Chapter: 2 - Game tycoon God Game

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Translator: Ryuma

Chapter: 2

Chapter Title: The Reason I Made Games Alone (2)

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"Hmm... Just in case, maybe I should give it a try."

Worried it might contain a virus, I dug out an old laptop I had shoved in a corner and inserted the CD.

Once the installation was complete, the game launched with familiar 16-bit background music.

'This is... similar to Princess Maker, which I used to play. Not bad, actually.'

At its core, *God Game Maker* was a raising simulation game.

You raise development funds through freelance work and part-time jobs, build up the necessary stats for game development through training, and purchase equipment to create the kind of game the player wants.

It wasn't drastically different from other raising sims, but since I was a game developer myself, many elements resonated with me, and I found myself enjoying it.

About three or four hours passed like that.

'Well, thanks to my experience with Princess Maker, I got the ending in one go.'

['Jo Hyunsoo' has succeeded in creating a 'Masterpiece Game'! Congratulations!]

I reached the game's true ending without much difficulty.

A few illustrated cutscenes played, the ending credits rolled with BGM, and I stared blankly at the screen, lost in thought.

'Haa... At least in the game, I succeeded in making a masterpiece....'

In the game, there were no condescending bosses, no office politics, and a system where effort was rewarded accordingly.

The bright smile on the protagonist's face in the illustration felt like a bitter contrast to my own reality.

'Damn... this is pathetic, so pathetic.'

An unwelcome wave of depression washed over me, and I was about to close the game.

[The 'Ending Bonus' will now begin for player 'Jo Hyunsoo'!]

[A second playthrough will now begin!]

White text suddenly appeared in the center of the screen.

When I clicked on it with the mouse, suddenly...

Fzzt! Zzzzt!

White noise started to fill the laptop screen.

"Wh-what? Is it a virus?"

Startled, I immediately rebooted the laptop.

When it came back on, all traces of the game that had been on the desktop were gone.

Just in case, I tried to install the game again from the CD, but there was no data left on it.

"Tsk... I was thinking of playing it in my spare time."

It had been a while since I'd had so much fun with a game. I felt a little disappointed that I couldn't play it anymore.

I searched online to see if there was any way to recover it, but there was no information about this game anywhere, so I had no choice but to give up.

"Sigh..."

I scratched my head and glanced at the clock.

It was a little past 1 AM. For me, that was a bit too early to go to bed.

"...Let's just work a little more before sleeping."

I turned my PC monitor back on and launched RPG Maker from my desktop.

It was a game development tool from Japan that allowed you to create a reasonably polished game even with limited programming or graphics skills.

While its simplicity came with clear limitations, masterpieces like 'To the Sun' were occasionally created using RPG Maker.

I hadn't found any satisfaction in my work at the company, so to fill that void, I'd been painstakingly developing a solo game after work like this.

The game's title was 'Forgotten Andersen's Story'.

It was a reinterpretation of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales and his life, featuring characters like a matchstick girl who sells drugs and an ugly duckling who becomes a serial killer murdering swans.

'Now it's time for the tedious part—playtesting and polishing.'

This game, which I had been developing in my spare time for over a year, was almost complete.

However, there were still bugs scattered throughout and parts that lacked polish.

My plan was to fix as many of these issues as possible before release and then distribute the game on the online game sales platform, 'Pipe.'

I even had happy fantasies of quitting this damn company and becoming a solo developer if the game did well.

'Easier said than done. The reality is that 99 out of 100 people fail without even making minimum wage. I shouldn't get my hopes up.'

Just as the RPG Maker loading screen finished, it happened.

At that moment...

'Huh? What is this?'

Again, I heard that same monotonous voice.

And right after that... a semi-transparent box appeared over the RPG Maker window.

[Game / Forgotten Andersen's Story]