Twin Coves Plot Tree 2.0 (Patreon)

Legend says that once, long ago, Twin Coves was 10 chapters long and had two mystery routes and six romance options... 

This is the monstrosity it is now. This will be a part of the May Kickstarter update, but just thought I'd share a little early for my patrons.

In March, I was working on Chapters 4 and 5, which was where the mystery routes originally branched off, but I just... felt like it was too soon. There were only 2-3 interactions with the ROs at that point and only little sprinkles of mystery, so I pretty quickly scrapped my original plan and extended the common route three more chapters to give players more time to get to know not only the ROs, but the mysteries afoot and the MC her/him/themself. Now the midpoint of the game is... chapter 7. 

Suffice to say, I think TC might be longer than 10 chapters.

I usually am not such a plotter when I write, though for something like this I outlined far more than I usually do. Still. Outlining is one thing, but once you're actually writing, things start shaping up in a way you don't always expect. But some of the best ideas are born from actually writing that story. 

You may also notice there are now four mystery routes... yeah, well! I started work on the Dusk route a couple weeks ago and quickly determined I had the ROs divvied up wrong. So I switched Cass and Eli. Now Cass, Kai and Lir are in the Dawn Route, Xander, Eli and Damián are in the Dusk Route (which makes the Eli and Damián poly route 1000 times easier to write). And I was happily writing away... until I realized Xander's and Eli & Damián's B plots were more interesting than the main plot... so I'm (possibly) splitting them into two separate routes. Xander has (potentially) a route all by his lonesome, but I get to better explore a more interesting story (and there's plenty of room for a little Misha bonus route in there. Which I am still not committed to... but it's there... waiting...watching...). And Eli and Damián have a route to themselves too.  

And I like this arrangement much better. It just makes sense and I don't know why I didn't see it sooner. I've got my Midwinter Night/Fae route, a new Dead of Night/Vampire route, my Dusk/Werewolf route, and then the Dawn route... which actually does makes sense, I promise. Kai, Lir and Cass have more in common than one might assume.

I'm also 98% sure I'm going to have the Date Night DLC take place during the main game instead of afterwards. That way it's...actually a DLC and not a separate game. It would have been sort of weird to have a separate game that's just 9 dates. Now the MC and ROs can squeeze in an actual date during the game and have a bit of a breather from all the murder! And there is a lot of murder. I think 6 characters die over the whole of the game, not counting the characters who died before the game started.

I still have the rest of April before the next KS update to finish re-outlining, but I just wanted to post my thoughts on this now as it's what I've been working on figuring out for the past few weeks. 

Also, with the game being almost assuredly longer, my original plan to have the draft done in June is looking not very likely. It was already an ambitious goal as it was the timeline I'd planned for the original game (10 chapters, 2 mystery routes, and 6 ROs)... and now the game is (possibly, probably, most likely going to be) 13? 14? chapters, 3 or 4 mystery routes, 9 (maybe even 10 ROs), plus the 2 poly routes, plus the Date Night DLC dates. It's a lot. But I'm not worried about it. It's more work, yes, but it'll just take time. I keep chipping away at it every day and eventually, it'll all be done. Not sure yet if this pushes my entire timeline back. I don't think I'll know that until I finish the draft and get to the editing phase so I can see how much work it needs. 

Also, don't worry about that midpoint spider web. It all makes perfect sense.