Just read the update, and oh my gosh, thank you for including the Sam scene in it! I loved it 
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I’m looking forward to the next update!
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I’ve read it I thought it was totally fine, but my Sammy is a boy. Anyway for a cute highschool jock like Sam this seemed completely normal to me. My mc would have been the odd one out among the highschool jocks, I bet, having no romantic or sexual life to speak of. 
Like R my mc caught the dream of going pro early on and also like R (headcanon anyway) mc also had a dad who is pretty insistent on them getting a college degree as “backup” in case the whole pro tennis thing doesn’t work out for them.
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KYAAAAAH~
It’s coming, thanks for the hard work boss!
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Wow ok after posting that I realized how deranged all the replies looked.
Summary:
- Added option to disable nicknames at the start (but I think because it adds a new variable, most people will have to start a new save (yikes).
- Not sure why the sam_visit variable seems to mess up everytime, I think it mostly happens with people using old saves, but now I’ve set the variable to default true.
- Added an option to tell Tobin that it’s your first time being in a queer relationship too.
- If you don’t want to be sneaky about Sam and G kisses (e.g. if it’s not your MC’s style) wait till the end of the singles match, and you can kiss them openly. If you don’t want to kiss Sam / G yet, you’ll still have more opportunities to do so in more.. intimate settings over the weekend—so there’s different options depending on your Sam route!
I think those are the main things, but I only got up to chairmanmeow, so if I didn’t get to your comment, I’ll come back to this soon 
Detailed replies :)
Back with a vengeance!
Hehe awesome, glad it’s more and more of a challenge to win.
Oh absolutely, MC’s needing a bit of a break, but they’ll have to get past the ITA championships bit first, I reckon, but after that I think it’s high time for a good long break in California!
Whoo! 'Tis definitely the season.
Hmm, I think the Sam_visit_cornell_match variable might keep resetting for people who don’t lock that in, but maybe how I could get around that is just to set the variable as true by default.
HAHAHA. Secretly cut everyone’s racket strings. Pretty sure she’d have enlisted Hua’s help.
As an author who actually uses celsius, I had to go convert it to Fahrenheit silliness just to be true to the setting. 
Whoopsies, showing some extra text for Sam’s visit, which you shouldn’t see if the game thinks you didn’t invite them.
Go for it. It’ll absolutely sell.
Hoped you’d like it, and I’m so glad you did! Was absolutely thinking of you every time I wrote the Addie scenes
Ugh, this variable is killing me. Would anyone/everyone who got “error” in their text mind sending me a vague sense of what they think their scores are (and the last known bit of the game scene/text right before they won?) That’d be super helpful, I’ve been trying to deal with this error since beta-testers started seeing it, but I think it’s still there for some branches!
Ironically, it still thinks you did not invite Sam, but is an error on my part (writing Sam in for people whose variable Sam_visit … is set to ‘false’.
Thank you, happy holidays to you too! 
Yep! Saves should not have gone kapoot this time.
HEHE. Your MC’s getting truly embroiled in some sticky situations, indeed! Glad you (or rather, your MC) is having fun out there!)
Dude, I’m so happy that you liked this scene!! I added it this round just for funsies and I thought it turned out really cute, if I may say so myself
Love that you felt torn when choosing doubles partners too, I do think it’s always a pretty emotionally-charged thing. After all, it’s who you’re going to be playing alongside for the rest of the season!
Nope! Had intentions/plans to allow quidditch and drama/film previously but quickly realized that the amount of text / writing I was doing already for all the branches was getting to the point where it’d be unsustainable to add real actual branching for the clubs Something had to go!
Hahaha heya I always always look forward to your comments, they always make me smile!
Ugh this means so much to me! I’ve seen some of your comments in the forum re: writing queer relationships and queer characters, and how they should ultimately feel like people rather than caricatures (while of course still ensuring their sexuality is a big part of their route / psyche), and I always find myself agreeing heartily with your how you view writing / representing queer storylines and queer characters.
Oh, sick!!
This is weird! I double checked that and cleaned up the code a bit, but nothing I saw there seemed like it’d give the error that you’re seeing, but hopefully the cleaning I did somehow fixed the problem! In the meantime, I’ll keep mulling that over and maybe fingers crossed, will spot the issue soon!
Whoo! G and Sam dilemma! Surprisingly it seems to be a rare one, but I love it!
Awww wow thank you!!
Hehe, you and @JBento can form a club. I added the “prove Rayyan wrong” option just to cater to those who are still a bit salty.
Also, happy holidays to you too!
HAHHA I did!! And I’m so glad I did!!! Hope your leg is feeling a little better already.
YAY I’m really really glad to hear this. Also to be fair, it was a last-minute addition but by last minute, I mean… I did stay up half the night to write the G / Sam extra scenes, so… abrupt yes, but definitely took some time hehe 
Yes! I’m already halfway through the singles match actually! Had to stop myself because I do want to start on the merry crisis chapter.
I think you had a comment somewhere (maybe discord?) where you said it would make a bit more sense for some MCs/headcanons for MC to kiss Sam openly (or not at all) and that made me reflect quite a bit—you’re absolutely right!
Anyway, I think the post-singles match options (to kiss Sam / G openly, for instance) would make more narrative sense for MCs who are very sure about Sam and would not go for a ‘sneaky kiss’, so I hope that with that update, players can pick a more ‘fitting’ route / one that gels best with their headcanon Also, I think MCs who would not go for open kiss / sneaky kiss (both feel strange) I think would have to wait for the following update (during the weekend), where there’ll be more of an intimate… build-up kiss. Anyway, tldr; I think with Sam’s route, the timing of the kiss and context of the kiss matters, and I hope to create several options (or all options) to match the different types of relationship people are going for with Sam!
Sorry, that was long, but I hope it makes sense!
Ooh interesting, hmm. Did you get the option for a ‘hulk’ nickname? Did you play from the start, or from an old save? I think sometimes old saves have messed up stats.
Ooh, I think it doesn’t necessarily infer PC is white… Deepal’s just sort of saying that they get why Rayyan feels like they need to win, as someone born to an immigrant family and a POC. But I’ll go re-read the scene and see how I can improve it.
Totally understand!! I do think at some point I’ll add the option for MC to pick their race / ethnicity, or at least whether or not they’re a POC. It’s just something I know will require some work because it’s important to me, and I don’t want to do it half-assed!
Totally fair!! HAHA. I’ve added the option, but you might have to go to the start of the game to set it. Also I tried to find all the moments in the game where nicknames appear and edit the code to honor the “nicknames mode” stat, but I might have missed it out—let me know if I did!
Ooh interesting! Great suggestion, I’ve added this!
Right, so you mean you didn’t kiss Tobin at their house on Friday, but the game’s acting like you did? Do you mind letting me know which dialogue options you chose leading up to the kiss in the locker rooms?
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Wow amazing work! Really good writing and exceptional scenes between your teammates and your hallmates.
A question; what is the code for beast mode?
Thank you so much
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Awwwwww. 
I THINK I only lost the second game, but I have a save right at the start of the doubl- actually, you pushed an update, so now I have saves at the start of chapter 4, let me replay realy quick:
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Sorry folks, because i added an option to cancel nicknames to the startup file, I think you’ll need to replay from the start to set the nickname variable properly. Please let me know if you still see it? Sorry for the trouble!
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I’ll note that some error messages say “nickname” while others say “nicknames”, so maybe there’s some naming difference mucking up the works?
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Ooh yes, thanks for the heads-up! So sorry, missed that one, have done a quick run-through using random test, should be working now!
@JBento Yup! haha thanks for the sharp eyes!
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Quick edit incase of spoilers.
Summary
I’m not sure if it’s just me, but the Sam scene in the newest update kinda threw me off. There’s a whole lot of talk about others she’s been with before you which is incredibly off putting especially for a romance scene imo.
Anyways, still one of my favorite WIP even though I know nothing about Tennis.
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Ya know, you guys have convinced me. I’ve taken a re-look at the scene, and have reworded it a bit. The conversation about what Sam has been up to in high school can come later, or perhaps in a POV scene. It’s a little jarring there, for sure.
Here’s what it looks like in case you don’t want to re-read everything from the start to get to the scene. Obviously, major spoilers so look away if you haven’t read it in-game yet!
Sam kiss scene
The kiss is just as devastating as the first one had been.
That one had taken you completely by surprise, even though you might’ve guessed that it’d been building up all along—but this one you’d felt in your bones for a long time, like the build-up to a heavy thunderstorm.
Every day that Sam had been gone, every minute that you’d longed for ${Sam_his} presence, every fleeting moment that you’d thought of ${Sam_him}, and imagined ${Sam_his} lips on yours—all of it was now coalescing into this kiss, as though you could pour everything you ever wanted, everything you ever dreamed about, into the way you moved against ${Sam_him}.
You have so much you want to say—‘I missed you’ and the ‘where the goddamn hell have you been all this time’, and the ‘I want to hold you and never let you go’ and you hope that this kiss says all of that.
You know what the two of you had talked about right before you’d left for Cargill, you don’t know what kissing Sam here in this locker room means once you leave the sanctity of this space. But right now, you don’t want to think about that. Not with Sam’s heart thumping loudly enough for you to feel it as you hold ${Sam_him} in a tight embrace. Not yet. You want to stretch out this light, soaring feeling in your insides for just a little longer.
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My mc is not in an additional extracurricular, he needs some time to actually sleep and write essays after all. Otherwise drama would have been much more up his alley than photography, he’s not really a behind the scenes kind of boy.
I just hope we get back the option to major in either business or astrophysics some time both would be cool and fit my mc albeit for different reasons, fortunately it seems mc does not have to choose in freshman year. 
I do think pre-med might be a bit misplaced as going for medicine requires as much of a dedicated commitment as turning tennis pro would and going down that path leaves little time for anything else big. I mean we have another good WIP right here on these forums dedicated to the trials and tribulations of becoming a doctor (well surgeon technically).
Ooh, that is super cool!! Love it!! 
Though I don’t know if my mc will even go for a kiss this time if Sam doesn’t initiate it. He’s a bit of a dense brat when it comes to those kinds of things after all. My personal take was that if Sam doesn’t initiate it on this visit my mc will…but in California when he’s less preoccupied with other stuff.
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@DropsCity1992 YAY! Glad you gave it a try, and that it did not disappoint 
I know medieval / fantasy IFs get a lot more attention on this, but it always makes me happy when I get folks coming in not expecting anything, and ending up liking CT:OS!
@Anthony_13 Oof, okay that’s weird! Do you mind screenshotting the options that you found more speed / endurance bugs at? I’ve fixed the one you found on line 1734 I think! And yay! Another Sam-mancer, you have impeccable taste!
@Socrates Aww thanks for the kind words!! 
It’s: unleashthekraken
@augustus27 WOW!! Thanks so much!! This is too too kind, oh my goodness, I’m absolutely floored! I am so happy that you love the characters, and that you think the choices are meaningful
You raise an excellent question! I had initially (ambitiously) wanted the game to cover all of college, but as you can tell, the game’s already almost half a million words and nowhere near halfway through freshman year. There will be time skips coming soon, but it probably won’t be nearly enough to allow me to skip all the way to the end of college. Still, I’ll see what I can do to deliver something detailed enough to be true to the level of detail and do the “little moments” justice, while still achieving some level of… “satisfying scope” i.e. tie things up at a place where MC has achieved something meaningful!
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I think that was part of my reply here but could have been discord too. So hard to keep track of where I’ve written stuff!
But as I think I’ve mentioned here the path I forsee for MCxSam was definitely the whole they’re so oblivious to it that they can’t get their acts together thing. The fact that you’re even catering to different ways of going about the relationship is a gold star in itself.
I think once you’ve got all the paths in place the jarringness of some of the scenes won’t be as bad, cus at the moment you’re just trying to get as much out as possible and can neaten up certain things as you go - Because after all this is a big ass live Beta.
I will admit on a re read the Locker room scene was a bit jarring but that was more to do with it conflicting with my head cannon of both MC and Sam being a Sports Nerd and a gaming nerd respectivly that they wouldn’t have much experience prior to college.
But that’s not your fault.
I do still think that the ideal time for this to go down is going to be later, in private after a conversation about feelings. To piggyback off a tumblr ask I saw I actually think it comes after an “I love you”
But again that’s not to take away from the Sam fans that want to go zero to 100 straight away - like I mentioned before the fact that there are multiple paths for these ships to take place is 5 stars for me
it actually is! But I’m gonna be hobbled for awhile and for someone that usually has such a large stride it can be very fuaterating I can’t get places as quick as I’d like. But thanks for asking/remembering
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Edit:
Makes absolute sense, that’s also why I decided not to kill myself over a part of the game that would probably be very marginal / tangential.
As for the option for business/astrophysics, noted, I might add it back in considering I haven’t made much headway (and might choose not to) by way of adding actual differences to gameplay based on majors (just some flavor text), so I might be able to broaden the majors that are selectable. We’ll keep it in KIV now. Agreed on pre-med, but I wanted the option to give folks the chance to go on “hard mode”, so to speak.
I’m glad you like the plans for Sam! Totally makes sense that MC would wait for Sam to initiate and not act otherwise, because there’s a ton of other things on their mind, and it makes sense that this particular trip would just be a “yay my best friend is here to see me” kind of thing for MC. Besides, being in Sam’s turf (and seeing a piece of the world they’ve built for themselves may spur them to really think about what Sam means to them, and whether it’s something they want to pursue or give up.)
Agree!
I think I’ll move it to a different conversation (one about feelings), like you say. Thanks! Right now if you want to see the current iteration of the scene, I’ve linked the post above!
As for your foot 
Oh man, I know, sometimes recovery is so frustrating when you’re used to being super active, I totally feel that (gosh, I hate when there’s any part of me that isn’t working at 1000%).
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Cool, Glad I was able to help!
Oooh yeah the new scene is much more palatable. Nicely done.
The text about it being the second one (Reffering back to the surprise one from the prologue) gives me the idea that maybe if you lock the Locker room smooch only for those that also got the one in the prologue it makes more sense in the context of the ice has already been broken by that point.
Sorry if I’m meddling too much 
Yeah we’re absolutely in sync on body parts not working the way they’re supposed to being fusterating, I’m actively grumpy if something doesn’t feel right. I just wanna go go go.
PSA: Folks, If your calves feel tight - Might not be a good idea to do an explosive push off on it.
Kiniso Tape makers will love you though. Lol.
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This makes a lot of sense! I’ll see what I can do
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