College Tennis: Origin Story (WIP) - Updated 11 Apr '25 [898k words]

There’s currently something like 3 opportunities to commit to Rayyan:

  • on friday, in the locker room after doubles match (requires romantic relationship level of over 30. available through flirt actions which require either a win with Rayyan as partner, or cornering them in the locker after their match, if MC is partnered with Tobin)
  • on friday, during the party (triggered if MC has over 25 romantic relationship with Sam, or performed some blatant PDA with them)
  • on monday, if the MC made drunk confession during the party on friday, they can reaffirm the interest (or blame it on just talking shit while drunk)
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Huh… I wonder why none of these scenes triggered for me? Maybe it’s time for a replay lol

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Thank you, I finally figured it out thanks to this! That was where I originally messed up, I picked the wrong kiss option after the match because I didn’t realise the other one had further dialogue and that was why I never saw an option to commit D: Oops

However, I somehow can’t get the drunken confession to happen. I have a high romance stat and I’m getting the Drunken Kiss achievement, but no confession. I’d like to see that scene, are there any other requirements I might be missing?

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I guess that’s a good thing.

Then again, I feel like I just know my doubles partner will do everything in their power to be picked as part of the monogender team (men’s doubles, in my case).

But that’s a personal dilemma for me to figure out once the update comes out…also there’s this concept called ‘replayability’ so ehhh–

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“Are we going to have another face off against Deepal after the tourney? I want the number 3 spot.”

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IIRC it’s just like regular confession, but MC needs to be drunk from the earlier party game. So you’ll need to have some romance score with Sam and optionally do some PDA with them (a public kiss or lean on them when having dinner) for Rayyan to bring the subject up.

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Yeah, turns out I just misunderstood, thanks! I was able to trigger this and the next scene on Monday, and honestly I think it’s my favourite version out of all Rayyan’s commitment scenes available so far (despite having to sacrifice poor Sam… sob)

If I may offer some feedback, I think it’d be great to be able to trigger these/similar scenes without being involved with anyone else, only difference being that it’d be the player character who steers the conversation in that direction (or just blurts it out) after the drunken kiss. I could definitely see my character drunkenly letting that slip in a “Oops did I say that out loud” kind of way haha

Anyway, got another small mattress-related bug to report - the option to take the mattress was back whever I didn’t have a high romance stat with Sam (seems like it was gone due to that, despite rejection and committing to someone else) but whenever I pick it, my character seems to somehow wake up in the bed with Sam in the morning (but then Sam still talks about having the bed all to himself immediately after)

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Minor spelling: capital city of the state fo Rajasthan

Minor gender: Mike even goes out of his way to track down a particular someone from the other end of the cafeteria and drag him over to your table.

It’s Emerson, the senior serve-and-volleyer on the team.

You soon learn that she lives in Haynes too

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I’m adding to the pile here a few minor bugs I ran into during my playthrough, now that we can peek into the code.

1-1_meetcoaches.txt

There’s a small repetition and some contradicting text during the first day of training.

If MC isn’t late, the lines where Max and Blake introduce themselves are exactly identical (lines 518-520, in the *else section of *label office_profile, and 532-534, in *label max_introduces_self)

The text also says that there are two freshmen from the other team with MC:

Then Max asks if the other team will train separately, and we’re told (line 1191) that:

(It looks like those two were far more successful than Max in making themselves scarce before the strength test)

Later on, our teammates introduce themselves, and on line 1215, only the seven upperclassmen on MC’s team are mentioned. The other team is likewise absent from the introductions.

However, in line 1514, Coach Jones says:

This suggests that the other team was in the room with MC after all.

3-1_firstweekend.txt

In the scene where we find out that Sam swapped the high school team jacket with their own, there’s some repeated text caused by the *gosub shouldnt_happen command.

The text in this subroutine duplicates the one already present in each variant of the scene:

The subroutine is found at lines 1633-1642

3-3 doublesmatch.txt

In the doubles match MC-Rayyan vs. Tobin-Deepal, the code and the text conflict regarding the score for the first game.

Given that I have set rayyan_partner_strategy “Equal”
And I succeed in the check in *label start_rayyan_first_game

Then any successful stats check results in *set rayyan_partner_score “1-0”

But the text in *page_break 15-0 reads:

Tobin and Deepal play flawlessly in the next point, and there are simply no weak spots for you or Rayyan to exploit. Tobin saves ${team_his} service game, you take comfort in the fact that you’d come very close to tipping the scales.

And if I choose to go to the net to poach (in *label volley_leave_front)
And win the point (*goto win_second_point)
Then the rayyan_partner_score “1-0” variable results into *set rayyan_partner_score “2-0”

This contradicts the previous score (the score should now be 1-1, not 2-0). *set rayyan_partner_score “1-0” at lines 1966 and 1994 should instead be *set rayyan_partner_score "0-1”

4-1_weekbeforefirstmatch.txt

There’s a continuity error (well, it’s just some misplaced text) in the doubles discussion with the coaches.

Given that I am assigned to Rayyan as a doubles partner
And I agree to Tobin’s suggestion to swap doubles partners
And I backtrack, asking to keep Rayyan as a partner during the discussion with the coaches (so, preferred_doubles_partner = “Rayyan”)

If in *label choose_reasons_rayyan_partner I choose “Since we have different playing styles, our strengths could patch each other’s weaknesses, and create a more balanced combination.”

Then in *label coaches_decision_rayyan_partner there is no specific text for reason_for_preference “Playing styles”, so it leads to the *else statement (lines 436-447):

*else

"Rayyan's reaction on Friday made us question our initial assessment of the rapport the two of you might have as doubles partners," Coach Sý begins, looking first at you and Rayyan.

Coach Jones nods. "When Tobin came to us with the suggestion to swap partners, we considered it, and honestly, that combination [i]would[/i] work as well." 

"Therein lies the conundrum. At the end of the day," Coach Sý says. "It boils down to belief. We have two decent possibilities, separated only by how much each player would fight, to make things work, in either combination." You feel her grey eyes peering right into the hidden depths of your mind. 

"After some deliberation, we think that the alternative pairings of Deepal-Rayyan, and Tobin-$!{first_name}, may actually bear most fruit, especially where chemistry, communication, trust and respect are concerned," Coach Jones says. "Taking everything into holistic account, we believe that this pairing would give us the best chance at weathering tough draws." 

Tobin's eyes flick to yours. You hold your breath.
*goto coaches_decide_rayyan_partner

The last paragraphs say that the coaches are assigning MC to Tobin instead of Rayyan (although the game correctly assigns MC to Rayyan in the end). Updating the text in the *else statement would solve the issue.

In all of the alternative text in this label (coaches_decision_rayyan_partner) there’s also a repetition of “You hold your breath”, which always appears in the last line of each variation and on the page break as well.

4-3_fridaymatchsingles.txt

At the end of a three-set match, I got a wrong score for the second and the third sets:


For the second set:

In *label lose_singles_second_set, the *if win_first_set_esu_singles paragraph starting at line 2895 is missing a *set singles_second_set_esu “5-7” command.

I think that you planned to have this command somewhere in the *label deuce_second_set paragraph (line 2843) after the *else condition on line 2865 (since passing any of the checks here would direct us to *label deuce_second_game_second_set (line 2879), which contains the command to set the score for winning the 2nd set right after.

For the third set:

In *label win_ninth_game_third_set, the paragraph after the *else command on line 3772 is missing the *set singles_third_set_esu “7-5” command (which would make it specular to what you did with the *if (singles_third_set_esu = “4-5”) condition on line 3770).

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It’s so cool that there’s a G-Sam poly route, can’t believe I had missed that option.

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I’ve got a feeling Sam would probably question whether that’s really “cool”. :v

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Yeah, that path feels like one of those things that’s going to collapse eventually

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For real, honestly I feel the worst for Sam on that route. I can just imagine them going back to their roommate with the great news that the MC said yes!



But that they’re also dating a hot, foreign exchange student that sees them everyday and is way too charming for their own good.

I just know roomie’s like “…yikes.”

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Seriously, and then there’s the whole “they’re both physically together over there while i’m stuck literally on the other side of the country” aspect of it. Kinda hard not to picture Sam as permanently doing that “hide the pain” meme impersonation.

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CT:OS Update #9 - Planned release schedule

*cross-posted to Tumblr

Hey everyone!

I have some hopefully good news!

I’m finally wrapping up the new content for CT:OS that I’d hoped to include in the next release, and will be able to send it off to beta-testers in ~2 days time. This means that I’m ready to announce release dates for the chapter!

  • Early-release of the chapter to ko-fi/patreon supporters: 28 Mar
  • General/Public release: 11 Apr

Here’s the content you can expect in this new chapter (contains approx. +51k words)*

Caveats on wordcount:
  • Some of the wordcount is made up of branches where MC cheats on their partner with Felix, which only a minority of you will see…
  • It was kinda hard to estimate the added wordcount because some of the new content was added to the previously-released chapter before halloween.).

Features:

  • Fall festival (mini-car trip to a nearby town: hang out with your hallmates, feast on doughnuts and pies and apple cider, kiss in a corn maze with G)
  • Experience the fall-out and consequences of your Halloween Hookup (if you’d done something with Felix…) this got a lot lengthier than I thought (and very branchy)
  • Gear up for the National Doubles Tournament with your doubles partner
  • Ride in the bus up to University of Philadelphia and play the first two rounds of the tournament, and bump into a certain redhead who’s now more foe than friend (technically, anyway).
  • Spend your first night in the hotel room (pre-match shenanigans, for the brave and the lucky…)

Then, depending on how fast I write, I’ll aim to release the next bit featuring the later part of the tournament as soon as I can, which will feature:

  • The third-round match
  • Quarter-final
  • Semi-final, where you either play against Sam or someone else (depending on the category you’re competing in & MC/Sam’s gender).

As always, thank you for your patience (I’m sorry I dropped off the face of the earth a little in Feb, I had a bunch of personal things that needed my time.)

Hope you guys enjoy this release!

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I haven’t read this in nearly 4 years and the updates are… absolutely incredible.

The way it’s written is just… wow. Each match overflows with tension and, even with Beast Mode activated, it still feels like I could lose at any point; each victory feels hard-earned even when the outcome is guaranteed. That is really hard to pull off.

The Sam romance went above and beyond and was just chef’s kiss. It’s more than just a friends to lovers romance, it’s a soulmate romance where the MC and the RO were fortunate enough to have found their other half early in life and the only thing that had ever kept them from officially dating were their own insecurities. It was very clear to both the reader and the other characters that it was only a matter of when the MC and Sam would get together, not if. (Hell, I half expected the team and your hallmates to set up a betting pool about it.)

I felt sorry for Genevieve in Sam’s route; poor girl never even stood a chance.

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Yay! Sammy’s going to abuse his position as my mc’s official boyfriend isn’t he and use his knowledge of mc against us, huh? :sweat_smile: Would be something if my mc’s current winning streak were to be interrupted by a certain super cute redhead with near telepathic knowledge of his opponent.

Sammy’s main trait is that they’re unpredictable. If he has a very good day my mc may not be able to beat him if he merely has a good day it will be close. Compared to mc and people like Rayyan Sam’s weakness is that he is distracted by his many, many other hobbies and talents and lacks consistency but don’t underestimate their sheer talent either.
And at least for my mc nobody knows him as well as Sam does, no oppo research can beat that. Yes, technically that goes both ways but one of Sammy’s defining traits being his inconsistency and unpredictability would still put my mc at a possible disadvantage there, assuming Sam’s having a good or great day. Which, ironically, is more likely if he’s mc’s boyfriend.

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Just because Sam is my girlfriend in one of my routes doesn’t mean I’m gonna go easy on her at all.

I’m gonna be the undefeated king of tennis if I have anything to say about that then if we both go pro then we can be undefeated together in mixed teams.

laughs in the cheat code

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I wouldn’t be so quick to laugh – do you actually have it in you to break Sam’s little heart and trash all their honest efforts with a cheapshot cheat? /s

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Yes.

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