!

You can download the playtest here.

Changelog

Sprites and Scripting

Overhauled character sprites: Half-Healed Asterion, Themba, Cobalts, Pedro and Oscar.

(Khenbish's new sprites are still being worked on and are not included in this playtest.)

Half-healed Asterion gained seven new expressions (Angrier, Dissociating, Flicker, Open, Smirk, Tense, and Wistful).

Half-healed Asterion's scripting (by which I mean his facial expressions and posing in each scene) have been redone from the ground-up to utilize all the new expressions dilukha designed.

Kota's laughing and surprise sprites have been redone, and he gained a new "Smiling" expression. His introduction and the scenes all the way to Chapter 13  have been rescripted to make his expressions more subtle, in-line with Nemo's vision for Kota.

Kota's expression when returning from a successful Exploration assignment has been changed to "Smiling".

Likewise, Luke gained a subtle "Smiling" expression, and his scripting has been redone so it'd be on the same level of quality and details as Asterion's and Kota's.

Argos' encounters all the way to Chapter 18 have been rescripted to include his new "Dramatic" pose, in line with the changes done in VU Phase 1. Further rescripting past this point will, at a later date, include his new "Shy" pose.

Overhauled UI

The Staff Management UI has been entirely overhauled. All daily management activities have been brought together into a single screen. These changes go well beyond the cosmetic and affect the flow of gameplay.

R&D Resources: Now players of all backgrounds will be informed of their accumulated resources (Tech, Contracts, Raw Resources), whereas this skill was reserved for players with the Math background.

R&D Projects List: Now players are able to pick which project they're aiming for at the start of the day and can see what resources they need to complete it, making it easier to get trace a plan and work towards it.

"Overtime": Some characters (like Khenbish and Themba) bring in unique management activities, which have now been grouped in an "Overtime" tab.

Hangouts Integration: Hangouts are now picked in the same screen as all other management activities. Since Hangouts and Overtime activities are mutually exclusive, the UI is engineered to make that aspect clear.

The changes to the Task Management are very big and likely to cause unforeseen issues. Please report any bugs or visual glitches.

Overhauled BGs

The bar where you meet the Old Man at the start of the game and the hotel's old reception have been illustrated by Nolan.

The hotel's renovated reception has been illustrated by gyrium, and now comes in four flavors for different times of the day.

The Valley has gained two new BGs by Faun, likewise coming in multiple flavors for times of the day.

CGs

Added a set of 3 new CGs by activateiguana to Argos' introduction, in-line with an ongoing goal to give introductory CGs to all recruitable characters.

Likewise, added new CGs to Luke's introductions. His entire introduction went through an editing/rewriting round with whale (the writing there really deserved some attention and love, mainly to improve on the quality of the sentences).

Kota's introdution went through an editing pass with Nemo. At a later date we'll add a set of new CGs to it, bringing it to parity with Luke's introduction.

Added 2 CGs by Phwog to the scene where Asterion talks with either Luke or Kota in front of the hotel.

Half-healed Asterion gained 4 new CGs by Kinutao, which come up after Asterion drinks the healing wine.

Pedro has gained a CG by ActivateIguana for his introduction after Chapter 13, which is also in a WIP state.

Bug Fixes

Fixed inconsistency in Chapter 9 where, if Luke is the manager of the lounge, he would appear shirtless in the background before appearing as a sprite with his shirt on.

Fixed a bug that made it impossible for Themba to have a penis.

Fixed the subsequent bug where Themba's penis would not stop showing even when it should not appear.

Adjusted Kota's height, making him a bit taller and compliant with Official Canon. Please report any instances where he's supposed to go off-screen but his tail awkwardly remains on-screen.

Fixed bug where Kota's "Further Puzzled" expression would be replaced with his "Angry" expression if his hair was set to "Loose".

Other minor bug fixes.

Known Issues

The tutorials for the task management mechanics are outdated and will be replaced before VU2 goes out to the public.

Asterion's speedrunner charm has not been redone yet.

Likewise, Oscar's wheat stalk is not yet done.

While Themba is now capable of having a penis, and said penis is capable of being contained, we still do not enough scenes in the game where said penis can be seen — which I'm sure a considerable slice of our playerbase will find problematic. Please refer to the Speedrunner pool scene if you must consult with Themba's phallus. Thank you.

UPDATE 1

A new build was pushed, fixing a bug that would make the Team Management screen crash if there were more than 3 characters in the idle tab.

UPDATE 2

Playtest3 includes significant changes:

Kinutao's 4 Half-Healed Asterion CGs, which come up shortly after he drinks the healing wine, had their final versions implemented.

The issue with Asterion's shirt being a little too small and showing a thin line of his fur on his arms has been fixed.

A few WIP assets in the Team Management screen have been replaced with their final versions.

Minor fixes and rewrites to Kota's introduction.

Please report bugs here or in the Discord server, in the #playtest-discussion channel. We're looking forward to hearing your opinions on the new VU content, and we always welcome criticism.

As always, thank you for your support!

— Mino.