IHOH Dev & admin update 24 Nov. 2024

I wanted to give you guys a quick update on a couple of things:

The next In Her Own Hands update (0.8.2)

Development has already begun and is moving along on the next update. As you may have seen, the winner of the Path Poll was Cassidy and the results of the Scene Poll was a 50/50 split between "Video sexting" and "Girls' Night Out." I have actually been eagerly anticipating the opportunity to spend more time on Becca's relationship with Cassidy. I'm very excited to move this part of the story along!

Change to higher-tier benefits

One thing that I've noticed in the results to the last few Scene Polls is that we've had split choices. This is bound to happen when only a couple of people vote among a couple of choices. I would like to try to offer something a little bit more interesting to entice more people to participate in the polls at this level.

So, starting with the next Scene Polls, I will allow Patrons to comment with their own suggestions. Other Patrons can vote for these by liking and commenting on the suggestions. If any Patron suggestion gets more votes than my options, it will win the poll! Obviously, there is a caveat: it has to make sense for the characters and story, so I may alter the scene as needed. But I will do my best to stay as close to the suggestion as possible! (It should go without saying, but it will also have to be a scene within the path that won the Path Poll.)

This will give the higher-tier Patrons a HUGE amount of influence on the development of the story! This change will apply to both games as well, beginning with the next round of polls.

Timeline for the next release

Some of you have correctly noted that I have a bad habit of being too optimistic with my development timelines. I am going to try to change that and be somewhat modest about the next update.

I am currently very busy at work with some end of the year deadlines. Plus there are several holidays right around the corner. So, in an effort to create realistic expectations, I am going to tentatively plan for this update to be finished by the end of January 2025. I hope to finish before that, but I don't have a great track record there so I am trying to temper my own ambitions.

This update will include a new mechanic that I have to create (which hopefully won't be too difficult), as well as at least three or four new events. Giving myself a little bit more time should help balance the amount of desired new content with the desired development time.

That's it for now! As always, thank you so much for your support in the development of these games!

S&D