As a government project, Digital Factory was born with numerous goals attached to it. One of them is to allow novice and new game developers to dip their toes into the industry early to develop their skills.
Another goal is to educate the public on the various growing types of monsters being discovered, from the Slow Walker Zombies to the Sprinter Zombies and even the Hercules Zombies.
Each of them was deeply studied to the point their habits were recorded. And the best way to educate an entire population on dangers was through entertainment.
How many young kids learned about the weaknesses of zombies or any monsters in general from video games? The answer was the majority.
It was simply the easiest entrance point and acted as a supplement to when these kids grew up and got a more thorough education during their military service.
As a result, all the free character designs and animations are made hyper-realistic to reflect real-world dangers.
However, Jack didn't care about all the nuances of this subject. All he cared about was that it decided that his game would be more nightmarish.
Jack looked around the zombie category and found about twenty zombies that would work with his game. They weren't so disgusting that they would make him puke. He dragged what he selected and put them all into a Zombie folder.
"Now for the plants. I should be able to find some good ones that aren't too horrid." Jack muttered to himself.
The plant selection was much better. They were not so disgusting.
Next up was getting the assets, background, and music. Luckily, these were also easy to get.
Once Jack had everything he needed to make his game look how he imagined, now was the long and troublesome part—the coding.
Cracking his knuckles, Jack focused and tried a few test programs to see if he understood how to best use Digital Factory.
Starting with the classic "Hello, World!".
Hours quickly passed by as Jack's fingers glided on his keyboard. There were no pauses, no hesitation, and with his fingers flying across so fast, they became blurry.
With his face fully concentrated, the code flowed out of his mind into the program.
Suddenly, Jack stopped as he frowned.
"There is a bug," Jack mumbled as he quickly saved his work before finding the lines of code that wouldn't work properly if he tested it.
It was mostly correct. However, with certain inputs, the entire program would crash. He just needed to limit what could enter this portion of the code.
After fixing the code, Jack saved it with a quick keyboard command and ran a brief test. After a few seconds, all the parameters succeeded, so he continued the coding.
Time flew by as Jack forgot to sleep. By the time he felt he had done enough, it was already the next day.
"Shit, did I end up staying up all night? I got too into making this game." Jack said with surprise.
He had never been this excited to make a game. Maybe it was because this was his first time having complete creative freedom. He no longer needed to follow the system's harsh requirements and could do what he wanted.
"Alright, I'll just quickly give this project a name…and run it to see if I missed anything," Jack yawned as a wave of drowsiness began creeping up.
Although he was tired he felt a bit reluctant to stop.
Still, he gave the project a decent name, Windor's Siege (Beta).
He then ran it.
Immediately, a black screen popped up. It slowly faded to reveal a lonely city surrounded by a massive black wall in the middle of a barren wasteland. It was the last oasis. The last patch of land untouched by the monsters wandering about.
The camera then panned out before zooming into a small abandoned base that looked like it hadn't been taken care of for years. An old truck stopped in front of it as a young girl stepped out of the truck, a cigar in her mouth, a freshly printed newspaper under her armpit, and an open letter in her hand.
Then, the title screen faded in.
Placeholder Title (Change later)
"I should change it before I forget again," Jack said and minimized the page and changed the title.
After a quick save, Jack opened the updated game and watched the beginning again.
Windor's Siege
"All fixed. Hopefully, I replaced the other placeholders." Jack muttered before yawning.
Due to a lack of time, he didn't have much else for the beginning. It just went straight into the gameplay.
He planned to add the introduction and guide once he woke up.
But overall, the gaming portion was pretty good. Overall, the game was decently balanced. However, he felt the resource management portion was a bit too easy.
So, he made it harder by making the food, water, and electricity more expensive. It wasn't the perfect fix, but it made it more fun.
After making many little changes, Jack looked at the time and slapped his face. It was already noon.
"That's enough for now." Jack yawned and quickly saved twice before going to sleep.
When Jack woke up, it was already six in the afternoon. He was starving, but when he looked at his bank account. He gritted his teeth and ate whatever he had in the fridge before returning to work.
After working on his game until three in the morning, Jack sighed with relief as he completed the beta. It was now good enough for him to send it to Sarah, his investor, to test out and get her opinion.
"There are a few things I wish I had more time to do, but it's good enough. This is only the basic framework so it will change quite a bit." Jack muttered to himself and began to send it to Sarah to get her thoughts.
Satisfied with the email, Jack hit send.
Across the city, in a college dorm, Sarah was sitting on her bed wearing a white tank top and baggy shorts with pink heart prints. Her expression was energetic as she read a textbook about the history of plants in video games.
Sarah's phone buzzed, pulling her attention away from her textbook.
"Ding!"
[Hester Bunny]: It's done.
"Why did you have to send such an ominous text?" Sarah muttered as she rolled her eyes.
She sent him a thumbs-up emoji before pulling up her email. His email was the most recent one, so she clicked on it and was surprised.
Inside the email, Jack had detailed which platforms the game was compatible with. And the range was what surprised her.
It was compatible with mobile, computers, consoles, and VR—the entire package.
"As expected of the legend himself. No wonder he was able to upload three games in two years." Sarah muttered with a smile.
She had played some of the other games he had developed, and she couldn't deny that they were fun and well-made. Unfortunately, none of them matched her tastes so she couldn't get into them.
So she had the same expectations for this one, too.
Still, she was willing to try it, so she downloaded the game package and immediately opened it on her phone.
She saw the animation scene and clicked her tongue.
"It's amazing. He did this in less than two days. I can tell he used the free assets from Digital Factory, but they all work so well together." Sarah said with excitement.
Next up was the pretty basic tutorial. But it was all tied back to the story, which made what was going on clear to her.
From what she gathered, she was a young female Botanist who inherited money from her grandparents after their death. At the same time, the city, which was in the background, incentivized people to buy off land outside the city to anyone who wanted it.
The only thing was that they needed to provide their own protection from the hoards of monsters that came every night. As for what kind of protection was required, it was plant monsters that came in the format of cards.
Some cards could be bought directly from the city, but they were basic and mostly farm-type plants. You need to research the really powerful plant monsters yourself.
Desiring freedom and a change of scenery, her character took this offer up, bought this base camp, and immediately moved in.
"So quick. Did Hester base the main character's background on me?" Sarah was flattered and felt invested in the story.
"Wow, the first plant cards I got are the Furred Venus Fly Trap and the Dandelion Fruit Tree. He really put a lot of thought into it."
"He even knew that the fruits of the Dandelion Fruit Tree are inedible and used as materials for other things like oil. So these are just used to sell off and get money to buy other resources." Sarah said as she felt giddy.
She felt she had gotten an easy and fun way to review her plant knowledge.
"Ahh! The first horde is coming. Wow, they are disgusting. Luckily, only Slow Walker Zombies, my Furred Venus Fly Trap, should be able to get them." Sarah muttered as she watched as a green-furred Venus Fly Trap that was ten feet tall opened one of its mouths full of razor-sharp teeth.
Once one of the decaying Zombies got close, the mouth lunged, snapping shut with a sickening crunch. Only the Zombie's calves were exposed, and they wiggled helplessly. The rest of its body was melted from the pouring acid.
The second, third, and fourth Slow Walker Zombies suffered from the same fate since they were all clumped up close to each other—a common trait for these Slow Walker Zombies.
"So nasty," Sarah said with a pale face. She felt her stomach churn watching these Zombies get eaten.
It wasn't pretty, but it didn't deter her from enjoying the rest of the game.
However, she decided to tell Jack to make everything cuter once he can.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
"Huh? Is it seven in the morning already? Did I stay up all night?" Sarah said with surprise. She was having so much fun that she forgot to go to bed.
"Uh, night five is about to begin. I'll finish this round, then get ready." Sarah said as her eyes glued to her screen.
Her roommate woke up and greeted her, but she did not get anything back.