Status update: Progress in the midst of personal challenges (Patreon)

Hello all,

First, we definitely owe you all an apology and an explanation.

Life Laughs When You Announce Plans to Patrons

Without going into too much detail, both of our personal lives hit some major issues since the last update. Our writer has been dealing with a very serious family illness that has required significant travel (with barely 2 or 3 days in a row at home since November). After a miracle in the form of millions of stem cells, things are progressing in a positive direction, slowly but surely. The coder had some heavy work (70+ hours per week!) at the day job through January. Needless to say, the development of In Her Own Hands had to move to the back-burner. We have barely had time to talk more than a handful of times in that time, and you can probably imagine that the development requires a significant amount of communication and coordination.

In truth, we’ve had to let life lead in terms of priorities, but we also missed working on In her Own Hands. As game developers, we thrive on opportunities to discuss and design. Together we enjoy bringing all that creativity and strategy to you with each release.

So, turning to the positive side of things, it looks like everything is beginning to get back to normal, so we are planning to have the next update ready before the end of this month, if nothing else unexpected occurs over the next few weeks.

We are very, very sorry that we have not been able to communicate some of these issues to you sooner, and appreciate your continued support of the development of IHOH.

The next update will be a continuation of the Jasmynn storyline, which we didn't finish in time for the last update. This will also include the first of several possible story-based endings (but don't worry, this isn't the end of Jasmynn's story). We have it a bit more than halfway finished already, so hopefully we can get the rest finished relatively quickly. There will also be a couple of relatively minor UI adjustments.

Insider Info on a S&D “Spin Off” Game

Finally, we also wanted to give you a sneak peek into something else that has been developing. It was always our intention to develop multiple games in this same universe that we have created. Because we were not able to work on IHOH during these last few months, the coder has begun working on the first of these connected "spin-off" games. The new game started as a stripped-down version of the IHOH world where he could experiment and test bits of code for IHOH. But while waiting for the writer to be ready for continuing the story, he started trying his own hand at writing. Obviously, there is a very different voice and point of view, so it wouldn't work for continuing the IHOH story, but it seems ok and getting better with practice!

The new story features a married couple, but is primarily told from the husband's perspective. This male voice fits better with the male coder's writing ability. However, there is also a choice to view the story from the husband's perspective alone or to sometimes view it from the wife's perspective. When seeing the wife's perspective, the player does not have as much control (sometimes none at all) and the husband will not have knowledge of what the wife is doing. Some of you may already see where this is going.

This new game is not anywhere near releasable yet. We are hoping to have the first version ready by early summer, with enough content to be worth the wait. The development of this game is not our top priority, so it will only be developed when we are unable to actively work on In Her Own Hands. But, in the meantime, some of the coding ideas that we are experimenting with in the new game will likely make an appearance in IHOH before then.

Onward

Again, we apologize for the long radio silence. We are here. We are committed to continue development of In Her Own Hands. Our characters have many adventures ahead, and we look forward to getting those new releases of IHOH in your hands. (Sorry, couldn’t resist!)

Thanks for bearing with us!

Surprise & Delight