Update: Story and Structure of the Home Office Game (Patreon)

[This post was originally published exclusively for Patreon supporters on February 9th and then released publicly on July 14th, 2022, without any edits.]

Heya, how are you doing? Personally, my last weeks have been quite turbulent with ups and downs. 😅
The first month of my exchange semester is now over and I've had a great time meeting new people and exploring beautiful cities and foreign cultures. Sadly, as you may have seen on our Discord server, I also got covid and had to spend two weeks sick at home. However, I'm feeling much better now and I'm ready to dive deep into the next game with you! 😋

So today, I have some interesting updates regarding the storyline and structure of the Home Office Game. The first playable teaser featuring Bowsette, Mercy and DVa is also almost finished, I just need to fix some minor issues and add some details but it'll be ready for you to play later this month or early next month at the latest (also, I made sure to include an ending to make sure you can really enjoy the experience 😉). But for now let's focus on the game's structure. 

I've actually been slowly putting together a rough storyline over the last months, brainstorming with some other people, always getting new ideas and adding more parts to it. So I've had a fairly concrete concept for the story for quite a while.
However, that all changed with the Character Suggestion poll, in which you could not only submit your wishes for featured characters but also ideas for the story. And because most of your suggestions were really good, but they wouldn't all fit into only one game, I am now planning to explore this concept in multiple games (currently called "episodes" but I might change that later on). All of the episodes will be large stand-alone games with multiple endings, so it's not like I'm splitting the initial idea into three games. I already have some ideas for sequels (mostly based on your suggestions) but I'll wait to see how you like the first episode until I make a final decision on following instalments. 😌

the story of episode one (spoilers!)

The first part will primarily be based on my original ideas for the game. A mean boss, a kind coworker, a vain camgirl and a horny AI assistant. To illustrate my current concept for the storyline, I've created a flowchart showing different interactions and paths in the game, which you can find attached to this post. ☝️
If you are on the Discord server, you've probably already seen a version of this a couple weeks ago but I've made a lot of changes to it after working on the teaser.

The game starts with the player getting into trouble with their boss Bowsette because they are late for their home office job. Bowsette then gives them a task for which the player has to talk to their coworker, Mercy. After a bit of dialogue, she helps the player do the task with the help of a number memory minigame and some JOI.
Depending on the player's performance in the minigame, they then have different options how to to proceed with Mercy. One of those options is an early ending with her but you can't get more than 20% wrong in the minigame for that. (You'll see how it works in the teaser.)
After the interaction with Mercy, the player can explore the game more freely. They can choose to call people, browse the internet, look at pictures of other characters, talk to the computer's AI assistant, and more. Each choice starts different character interactions with JOI and you will be able to finish the game with every character. However, certain parts of the game and particularly the endings are influenced by your earlier decisions. 😉

This flowchart is only a broad visualisation of the game's story but it's intended to give you an idea of its general structure. I think it's fairly self-explanatory in that sense, so I won't discuss every detail of the flowchart here. But please let me know if you have any questions about it!

You might notice that the flowchart is much more detailed before the "free phase" than after. The simple reason for this is the already finished game teaser, which includes everything before the "free phase". Plus, you'll get a glimpse of the "browse internet" option by being able to join DVa's cam show in the teaser. 😋
Everything else is still under construction and thus open to changes, so the flowchart is quite vague for those parts. But even without those details, this flowchart shows the enormous size of this project. Depending on how the creation process continues, I might have to move some of the elements into a follow-up game, otherwise this might simply take too long to finish.

the following episodes

But I also already have some ideas for the story of possible sequels. For episode 2, I think it would be interesting to introduce a common enemy by having a hacker (probably played by Futaba) attack the office with a virus. It'll then be up to the player and the other office staff to stop the hacker and in doing so have some form of JOI.

Episode 3 starts with the player discovering that their girlfriend has been cheating on them (their relationship was established in the previous episodes, more about that in a second), causing them to break up. At the same time, Bowsette has hired a sexy new intern (not sure who yet) to help the player with their work. Of course, vulnerable from the recent break up, the player seeks consolation in the new colleague who then, depending on the player's choices, either turns into their girlfriend or mistress. 

I know it's not Shakespeare but it should be good enough to keep this JOI game engaging and interesting while also introducing new characters and kinks. And of course, those are just loose ideas for now. 😌

the girlfriend character (more spoilers!)

The girlfriend (played by Nagatoro) is probably the character most affected by the prospect of splitting the story into multiple episodes. She was originally planned to cover the cuckolding kink by cheating on the player during the game. However, if the player starts the game with a girlfriend, that morally undermines the sexual interactions with other characters. So my current idea is to have Nagatoro start of merely as the player's love interest who makes the player jealous and plays with his feelings, which would also fit the Nagatoro's canon personality quite well. 

If the player makes the right decisions, she can then turn from love interest to girlfriend in the second episode. Which, as outlined in the previous paragraph, only lasts until the third episode. So while there will be some cuckold elements in the first episode, it will take unitl the third to really unfold.

conclusion

Alright, those are the most important concepts for the Home Office Game. We have a huge Google Doc filled with more of these ideas but I think it's best if you wait until you just see those in the game itself. To mention it again, all of this can still change. Maybe tomorrow in the shower, I'll get the greatest idea for a character interaction and that alters the entire structure of the game. However, what I've presented to you in this post is the status quo and that's what I'm working with right now. So please let me know if you have questions or ideas about the game's story and structure. 😊

Considering I've finished neither the maze series nor the Fapjack series as promised, I'm not sure creating a new series will work out well. Who knows, maybe I'll just stick to the initial game and not create any sequels. But I have a good feeling about this concept.... we'll see~

I realize that we've almost only talked about the story and hardly any of the fun aspects of the game. But don't worry, there will be plenty of JOI despite the focus on storytelling. I'll be doing my best to include as many of the kinks you asked for in the survey in the game but I'll tell you more about that in a separate post. Until then, I hope you look forward to meeting Bowsette, Mercy and DVa in the first proper teaser for the Home Office Game very soon! 🙌

At the risk of repeating what I said in my last post, I want to take a moment to thank you for your tremendous loyalty and trust. I realize that me working for this long on one project isn't ideal for you. I'm trying to involve you into the creation process and keep you up to date. Nonetheless, there just isn't much interesting going on right now apart from the teaser, thus making it difficult for me to post more than once per month.
However, I'm really enjoying working on the Home Office Game. I'm brainstorming with other people and constantly getting new ideas. It's a similar feeling to creating Lost in Lewd Labyrinth in early 2020. There have been times in the last year when I've been missing this creativity and energy, so it really is a pleasure to work on such a great project again. 😊

Sadly, working on a large game for a long time like this also means that much less new people are discovering my content. For this reason, your support and loyalty are particularly important during these times. And although I post on Patreon less frequently at the moment, I'm always available for you in DMs and on the Discord server. So don't hesitate to send me a message if you have any questions, suggestions, concerns or just want to talk. 😘

You mean so much to me, thank you very much~ 💖💖💖