episode_0001

-The Last Cry of a Geek Game Company

-The Petty Resistance of a Dying Star

All that poured towards our company, which announced the development of a new game, was ridicule.

Having survived for over a decade with shoddy games, the company had been disdained for its low-quality dating sims it aimed to develop. It was deserving of criticism.

But this time is different.

A grand open-world project combining dating sims and RPGs.

If this fails, our company is finished.

“Hey, isn’t this something?”

“Our guys can do this kind of stuff, so why haven’t they done it before?”

“Don’t waste time on useless things. When did we ask you to pixelate…?”

The development team got to work.

They developed a separate physics engine for the hunting and action, which could be considered the essence of an RPG game, and it turned out even better than expected.

When swinging a sword, it’s not just about reducing the monster’s HP; wounds can appear on hit areas or limbs can be severed.

Quite realistic.

I thought all we had were pixel artists as slaves, but it was unexpected.

I will write the story for the dating sim part.

Considering I’ve played these types of games the most in the company, I was suddenly entrusted with this task.

Despite having only played two dating sims in my entire life, I’m now in charge of the dating sim story.

An ominous feeling looms, but watching the development team burning the midnight oil tonight, I decided to muster up courage.

“Hey, everything’s fine, but isn’t this too unnatural?”

“What do you mean?”

“You meet a saint in the morning, a witch at lunch, and an ice lord at dinner. But none of them suspect anything?”

“…”

The first problem with a geek company.

Seeking realism in strange places.

Who plays a dating sim wanting the heroine to suspect infidelity?

No one wants to sit in front of a computer seeking healing only to end up feeling like they’ve been scammed.

“Dating sims are like that by nature. So, it’s better to avoid elements that might tire the users.”

“Do we really need to follow the same path as other dating sims? We should be creating our own game, not imitating others. Originality is key, isn’t it?”

“…”

The second problem with a geek company.

Being innovative in unnecessary areas.

They said they didn’t show their innovative spirit until the company was on the verge of collapse.

“Moreover, if we do it this way, it’ll be more like a harem… what was it again?”

“Are you talking about a harem?”

“Yes, a harem. It might increase the difficulty level. Don’t kids nowadays like challenging games? Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re right…”

Click, click.

Complete overhaul of the story.

Unlike the pure love route where all time is devoted to one heroine, the harem route now offers many more options.

As time allocated to heroines decreases, suspicions grow, leading to dialogues and actions reflecting those doubts.

When suspicions peak, heroines may even transform into yanderes.

– “I love you! Why can’t you tell me where you’ve been?”

Even as I scribbled the lines, I questioned their validity.

Is this a dating sim or a horror game?

Nevertheless, I decided to steer the course in a somewhat positive direction.

After all, players can experience the typical sweetness in the pure love route.

By limiting it to the harem route, maybe we can attract fans of such peculiar dating sims, almost like a horror game but not quite, unique to our company.

“I don’t know. Just criticize away.”

I pushed forward.

The story was completed in no time, and the ‘realistic’ lines the CEO mentioned began to be added.

Now, players will have to use their heads to see the harem ending.

“Where did you go and come back from?” the heroine asked, to which the protagonist could excuse themselves by showing the monster’s horn they had prepared in advance, claiming they were out hunting.

“Wow. This seems plausible.”

“I think it was a good choice to make it an open-world game.”

As game development progressed, the company atmosphere improved. Despite everyone looking pale due to frequent overtime, it was unrelated.

The protagonist, who became stronger by leveling up through hunting and acquiring equipment, protects and helps the heroine, gradually growing closer to her.

As the protagonist’s fame rises by subduing monsters, the heroine sometimes shows interest and approaches first.

Moreover, when forming a party with the top-tier heroine of a specific dungeon, the previously hellish difficulty level significantly decreases.

Romance and RPG.

Initially thought to be incompatible, seeing them blend so well is touching.

I worried that my story might seem too shabby compared to the high-quality physics engine I used…

“It’s three months until release! Let’s all work hard!”

Three months until release.

Saying this doesn’t leave me much to do now.

I’ve run spell checks several times already.

Checked if the font is breaking.

Reviewing the dialogue distribution per cutscene is just a way to pass the time.

The development team has been working overtime until the last day, making it impossible for me to slack off.

“10 seconds until launch! 9! 8…”

Finally, the long-awaited launch day arrived.

The in-game stills and PV released during the game drought period were enough to capture public interest.

Aggressive marketing, covering a subway car with ads, also played a significant role, even attracting criticism for its aggressiveness.

Whether positive or negative, our game had garnered significant attention even before its release.

And at the moment the game finally launched,

“Huh?”

The server crashed.

While everyone was initially surprised, their expressions were bright.

It was the first time such traffic had flooded our notoriously lax company servers, creating tension.

However, as the server kept crashing with each influx of players, we had no choice but to drastically reduce the simultaneous connection limit, shedding tears over limiting it to 5000 players.

How many?

Up to 5000 players.

The server couldn’t handle more than that.

With hundreds of thousands waiting to play, only 5000 could access the game.

The CEO, belatedly realizing the severity of the situation, decided to pull every penny available to expand the servers.

-Is this an RPG game? It’s too brutal, isn’t it?

-It’s too scary; I can’t hunt. Look at their arms getting cut off and blood splattering as they flee; it’s too much.

-Don’t other games avoid creating such realistic systems? LOL

Unexpected criticisms flooded internet communities.

Many found the action utilizing the ambitious physics engine developed by the team excessively intense.

While the game atmosphere was generally heart-throbbingly romantic, diving into combat felt like a bloody battle between a goblin leader fighting to protect his family and a psychopathic protagonist, making immersion difficult for many.

-The romance story is decent, right?

-Damn, I want to focus on the romance, but having to go out hunting to gather materials in between is so damn frustrating.

-Wow, Yulia’s female movements look amazing. What have these guys been doing without making a romance game until now???

Amidst this, there was much praise for the romance storyline.

I’m torn between being happy about this or not.

My feelings are mixed.

-Why are these people suddenly collectively paranoid??? Every time they go out and come back, they start acting up?

– I don’t know if I’m doing romance or mental care simulation.

– Is this game some kind of anti-adultery public service announcement?

All the harsh criticisms were due to a system proposed by the CEO, like a damn idiot.

I told you.

If you raise the harem difficulty like this, people will get sick of it.

– Did you want to show off the newly made physics engine like that? (★☆☆☆☆)

– It seems like they don’t even know what genre of game they are making. (★★☆☆☆)

-Let’s focus on one thing at a time. (☆☆☆☆☆)

And then they faced criticism from game critics as well.

It’s not like they didn’t respond to it.

In the end, the so-called realistic system where blood splattered by hit location and bodies were dismembered was scrapped.

Instead of that, they added an effect where monsters stagger and stiffen with each hit, and when they die, their bodies disappear.

The fact that the development team had to pull all-nighters was just an extra burden.

They also expanded the servers, allowing up to 100,000 simultaneous connections.

All of this was achieved within three months of release.

Considering the time it took to acquire the servers, it was relatively short.

Thanks to the CEO’s boasted connections, it was a triumphant feat.

“Why? The server got bigger, but why did the concurrent users decrease?”

“······.”

However, three months was enough time for disappointed users to leave after reading reviews and for those who were waiting to try it out to become exhausted and give up.

It was too late.

Even after the update, if asked whether there were any issues, the answer would be no.

It was a mess, with dialogues becoming jumbled up from a certain point due to what seemed like meddling with the code.

Most of the time, the game devolved into chaos to the point where normal gameplay became difficult, but occasionally, things aligned perfectly.

Like heroines remembering events from previous episodes, the dialogues flowed smoothly.

One user who broke through that lottery-like probability even posted on the community forum that the heroines were getting goosebumps.

How we laughed at that.

In the end, the game failed.

Trying to fix one bug led to another popping up, and fixing that introduced two more.

It was said that the problem stemmed from the code being too messy.

It was a problem that required starting over from scratch, and even setting aside the time it would take, it was uncertain whether our manpower alone could accomplish it.

The game failed.

There was one person who still couldn’t accept that fact.

“Hey you bastards! We bought the servers, so why can’t you fix the game! If you just fix the bugs, the traffic will bounce back!”

With the impending disaster of potential code chaos, ignoring the development team’s suggestion to bring in external help and the need to expand the servers sooner rather than later, the CEO missed the golden opportunity.

He must have known that himself.

Without blaming others, it was something we couldn’t endure.

The CEO believed that once the users who appreciated our efforts understood, they would return to the game that had already failed.

But even he eventually raised the white flag as the interest payments on loans piled up and showed no signs of the game’s recovery until the debts mounted.

Thus, our ambitious new project at the company declared the end of service just six months after its launch.

“Sigh······.”

Stepping into the empty office, a sense of unease washed over me.

I never thought I’d see the development team living like this, forced to face such a quiet office.

It truly feels like the end now.

Once the company goes under, what should I do next?

Should I go back to writing drama or movie scripts?

Or maybe web novels are popular these days; should I try my hand at that······.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t played the final version yet.”

Perhaps because he had been working all day, the developer cleared away the scattered trash absentmindedly and sat down at the computer.

I remember mentioning before that his computer wasn’t locked, but it seems nothing has changed.

I launched the cursor on the game client and rubbed my chin.

Although I didn’t create the character, I wrote all the dialogues for the heroine, protagonist, and supporting characters.

Curious about how those kids look in the game, I wanted to experience it firsthand.

Even though it’s a failed game, I wanted to enjoy it until the ending.

I also had a desire to see just how messed up it was to receive such harsh criticism.

“Why is this happening?”

However, even after the loading bar filled up completely, the game didn’t start for quite some time.

Contrary to expectations, banging on the computer did nothing to make the loading bar budge.

Now, has a startup bug appeared out of nowhere?

As I sighed and got up from my seat, the game suddenly started.

[ID: Yu Jin]

[password: ********]

[Login successful.]

What’s this?

Without touching anything, the login happened automatically with the ID and password entered on its own.

How does it know my name again…

“Ugh…”

Suddenly, a bright light poured out from the computer screen.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen as if mesmerized, and soon the light completely enveloped me.

It was too bright, so I tightly shut my eyes, and when I opened them again.

[Welcome.]

“…”

In front of my eyes spread a view of a dense forest.

Not knowing if it was a dream or reality, no matter how many times I blinked, rubbed my eyes, or slapped myself, it remained.

“Kieeek! The enemy of our father! Keek!”

“What is this now…”

Suddenly, a goblin with a club ran towards me, tears streaming down its face.

Only now did I seem to have an idea of where I was.

I felt like crying.