"I'm never drinking again… my head is killing me."
Lucas Hartgroaned while rubbing his temples and sat up on the bed.
He blinked his sticky eyelids a few times, then opened his eyes—and froze.
The place he saw felt completely unfamiliar.
"Wait, this place…"
Before Lucas Hartcould figure out what was going on, a flood of memories suddenly poured into his mind.
It took him nearly an hour to sort through everything in his head.
One thing was clear: in his previous life, he was just an ordinary game planner. Now, he had somehow crossed into a parallel world.
Based on the memories in his mind, something had clearly gone wrong somewhere in this world's timeline, because it was completely different from the one he came from.
Thanks to major advancements in technology, every industry had changed in a big way.
Just how big? Lucas Hartcouldn't say for sure. But the biggest difference he could feel directly was in the gaming and entertainment world.
After the war ended, peace returned, and technology exploded. In this world, people no longer had to worry about things like going hungry or not being able to afford medical care.
The economy recovered incredibly fast. Since people didn't have to stress about survival and had money in their pockets, entertainment naturally became a booming industry.
Gaming, of course, was part of that.
In his original world, games were often treated like a public enemy, blamed for everything.
Not just in his home country—even overseas it was the same. Why did shootings happen so often? "Because games promote violence!" they said. So instead of pulling guns off supermarket shelves, they wanted to ban games—the so-called "root cause" of the problem.
But things were different in this parallel world. Here, a well-made game could be considered a work of art. Top-tier game designers were treated like literary giants.
Still, one thing stood out to Lucas:
In this world, familiar names like Ubisoft and EA didn't exist. Instead, the big names in gaming were studios he had never heard of.
Famous developers from his original world were completely missing from this one.
People like Hidetaka Miyazaki, who left Oracle to join FromSoftware and create the Souls series.
Masahiro Sakurai, who redefined platformers with the Smash Bros. series.
Sid Meier, who defined 4X strategy games.
Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of Final Fantasy.
The Houser brothers, who pushed the boundaries of 3D open-world design.
Hideo Kojima, pioneer of stealth games and cinematic storytelling.
Shigeru Miyamoto, a true legend in gaming history.
None of these names existed in this world. It was like they had vanished.
As for Lucas himself, he was now just a regular student who had graduated less than half a year ago. His dream had been to work in the manga industry.
"This world… it's a paradise for people in the arts!"
Looking back at his new memories and browsing some info online, Lucas couldn't help but sigh in amazement.
Strict copyright laws and strong protections for creative work—these things were almost unimaginable in his old world.
"Illustrations, huh…"
After reading up on the basics of this world from both his memories and the internet, Lucas Hartnoticed some sketches sitting on the desk.
They were illustrations he had drawn before.
Before the "crossing," the original Lucas had wanted to become a manga artist.
Unfortunately, no matter how many times he submitted his work, it never passed an editor's review.
He had also posted some manga online, but they didn't really gain much attention.
Besides the small amount of money he earned from those online comics, he also made a living by drawing character art for novelists and doing concept art for game companies.
He wasn't well-known, and his drawing skills weren't exactly top-tier. He mostly just adjusted to whatever each job required.
The usual rate for an illustration was around 120 dollar, and if the client was picky, he'd have to revise it over and over again.
"Manga? I don't really know anything about that!" Lucas Hart muttered as he recalled the memories in his head.
Even though those memories gave Lucas Hart a solid understanding of various drawing techniques, it didn't really help much.
After all, the guy before him had barely made ends meet by doing freelance illustration work.
As for manga from his past life, Lucas had heard of plenty—One Punch Man, One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, Conan—he knew all the names.
But read them? Sorry, not really.
He had only watched the anime. So how would he know how to actually draw one of those mega-hit mangas?
"From the looks of it, I might have to go back to game development again... and game dev in this world is seriously fast!" Lucas clicked his tongue after doing some research.
Unlike in his old world, where each game company had to build its own game engine, overseas companies here still followed that model, but in his new home country, the government actually provided a standard game engine.
Everyone knew that making a game involved a bunch of different areas: balance, art, story, level design, and of course, code.
And code was the most important—and most basic—part of it all.
It determined how the game actually ran. It was like the skeleton of the whole thing.
No matter how pretty or creative your game looked, if the code wasn't optimized, it was basically guaranteed to flop.
But in this world, thanks to advances in IT, artificial intelligence had started to take shape and was being used in almost every industry. And gaming was one of the most affected.
Things like systems and commands were now handled using AI through the official game engine.
No more situations where a programmer had to be metaphorically "sacrificed to the gods."
These days, if anyone got blamed, it was usually the planners.
Of course, even if it was convenient, not every designer could just use the AI as much as they wanted.
That's because using AI to write code needed a huge amount of processing power.
Each game designer had a set monthly limit.
They could also build their own private servers to handle computing, as long as they paid for the license.
But building and maintaining those servers wasn't cheap.
As for becoming a game designer, there were three main paths.
One was to take the annual summer exam held by the Game Division. Pass it, and you'd earn the title of Game Designer.
Another way was to work at a game company for two to three years. After that, the company could help you apply through official channels to get certified by the Game Division.
The last option was to create an indie game that got recognized by the market. That route was meant for hobbyists or fans who didn't come from a professional background.
If your game sold more than 150,000 copies, or got 5,000 total reviews with an average rating above 8.5, you qualified.
Meeting either condition was enough.
"Looks pretty strict, but getting that Game Designer title shouldn't be hard for me," Lucas Hart mumbled as he read through the info, rubbing his chin.
After all, he wasn't starting from scratch. He had all the knowledge and experience of countless veterans from his past life's game industry backing him up.
Lucas Hart wasn't aiming for big AAA games just yet—he lacked the skills, resources, and money for that.
But when it came to small indie games, he felt confident.
He remembered all kinds of amazing indie games from his past life, down to the details.
Now that he understood how this world worked, recreating some of those games would be well within his ability.
"Wait a second… what's this?"
While Lucas Hart was thinking about what to do next, he suddenly noticed something.
There was a translucent blue orb-shaped mark on the back of his hand, like a birthmark.
He rubbed his thumb over it, and a transparent UI window suddenly popped up.
"A system?"
The word flashed through Lucas Hart's mind immediately.
Now that he thought about it, getting a system after being sent to another world… wasn't all that strange.
But the name of the system?
"Emotion Collection System"
Looking at the golden, flashy UI that looked just like the ones in low-budget browser games from his old world, Lucas Hart went silent.
All those shiny effects… it didn't exactly scream "serious system."
(End of Chapter)