episode_0016

Finally, the air conditioner was installed. It’s so pitiful that people who come to visit from abroad can’t even see this paradise.

Of course, that Linux guy is a bit of a tease, considering how venomous he used to be. That guy should have a taste of hellfire.

Anyway, now there’s no more need to sweat over your clothes. Plus, there’s no more braless days when Eunji uses the heat as an excuse to claim it’s legal.

“Ugh…”

I don’t know why, but Eunji looked a bit regretful. I seriously started to get scared that she really had exhibitionism.

By the middle of the vacation, I had completed 20 songs that would go into the rhythm game.

Thanks to working with Eunji, who said that work goes well when she’s next to me, I worked without going home every day. It really seems like my efficiency has increased.

I couldn’t fill the entire album with trance. But half of the songs are trance and the other half are hardcore techno, hardstyle, house, etc., so I guess it’s not quite a trance era.

For reference, I only included one popular song that has a lot of popular flavor. Personally, I don’t like to include popular songs in rhythm games, but I had no choice because Eun-ji strongly protested.

“So what should I do now?”

“I need to make a BGA”

BGA.

Abbreviation for background animation, it is a video that usually appears next to the background or notes when playing a rhythm game.

Of course, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have it. It has no meaning in the game.

However, it would be nice to have it. It is easy to understand if you think of a music video for a song. In particular, unlike songs, there are few lyrics, or if there are, they are likely to be meaningless samples, so the meaning of giving a narrative is significant in the nature of rhythm game music.

“First, I need to call Senior Jiyoung.”

The next day, I brought Yu Ji-young, who had rarely gone to work at the PC room recently.

“Among what you mentioned, motion… graphics? I think I can do it somehow. In the end, it’s about placing multiple shapes and making them move, so it’s practically like manual labor, but I think it’s doable…”

Of course, Yoo Ji-young later regrets saying this.

“But the animation is a bit… I think they want it to move smoothly like American animations, and to do that, even if you help me, I have to make something called a BGA, and I have to take it by next semester’s midterms.”

“No, that’s not it.”

The key is to create an animation-like effect using multiple images.

Actually, many of the original BGAs in the world were like that. There were quite a few cases where real animation was inserted or 3D graphics were used.

That is, the characters, backgrounds, effects, etc. are all separated into several layers, and the effects are placed on the first layer, the characters are placed behind, and then the positions of each picture are simply moved.

This creates an effect where the picture appears to be moving as if it were a video. That is the essence of BGA.

So, here’s the question.

‘Modern and 90s BGA. No, overall, why do the paintings have the same method of expression but feel different, to be exact, modern ones feel more refined and clear?’

There may be various reasons, such as the trend of drawing style, but I think the biggest reason is probably [color expression].

It’s convenient to think of it as applying a color filter when using Photoshop. This is where the washed-out colors that look like the quality of old digital pictures deteriorates come from.

So is there a solution to this situation now?

does not exist!

To be exact, I’m making it right now!

Why can’t we make it with color filters or extensions in Photoshop?

A point that needs to be addressed here.

Adobe is a bit different in this world!

To be precise, the last great achievement was to release a civilization called PDF like a flash of lightning. The WWW has developed too quickly compared to its original history, as if someone had intervened, and Adobe has been reduced to a software company1 that is serious about web scripting and file size optimization.

That is, like the original history, I don’t even think about reaching out to things like photos and videos.

It’s just karma for messing around with money in the original world. Anyway, it’s not my fault.

Anyway, Photoshop? Flash? There’s no such thing in this world. I have to make it all myself.

There’s just too much to do overall. I’m having a series of catastrophes, like the little balls I’ve shot up are turning into cannonball-sized hailstones in the clouds, smashing someone’s head and replacing the things that were supposed to come out later in their heads with bundles of synapses added to the brain soup.

Another example is that, as if someone had intervened, the open source camp represented by Linux quickly gained strength, and while the pioneer of the fashion of a certain engineering school left, a company with a logo that took a bite of an apple failed to maintain its own ecosystem and went bankrupt.

Of course, these guys deserved to fail too. They believed in the market share they gained through the preemptive effect and tried to create their own ecosystem and standards, and that worked, so they ended up receiving the karma of the original world where they were no different from neighborhood thugs who ripped off protection fees… Hey, maybe it wasn’t really my fault?

When I think about it this way, they were like puffer fish that would die from the weight of a small rock I shot at them, but maybe they actually died of natural causes?

Anyway, back to the main topic. Photoshop, which runs pretty well on PC room computers and produces output that is satisfactory by my standards, is almost complete. As for the tablet for drawing, it was fortunate that Yu Ji-young already had one.

In fact, even I think my work capacity is beyond imagination. Who in the world can make music, code a rhythm game, and code Photoshop at the same time, and make progress in a matter of months?

Yoon Yi-seo, is he, no, is she a god? Even I can see that she is a god.

Compared to when he was in the original world, his skills have improved and even evolved. Does a bad environment really make people stronger? It’s the 90s, where only the strong survive. You have to become stronger to survive!

Of course, Yu Ji-young felt like she was going to die.

‘What the heck is this thing that makes everything I need?’

Although Yoo Ji-young was ignorant of programming, he knew that Yoon Yi-seo’s records were ridiculous.

‘But it’s not that I hate it… I don’t hate it that much when you make me do things like this…’

But I was able to let it slide because I was blinded by it without even knowing it.

Tonight too, the lights were on at the KIN PC room (tentative name).

***

“Lee Seo-emong~”

“Here, you can do it like this, like playing a guitar stroke with this brush. It’s not bad to do it like shading with a line, like this, with this thickness.”

I sent Eunji back home and now I’m taking care of Yu Jiyoung. At this rate, I think I can give drawing lessons myself later.

The rhythm game coding has made significant progress with Linux, so it was completed after just a little bit of work with the members. Now all that’s left is the hardware, the BGA and the game machine…

For Tetris, we recycled a broken two-player Galaga game console, but this time things are a little different. We have to make the machine ourselves.

“Yes, that’s what happened.”

“After finishing the programming, there is a problem with the hardware”

“… Is there anyone here who has tried the saw?”

“Top?”

1. Get some plywood.

2. Draw a line on the plywood and cut it out with a saw according to the shape.

3. Assemble according to the instructions and then spray paint.

4. Insert the buttons, circuit board, and display purchased in Yongsan.

Luckily, I finished the work in two weeks. Thanks to my good blueprints. Ahem.

Of course, it wasn’t easy. Connecting the circuit was harder than I thought. When I finally finished the work, the display suddenly ate coins and turned off, and my mind went blank along with it.

If I hadn’t used my senior’s connections in mechanical engineering to pass on tasks like soldering, it would have taken a month instead of two weeks.

Yoo Ji-young and I rolled around all night and somehow managed to make BGA. I didn’t think I would lose any stamina, but after finishing, I felt exhausted and lethargic as if my whole body was soaked in lactic acid. I thought I would die from overwork again if I kept doing this, so I had to take it easy for the time being.

And so the rhythm game is complete….

“So what are you going to name the game?”

Oh, I didn’t think about that.

I just roughly copied what was originally in the world…

[EZ2MX](EZ2Max)

Hmm. That’s perfect naming skills.

***

Man 1, who came to the arcade as soon as class was over today.

I came here to play Tetris as usual, but what is this?

There are so many people that it’s hard to even get in.

Inside the crowd, which was more crowded than usual, music that was fundamentally different from the thumping music of Tetris was flowing out.

It is similar to Seo Taiji’s music style, but there are no lyrics and the music itself is different.

The man was drawn into the crowded arcade by the music that seemed to have some kind of unknown magic.

As soon as he closed the door and came in, addictive electronic sounds mixed with the piano assaulted his ears.

At the end, a maddening feast of electronic sounds brought the man to a state of ecstasy.

One song ends and the next song begins.

“Blue…white?”

There was a rumbling coming from inside. However, the man, still caught up in the afterglow of the previous song, could not hear it properly.

A new melody comes in when the lingering feeling fades. The bright atmosphere continues, but then the mood suddenly calms down and a string instrument sound that stimulates the emotions comes out.

The man was just listening to music, forgetting what he was doing.

Like everyone else already waiting, he was no longer bored with waiting.

He, who had been obsessed with studying and had no real hobbies, found his hobby that day.