Crisis Protocol

Branching Skies is a story game, and most dark lines in it are story. Sometimes a player steps out of the story and says something real about suicide, self-harm or abuse. This page says how the game notices that, what the player sees, and what we keep. Branching Skies is for adults, 18 and older.

How a possible crisis is detected

Two checks run on the words a player types into the story box or the Ask box. A list of words and phrases that people use about suicide, self-harm and abuse flags a line for a closer look. The safety screen that reads every line can also name a line as a possible real-life crisis.

A flagged line goes to a safety model. It reads the line and the turns before it, and it decides whether the player means it in real life or the line belongs to the story. A character who says they would rather die than kneel is story. Code carries out the model's answer. The model does not write anything the player sees.

What the player sees

When the model reads a line as a real-life crisis, the story pauses. The game writes no story in reply. An out-of-story message appears with referrals to free crisis lines. It costs no coin. These are the words, exactly as the app shows them:

Stepping out of the story for a moment

It sounds like you might be going through something real. You don't have to handle it alone. Free, confidential help is there any time, day or night.

Call 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline)

Text HOME to 741741 (Crisis Text Line)

Call 800-799-7233 or Text START to 88788 (if someone is hurting you, National Domestic Violence Hotline)

Outside the US: findahelpline.com

If you're in danger right now, call 911.

The player taps Back to the story to return to the story.

If the safety model cannot be reached or does not answer in time, the story goes on and the turn is flagged for a person to read. The player sees no message in that case.

What is prevented

Content that promotes self-harm, suicide methods or eating disorders is not allowed in the game. The narrator is told to stay in the story and to give no answer or advice to a question about the real world. A model reads each story reply before the player sees it, and a reply that gives real-world methods for killing or hurting a person or oneself is held back. The end of a day and the X-Card are checked just after the story is shown. If a screen cannot answer in time, the turn goes ahead. A crisis flag is never treated as a rule break, and it never earns a strike.

Human review

A named reviewer reads every crisis flag, through a reader that logs every read. The reviewer looks at the flagged turn and the turns around it. A person reads a turn on this path only because it was flagged.

What we keep, and for how long

The flag record is kept for 90 days. After 90 days it is deleted, and the player's own words on the crisis turn are blanked. The record is kept longer while a review case about the account is still open, and while a ban on the account stands and for 90 days after it is lifted. The log of who read what is kept for 2 years.

When the daily clean-up deletes a crisis record, it first adds it to a count by month with no user, no turn and no other identifier.

Deleting an account also deletes its flag records. Before we delete it, any crisis flags on it are added to the count by month.

The yearly count

We publish the number of crisis referrals every January, for the year before. The first count, for 2026, will be published in January 2027.

Questions

Write to us at privacy@mail.branchingskies.com. The Privacy Policy says what else we collect, and the Terms say what is allowed in the game.