Development Blog - May 2025

Hey all!

Firstly, as I always like to do after an update, welcome to all the new supporters! I really appreciate your positive feedback and overall support following this latest chapter.

With all you newbies showing up, or re-subbing, to show your support, we have once again passed the 500 sub count! I already celebrated that milestone once, so I’m not going to celebrate it again. Plus I know that’s just going to drop down to less than this next month, as is tradition with Oppaiman Store subs.

Regardless, you’re all helping with my goal of being able to work on Origin Story full time. There’s still a long way to go before I feel comfortable enough to give up my job (without my wife killing me I mean), but we’re getting there.

The chapter itself seems to have gone down mostly very well, though not without the usual handful of grumbles, this time from people who are so offended by lesbian sex that they’ll go nuts over a scene that is only available if you have lesbian content turned on in the first place. The mind boggles. But then again, a few of them even literally said “I heard there’s a scene…” so clearly haven’t even played it. I hate humanity sometimes.

Another grumble is with the amount of other VN namedrops even though only one new one was named; the rest were just references but hey ho. Those, I’ll admit, were maybe a tad too heavy-handed but I just enjoy paying homage to the VNs and developers that inspire me. I guess the good news to those guys who disliked it is this was literally the last time in my original script that I namedrop or reference other VNs. Though, much like the lovely Jenny, you may see other alternate-universe versions of other AVN characters in the future.

It seems that both the new side girls, Sapphire and Meredith, were also received really well, with many even claiming that Meri is now in their top 3. I’m honestly quite surprised, and pleased, about the reception to them. Both girls will return, but not for a while.

A couple of render bugs (curse you, rogue t-shirt) and inconsequential variable-check bugs that lead to a line or two of dialogue being missed have been pointed out, along with the usual array of typos. There’s nothing I’m in any rush to fix though as they’re all so minor, so expect all that to get fixed for the next update.

In other news, I made the decision to start charging for Origin Story on Itch going forward as I feel like there’s now too much content to justify giving it away for free. For all the time and energy I’m spending on it, I need to start getting more back from the Itch side of things… though it doesn’t help that they randomly withhold 30% of my earnings for “tax” even though I’m in a country with a US tax treaty and shouldn’t be paying anything… and then they take a month to reply to emails to tell me I need to take the tax interview again to fix it (an interview which even confirms I shouldn’t be paying any tax)… and then they take over a month to validate the interview (still waiting). I kind of hate Itch’s customer service.

Anyway, given that I have earned more in 24 hours of first slapping a price on the game, than I had done in a year and a half of relying on donations, I would say I made the right call. Now just to wait for customer services to pull their fingers out their asses and validate my tax status because I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them take another 30%, only for my own government to take 20% of the rest too. Rant over.

In terms of a Chapter 8 update, I guess I’ll tell you a tiny bit of what to expect next time round without spoiling too much. Firstly, for the girls involved, this might be the chapter that includes the most amount of Lis and side girls overall since Chapter 3 (and that was only because you’ve got the entire Sisterhood in that one scene).

Lady Steel will be taking a break from being your bodyguard, but don’t worry, she still plays a significant part in the chapter. She does have an important event happening after all. Instead, you’ll be looked after by Emerald for the day, so a lot of your time in the chapter will be spent with these two Sisters, along with Evelyn & Lucia (if you’re on her path). Cat and Marina also need some explanations. And then you’ll get appearances from five other girls too.

Also, while there will be some bonuses for being on the “manipulate Lucia” path, there’ll be significant payoff if you’re on the Normal path too. So those of you who are nice are going to get a whole heap of character growth (I hope).

I’ll warn you though, whichever path you have chosen, you’re going to need an Emerald save for some other fun stuff.

Ideal playthrough's stats are going to be:

Evelyn + Emerald + Amber + Lucia Manipulate

Evelyn + Emerald + Lucia Normal

Also, Lucia’s getting a lore-friendly hair makeover. You’ll get a peek of this in a special render due in a few weeks.

In terms of progress on the chapter itself, I’m now 1583 renders in, with probably another 100-200 to go. Then starts the post-working journey, and all the music, sfx, lewd scene writing… blah blah.

I’ve also said that Chapter 8 was likely going to be my Season 1 finale and that still currently stands, so firstly, there’ll be some work to figure out on how to export saves so they can be imported into Season 2. TakoYuh, dev of Westview Academy, has pointed me in the direction of how to do this… I just need to look into it more.

This also means I’ll be hopefully be in a position to push Origin Story on to Steam, so I expect I’ll have a lot of work ahead of me in terms of getting ready for that, including trailers etc…

I may have to devote some time to redoing much of the music too. Even though it a lot of it was acquired through Storyblocks before they adjusted their license to no longer allow pornographic content, and they have confirmed to other devs that music acquired on their old license is still fine to use, I do not trust them. Sadly, this means I’m also going to lose the main menu song, which I adore.

So, I’m in a bind as to whether I release it on steam with the music included and risk a takedown if they feel like being assholes, or do I just replace the music with I know with more certainty will be safer to use. Annoyingly, after three months of trying, I still haven’t been able to sign up to stockmusic.net which a lot of other devs use, nor have they replied to any of the emails or contact forms I’ve sent, and now I’m convinced they’re no longer in operation.

A Steam release will also mean that I will have to rewrite a little bit to err on the side of caution. If I’d have known about Steam’s aversion to “school” settings before I started, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble as the fact that it’s a “school” has no bearing on the story itself, and the characters are clearly 18+ so it’s not even like I was just pulling a fast one to sneak in some loli schoolgirl content. That shit totally isn’t my bag. Unfortunately, I was just a little bit naïve about these things back then.

So, I’m going to have to remove any reference to “school” or “principal” and likely have to re-pose and render a few of the scenes that appear a tad more “high school-y”. New Riverford State is now going to become The New Riverford Academy for the Meta-Enhanced. Principal Brown will become Dean Brown. You get the drill.

One significant change I’m likely going to have to make is to completely redo Lucia’s “naughty schoolgirl” photoshoot because from what I’m hearing is that school uniform ain’t gonna fly and I cannot take any chances with Steam, because from what I hear, I’ll never get a second one. For me to achieve my goal and be able to work on this full time, that is a risk I cannot take.

Anyway, that’s it from me. Keep your eyes peeled in a few weeks for the first preview of Chapter 8. Man, it’s going to be so hard to choose what to show you that doesn’t spoil too much. Other than that, you’ll have to enjoy whatever renders I choose to include in these monthly blogs.

I appreciate each and every one of you.

Peace.
JDOR