In Her Service... A sequel ?!

As many of you have read in the past, In Her Service is not the only game I have planned. Right now I have three games in my head.

1. Finish In Her Service. Obviously.

2. Project Orange – A short game (roughly six-month project) and the next one up. This will mainly be a test of my new workflow, a chance to push the graphics as far as I can, and a quick way to try out new ideas. It’s meant to be a fun, more linear experience.

3. Project Red – My magnum opus. This is a very large project that will take multiple years to complete. Project Orange will be the test to see whether I can realistically finish something of that scale alone in a reasonable timeframe.

So the current timeline looks something like this: In Her Service (1.0) → Project Orange → Project Red

But here’s the big question: what happens if I finish Project Orange with my improved workflow and still realize I can’t make Project Red in a reasonable timeframe? That game requires an absolute shitload of work, and the workflow will need to be significantly faster. What then?

Thus... I’ve been thinking about doing a sequel to IHS.

What is "In Her Service" ?

To make a good sequel, you first need to understand what your game truly is. In other words: if you had to distill your game down to its absolute core essence, what would it be?

For me, In Her Service boils down to three key pillars:

1. Conservative commoners vs. open-minded nobility.

2. The MC/mc couple are new servants in a noble household.

3. Throughout the game, the MC/mc couple can gradually change their behavior and views.

Once you have that distilled essence, you can build a sequel around those same core ideas. For example: a new MC/couple arrives to serve a different noble family. While they’re there, their deeply held views get tested, challenged, and they have the chance to experience meaningful change…

In Her Service pitfalls...

But first, we need to talk about why a sequel even makes sense in the first place.

For one, I don’t want to do a “Season 2.” In general, I want to make full, complete games for my fans. Each game should stand on its own as a satisfying, self-contained experience.

As much as we all love the characters, there comes a point where they overstay their welcome and familiarity turns into boredom. It’s far better to say goodbye to characters while you still love them than to drag them out until you (and the players) become bored or bitter. So yes... definitely new, fresh characters. Some cameos could be fun, but no major reuse of the main cast.

Secondly, I wasn’t fully happy with some of the design choices in In Her Service.

Using a visual novel approach in a game where the protagonists are servants requires a lot of careful thinking around daily life. It can be a real struggle to connect events naturally without making parts feel boring or filler-heavy. You also end up with a lot of repetitive mornings, going to sleep, and daily routines that make sense in context but waste a surprising amount of time. And because the narrative style is closer to film, some scenes force other scenes to exist just to keep the pacing from feeling off.

Third, the visual novel structure makes it much harder to add new scenes or explore entirely new angles later on. Since the story is designed from the start with a tight, theatre-play-like structure, modifying it or expanding it significantly becomes very difficult. For In Her Service, I still have some planned expansions after 1.0, but once those are done, adding anything substantial on top will be almost impossible without rewriting large parts of the game.

In Her Service 2

After thinking about it for a while (a few months, in fact) and sleeping on those problems, I finally managed to nail down the core design for In Her Service 2.

Here’s what I have in mind:

1. Event-based gameplay. The main gameplay area would be an interactive map of the mansion. If you’ve ever played Oyako Rankan, that’s the general design I’m aiming for (obviously not 1:1).
   
   

   
   

2. Each day would be divided into time slots: morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night. Instead of forced linear events like in a traditional visual novel, events would dynamically pop up depending on the time of day, story progress, and requirements you’ve unlocked.

3. Less direct, more open. This shifts the narrative from the very movie-like, linear style of IHS1 to something more general and player-driven. You’ll be able to focus on the content you like most rather than being forced to watch scenes you’re not interested in.

4. This approach opens up a lot more possibilities. For example, if you want a harem scene involving two characters, a visual novel would require building up relationships, creating a whole web of events, and handling multiple choices. With the new design, I could simply set requirements like: “had sex with character 1”, “had sex with character 2”, “triggered the ‘crazy party’ event”, and “not in love with either character.” The scene can then trigger naturally without needing ten setup events to justify it.

5. Much easier to add new content and characters. Because each character’s experience is more self-contained (insular), adding a new character, location, or even an entire new map becomes very straightforward. Adding events is also a breeze since you don’t need long build-ups. If you want something extra spicy, the required setup is minimal but still delivers a similar impact to IHS1.

6. Light gameplay elements. Things like keys to unlock rooms, special cards or permissions to visit new places, etc. For instance, if you want to leave the mansion: as a servant you normally can’t, but you could complete a quest chain for the head maid (she sends you to buy groceries) or for the mistress (who then grants you free time in the evenings). Once you have that freedom, you could visit the nearest village, meet new people, and so on. Inside the mansion, you could unlock abilities like peeking through holes or discovering hidden rooms. As you can see, this opens up many exciting possibilities.

7. Slice-of-life events. Each day would include optional slice-of-life moments (sometimes required to unlock deeper character events) cleaning together, preparing for a party, etc. In IHS1 those exists but they are hard to fit.

8. Variance and replayability. I’ll be able to create repeated events with meaningful variation. The setup might stay the same, but the scene itself can play out differently based on previous choices. For example, an evening sex scene with the mistress could go normally or, if you’ve had anal with her before, she might suggest it again. Or if you’ve done some SM play with her, she might be especially into it that day.

9. Progression and roleplaying. Characters start relatively “normal,” but as the MC experiences new things, he unlocks more actions and kinks. Interacting with a certain madam in the village might unlock SM content, which then opens up options like blindfolding other characters. This makes the game feel much more like roleplaying than following a strict linear story. If you’re not into SM, you simply don’t pursue that path.

10. Character movement. Characters will move around the mansion according to the time of day and day of the week, doing their own things. So Mistress could be in baths in the morning, dining room at noon, living room afternoon etc. You can interact with them in context. For example, the mistress might be relaxing in the living room. At the start, as a regular servant, the interaction is short (“Can I get you anything, Mistress?” — “No.”). Later, with character development, the same location could lead to snuggling… and with even more unlocks, to sex or leaving together to do something.

11. Less is more. This design lets me spend less time rendering mundane transitions and daily fluff, and more time focusing on the actual “meat” of the game. In a traditional visual novel you waste a lot of effort on scene transitions and small connecting moments just for pacing.

12. Easier big expansions. Adding a major expansion would be as simple as creating a new map with fresh characters and locations.

13. More interactive development. Unlike a linear visual novel where the story is locked in from the beginning and there’s little room for fan input, this design allows much more flexibility. I could actually ask you what you want to see next or what kind of content you’d love more of, since the main experience isn’t rigidly linear. Obviously I still need to deliver some story here but it will be much easier to design around.

14. Meaningful choices and competition. What if three interesting events are available at the same time? Which one do you prioritize? What if the guard is flirting with your significant other? Or someone else is meeting the mistress? Would you rather spend time with her or with your partner? Obviously if you go to mistress then guard will flirt with your girlfriend etc.

As you can see, IHS2 opens up a ton of things I simply couldn’t do with IHS1. It broadens the possibilities, tightens the pacing and overall experience, and allows for much more varied, saucy, and fun content.

Some more thoughts

The premise would look something like this:

The MC and his female childhood friend live together in the same conservative village. Just like in IHS1, commoners here are very traditional and “normal.” One day they get hired as servants in a wealthy aristocrat’s mansion.

The mansion is home to other servants, guards, the main noble family, and regularly receives guests who come to stay for a while before leaving. The main family also has friends who visit on specific days or stay over.

As you can see, this setup keeps the experience tight and focused while still opening up a huge amount of possibilities.

For example, if I want to include a cameo from IHS1: Iris could visit the mansion together with Fiona, since Fiona is friends with the Mistress. They might stay for a week during a big party. Want to see them again? If you build a strong enough relationship with the Mistress, she could invite them back — or perhaps their visits become a periodic event.

For updates and new content, fresh events will appear naturally on the map. I also plan to include a proper “event manager / history” system so you can easily see which events are currently available, what requirements you still need to unlock others, etc. The inspiration is the event manager from Custom Order Maid (if you’ve played it), but significantly improved.

Issues

Of course, no design is perfect — every approach has its own challenges. Here are the main issues I’ve already identified and how I see them:

1. Engine. Ren’Py isn’t built for this kind of event-based, map-driven gameplay. I’ll need to heavily modify it or potentially switch to a different engine. Personally, I believe I can modify Ren’Py enough to make it work.

2. Assets. One big advantage of In Her Service was that it wasn’t very asset-heavy. This new design will require significantly more assets. It will be more expensive, but I’m confident I can manage it.

3. First version (the hardest part). Creating the initial version of IHS1 was relatively straightforward because it was mostly content production. With IHS2, the early phase will be much tougher: I’ll need to solve all the technical and gameplay systems first, build the foundation, and only then start producing actual events. Once that is done, content production will be easy.

4. Quality. I want to raise the overall quality bar with this game. That means I’ll have to spend extra time on visuals and presentation with every update.

Wrap up

As you can see, it sounds like a lot of fun. I already have a clear picture in my head of how the events will flow and how everything fits together.

Obviously, I need to see how Project Orange turns out first and whether I’m truly capable of tackling Project Red alone. If it becomes clear that Project Red isn’t realistic in a reasonable timeframe, then I’ll go straight into developing In Her Service 2.

Details like the specific characters, setting, and other story elements will be revealed when I formally announce the project.