How Plot Paths Will Work in ITOH (Patreon)

I wanted to talk a little about how the different plot "paths" will work in In Their Own Hands. Please forgive the long post, but since this is central to how the writing and updates will progress over time----as well as central to some of the Patreon benefits----I thought it was important to explain it for transparency. Not only to prove that I'm not just fumbling around randomly, but also to foreshadow the types of content that will eventually show up.

From the top down, this game is primarily about the relationship between two people: "Christian" and "Jenny" (default names). Other characters may come in and out of their lives, in the form of one-off scenes and longer series of events. But the focus will always be on our two protagonists and how their lives together play out.

The Paths

Think about the scene where Christian and Jenny talk about their relationship. The four options are the four main "relationship" paths. We'll call them "Monogamous," "Open," "Cuckold," and "Swinger/Swapping." These paths are not mutually exclusive and there are a couple of variations.

First, there are a lot of scenes/events planned that the couple will experience no matter which path they are on. Their relationship will change the way they react to what happens. Other scenes/events will be exclusive to the path they are on. This is particularly true of the Swinger path, where both of the characters will be present for most of the "extra" scenes.

Second, the two main variations are Cheating and Jenny's preference. 

In the Monogamous or Swinger paths, it would be Cheating if either Christian or Jenny has any "extracurricular" fun. Same goes for Christian on the "Cuckold" path. Nothing is considered "Cheating" on the "Open" path. Opportunities will appear for both of them, though these opportunities may have their own challenges. And there will be possible repercussions for both of them.

The other variation relates to Jenny's preference. Looking back at our experiences with In Her Own Hands, I regret that we didn't progress with the female love interest{s} far enough, quickly enough. This made it more difficult to shoehorn the content into an already overwhelming number of paths. (To be clear, the "lesbian" path in IHOH was planned from the very beginning. We just had a couple of internal debates over the setup and execution.) In order to avoid this pitfall, I want to make sure that this is a viable path from the beginning.

Oh, the possibilities!

At the highest level, you might say that the different paths with variant options look like this:

• Monogamous - Faithful, Christian Cheating, Jenny Cheating, Both Cheating
• Swinger/Swapping - with all of the above Faithful/Cheating options
• Cuckold - Jenny male preference, with Christian Cheating variant
• Cuckold - Jenny female preference, with Christian Cheating variant
• Open Marriage - Jenny male preference and female preference alternatives

If I'm counting that right, this is 14 different combinations!! Don't worry, it's not as sprawling as it might seem, because of how the paths intersect.

For example, suppose that Christian meets a girl in the park and they start talking and (eventually) hook up. In the Open Marriage path, this simply happens, with no major repercussions. In the Monogamous, Swinger, or Cuckold paths, this would be considered Cheating, but the textual changes or additional scenes to reflect this could be the same across all paths. So here we have a single scene that appears in all paths but only has to have two possible variants and only minimal necessary textual changes. This one shared scene would then set up several different alternative follow-up scenes depicting what happens next along each path.

How the surveys will work

I am roughly mentally mapping out the various scenes and events in each path, several versions in advance. You have already seen the beginnings of a number of these. Some of them are planned to just be short series of events, others will be longer, depending on the path.

I already talked about the surveys in this post. The "Path Polls" will list which of the relationship paths are available that month. This will be decided by the results of previous polls, to make sure that the game doesn't become too lopsided in any one direction. In other words, if the Cuckold path wins the poll one month, it won't be available the following month. The "Scene Polls" will then take the result of that poll and present a selection of the scenes that are available in that path. The results will be used to focus the next update, keeping in mind that many of the paths and scenes cross over and aren't completely exclusive.

That's basically it . . .

Though it's pretty simple, it's not necessarily self-evident, especially considering the not-entire-linear nature of the game as a whole. Hopefully, this post gives you a better idea about what to expect generally. More specific descriptions of updates will be included in my weekly-ish development updates.