Picking the right path following user input.

[Virtutis Umbra]

Hi,

Time to throw this out to all the boffins on this thread who have been so helpful in the past.

So I wanted to give the user the ability to set up the relationship with the main female in the house (mother, landlady, etc.) .

Originally I used a menu with a selection to set a relationship value based on what they chose then just used IF ELSE statements to alter text where necessary to keep the context of the narrative correct. It also allowed me to set which of the 3 backstory videos I had created was to be played. E.g. if adopted the video tells of their adoption, if landlady was selected then the video played shows how you came to be living there, etc. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy.

However, I have since been informed this will still get up Patreons nose and that I should just let the user fill in their relationship themselves. That would be fine if I just had to change the names/relationships in the narrative, but the pre-created videos really throws a spanner in the works.

So what I am trying to work out is how do I give an option for the user to input their own relationship, but if it falls into one of these categories play the right video? It will be set by default to Landay and if they make no changes it will play that video but if they enter anything different how do I get it to play the right video E.g. if the player enters a variation on mom (mum, mommy, mother, mater, ma, etc., etc. (cue Stewie Griffin sketch) it plays the mother relationship video instead.

Can someone point me toward the correct, I am assuming a Conditional Statement to cover this scenario.

As always any help greatly apprecied.

 

[sillyrobot]

Package the video and post it as a separate incest patch that players can seek out and apply if they wish.

Fundamentallly, if you want to stay on the right side of Patreon, have no incest content inside the app as it appears in Patreon. Maintain plausible deniability with patch ownership.

 

[anne O'nymous]

However, I have since been informed this will still get up Patreons nose and that I should just let the user fill in their relationship themselves. That would be fine if I just had to change the names/relationships in the narrative, but the pre-created videos really throws a spanner in the works.

Even without the videos it wouldn't "be fine".
How do the story would justify that the totally unrelated elder female roommate will be initially disgusted at the idea to have sex with her totally unrelated, but totally awesome, male roommate ? It would make no sense, and it's why trying to overpass Patreon ban by letting the player decide of the relationship is the worse of all the possibilities.

So what I am trying to work out is how do I give an option for the user to input their own relationship, but if it falls into one of these categories play the right video?

What would change absolutely nothing to your problem. If there's, released with your game, video(s) that clearly imply an incestuous relationship, Patreon will ban you, whatever the way you use to trigger it/them.
The only way to do is to (let someone else who totally isn't you at all) release a patch that will, among other things, contain the video(s).