College Tennis: Origin Story (WIP) - Updated 7 Nov '24 [621k words]

[burninglights]

Thank you!! This comment really made me smile

Interactions with Sam will be few and far between, but when they do happen, I wanted the connection to really shine through (if the player wants) - as is the reality of ending up on different coasts with your best friend, right? () so yeah, really happy that it was a moment that stood out to you

@Neverwherehere

I was a bit surprised that the choice to romance Sam came before the usual sexual preference choice.

Ah good catch! Personally, I do think that every choice we make, in terms of whether or not to pursue a romantic/emotional connection, whether to cross the line into intimacy etc., happens in the moment - and sometimes we surprise ourselves. (As I’m guessing maybe was the case between your friends who are now married? ) I wanted to replicate that similar kind of fluidity, to allow the player some choice to engage or not engage romantically (at least at the beginning), regardless of what they might’ve picked for their sexual preference - as in real life.

BUT in view of the fact that it is annoying to see flirty/romance options once you’ve made your sexual preference clear, I’ll use the sexual preference choice to hide those options down the road.

More rambles below (but yeah don’t worry, this is personal conjecture and my coding will be more straightforward and switch off irrelevant romance options after the first 1-2 chapters or so).

personal ramblesss

To me, identity is both parts who we are and what we do, and the two are intimately linked. Sexual preferences are sorta how we understand ourselves in the past, and conceivable future; On the other side of the coin, our choices/actions are informed by that understanding, but also invariably take place in an ever-changing present, where we may choose to act in ways that are aligned, or that are completely different from how we’ve acted in the past or expected to act in the future. So I think every choice is context-dependent, and personal not exactly transcendent of gender and sexual preference, but not completely bound by it, either. Sometimes, those actions/choices/feelings help us come to a new understanding of ourselves.

@Neverwherehere

Finally, since this game is sports themed, I’d suggest adding a glossary of tennis terms and/or something that would help readers who aren’t familiar with tennis know what’s going on.

Yep! Totally agree. Agree also re: slammed! It was an absolutely amazing game but kinda felt I was randomly choosing wrestling moves based on which one sounded cool most of the time

[TrusfratedGucci]

This is so cool! (☆▽☆)

[burninglights]

Thank you, so glad you think so

[Peli]

This wip is great so far! I was really hooked from the very beginning and I cannot wait for more. Also, definitely pulling a rivals to friends to lovers over here.

[Nurrahmany_Nurry]

Hello sorry…im error in your stpry…please fix…

Always loading …Not open next chapters…fix pleasee

[burninglights]

@Peli awesome, glad it held your attention! Rayyan’s getting a lot of love it seems

@Nurrahmany_Nurry ah! Sorry, there’s nothing to fix I’m afraid - that’s where the first update ends for now, but I’m working hard (heh) and will have more scenes up next month

[Nurrahmany_Nurry]

@burninglights ahh…i see…can’t wait…eheheh…your story is good ehehe…im sorry to bother u xixixix

[bouncyball]

@burninglights I love this, and I’m really excited to see where this is going to go!! I used to play tennis competitively, so this really brings back memories

Just one technical thing…in the game, I noticed you used the term “sets” and “games” interchangeably. Not sure if this is just an American thing on my part, but I was a little confused since the two are usually completely separate things (for example, I was surprised when there was a line that the MC and their opponent were tied 3-3 in sets since…well, i’ve never heard of a six set match!).

All in all, super engaging premise and will definitely be following this!

[burninglights]

@bouncyball That’s awesome! Look forward to more feedback and yep oopsies no, I meant to type games and yeah I’m pretty sure there are no 6 set matches anywhere in the world HAHAH that’d be savage as heck. Thanks for the spot!

[bouncyball]

Does remind me of that Isner vs. Mahut game at Wimbledon…70-68

[burninglights]

Oh god… don’t get me started on Isner… hahaha. i prefer thinking about the nadal vs. djokovic epic

[bouncyball]

Honestly, I’m more shocked that Federer is still playing He’ll always be my king

[threekingmodest101]

I wonder what it’d be like to have different rivals in the game based off “legendary” archetypes.

Like…oh, this guy’s a Nadal clone, or this guy’s a Djokovic clone, or this girl’s a Seles clone. It’d be hilarious to go up against one of them and feel the frustration of dealing with them.

[roselilymarigold]

This game is so good!! Such a strong, dramatic opening, and I loved the character interactions. I was sucked in immediately even tho I know zilch about tennis. I loved the match you played with Rayyan especially. I liked how you captured the heavy nostalgia and anticipation that comes in when you graduate high school and go to college, the sense of growing older, of closing one phase of life. The atmosphere, character interactions, and drama of the matches are stellar. When the update ended I was like “noooooo I want more T__T”

I do think there are some parts where it could have been slimmed down and I ended up skimming e.g. some parts of the drive with the dad to the college.

Also I caught like one typo but I was too sucked into the game to screen shot it lol. I think from memory “to” and “the” were mixed up?? Or maybe not. I will defs send it if I replay and find it again.

But those are very minor quibbles, and I am super excited to see where this goes next!!! Pls update soon and feed this hungry reader. :))))

[idonotlikeusernames]

Maybe not the most typical opinion but I really like how the mc, even if mine is a bit of a cocky brat, can interact with their father and I’m really starting to like the dad as character.

By the way it also seems like if I go by the preset names and try to make an Asian American character how the mc appears to be a mix of Chinese American (mom) and Japanese American (dad).
Certainly feels different to a lot of stories where it is usually dad who is absent or supernatural or foreign royalty that in this story the parent my mc is upset at or disappointed with is their mom.

Also liking the childhood friend and waiting to see how that long-distance romance goes…though not ruling out the others just quite yet.

[burninglights]

@threekingmodest101 HAHA interesting idea! This also reminds me of the portion in FIFA or one of those video games where there’s the “story” mode, and then an extra “arcade” mode where you get to play with preset/archetypes/famous people.

[burninglights]

@roselilymarigold Thank you!! It means a lot that you liked the character interactions, because I’m a really character-focused reader and I love when things have great character-driven narratives / arcs.

@roselilymarigold

I do think there are some parts where it could have been slimmed down

Ooh yes - I’d actually be interested if you could let me know where/when you skimmed (fat that you think could be creamed off) because my first-cuts (of everything) tend to be quite long, and I’d be interested in slimming it down, like you say. I definitely think there are scenes that are not completely necessary, and most of them involve the MC’s dad. HAHA. Anyway - maybe I’ll keep a version like Lord of the Rings, where the special director’s cut is 4 hours instead of 3

@roselilymarigold

Pls update soon and feed this hungry reader. :))))

Will try my absolute best!

@idonotlikeusernames Yay!! I did want the game to be as well-rounded as possible - with the MC feeling like a real-ish human with a holistic backstory (and I have a vague idea of what I want to do with MC’s family life but it’ll likely be a side/supplementary thread in any case.)

@idonotlikeusernames

By the way it also seems like if I go by the preset names and try to make an Asian American character how the mc appears to be a mix of Chinese American (mom) and Japanese American (dad).

Wait hahaha this seems like a really interesting observation but I’m nottt super sure what you mean? Would love for you to expand on that

But really good point about cases where the dad is absent and the mom (who left) usually taking flak for it - I agree and I think it’s a little sad, and also a bit of a comment of the gendered society we live in. It’s something I kinda wanted to explore a little in the story too, but yep - again, not super sure how much space and time I’ll want to devote to the character’s home life eventually, we’ll see!

And finally, awesome, glad you liked Sam!

[idonotlikeusernames]

@burninglights

Wait hahaha this seems like a really interesting observation but I’m nottt super sure what you mean? Would love for you to expand on that

Well “Asian American” seems like a super huge group if you look at the sheer amount of subgroups it has to encompass but if you go with some of your preset names…the last name Tanaka seems to be Japanese and likely comes from the mc’s father’s side as since Asian Americans seem to trend more conservative than the mean I don’t think it is very likely Asian-American mc has his mother’s last name.
The first name on the preset list “Shan’liu” on the other hand seems to be Chinese, so that in my mind makes the mc’s largely absent mom Chinese American. Although it seems like it would be more practical for my mc to use just Shan with his friends and peers for the most part.
Now since mom left quite early in the mc’s life I think that while there is a reasonably high chance my mc speak, read and write Japanese…especially if his paternal grandparents are still alive any Mandarin or Cantonese he might have gotten from his mother would be extremely basic and very rusty, as he would not have used it in years by this point and he presumably would not be able to read it.

Hmm…that makes me think on our potential majors beyond just being a prince of Tennis, while my mc may be Asian American he appears to be more of a smooth-talking and somewhat cocky jock I actually feel like Sam would be more likely to have helped my mc with math homework than the reverse and it would go nicely against the more nerdy Asian-American stereotype of Hollywood.
So as for future majors I am hoping for something like languages or theatre, assuming my mc has at least a decent/above average singing voice based on the car ride with dad.

One last point, assuming the mc really gets good I wonder if they could possibly benefit from reforms to American college athletics, following some recent Supreme Court cases. As, ironically, for your young athletes this has been one of the few areas where America has been less capitalist than “socialist” old Europe.

Also, where do the mc and their dad live? Maybe I missed it, but from the length of the drive I assume it is in one of the Midwestern “fly-over” states?

[burninglights]

@idonotlikeusernames WOW this sleuthing is impressive as heck, and is super awesome.

I absolutely love the backstory you’ve come up with for the MC based on the possible preset names. It’s a really cool headcanon and I could totally see that adding a ton of nuance. I’d love to see how this’ll work out with some of the other scenes, so keep me posted if you want!

For majors - hahaha love it, and yes I could care less about the nerdy asian stereotype (and/or any blanket equation of cognitive abilities to race, boo) makes me laugh imagining MC rocking out w a great singing voice while dad just croaks terribly along.

@idonotlikeusernames

reforms to American college athletics, following some recent Supreme Court cases.

Whoa this is really cool, and super recent too, thanks for the shout-out, I really enjoyed reading that article.

@idonotlikeusernames

Also, where do the mc and their dad live?

Good question! I was leaning on the side of leaving it open to imagination, and potentially even cutting down on the drive scene to add more mystery (since as you say, fixing the car-ride to ~7 or 8 hours or so would pin down the home-town to some plausible radius) but it might also add more potential depth if I could go into more details on the home-town. open to suggestions! would u prefer having more creative liberties to decide where MC comes from, or would u like it to be more fixed/addressed in the game?

Thanks for your comment by the way, it was really interesting!!

[idonotlikeusernames]

@burninglights

open to suggestions! would u prefer having more creative liberties to decide where MC comes from, or would u like it to be more fixed/addressed in the game?

Either works really. As you say, it depends on how specific you want to get about the mc’s hometown life. But you can still give a range of options that are all about an 8 hours drive away, even if you want the hometown to have more variation.
As for which places would make for cool hometowns I’m afraid I would prefer to leave that up the American members of this community.

@burninglights

makes me laugh imagining MC rocking out w a great singing voice while dad just croaks terribly along.

Well makes sense he got something from his mom’s side of the family.

@burninglights

nerdy asian stereotype

Well my mc does have a bit of a theatre geek within him, just not a math or technology whizz.