Chapter 10

There were already four people crowded in front of the magazine section, so Ras had to wedge himself between them with his shoulders before he could barely grab a magazine.

At first, he considered simply ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠checking whether there was any news about new computers, but after spotting a game-related article on the cover, he grew curious about the rest of the contents and decided to just buy it outright.

After escaping the stuffy bookstore packed with people, Ras leaned against the wall right outside and skimmed through the magazine.

First of all, there was no news about new computers.

An article about dedicated gaming systems, in other words game consoles, caught his interest, but developing even PC games was already difficult enough, so he decided to ignore it for now.

Oh! It’s already in the magazines.

Then an article about Tetris among the game coverage immediately caught his eye.

The magazine highly praised the game’s creative gameplay.

Ras felt pleased, though at the same time slightly guilty because the game was copied from Earth.

Still, it was unquestionably good news.

Once articles like this appeared, they effectively became advertisements, drawing more people’s interest, and that would directly connect to Ras’s income.

After reading that far, he rolled up the magazine and stuffed it carelessly into his pocket.

At times like this, the baggy pants were convenient.

Now it was finally time to buy a computer.

He had deliberately gone to a commercial district on the opposite side of the city from James’s store, but despite the unfamiliar streets, he did not wander for long before quickly finding a shop that sold computers.

“I’ll take this one.”

“Hm. That computer, you mean? It’s a very expensive machine since it’s the latest model...”

Since he had already decided what to buy, the shopping itself did not take very long despite the product’s high price.

The shop owner apparently looked down on Ras because he seemed young and tried quoting him a slightly inflated price, but there was no way such tricks would work on someone who had previously worked in an electronics store.

“I’m pretty sure these get stocked for around 4,000 Del. Even so, isn’t that markup a little excessive?”

“Ah... someone in the industry, I see. Hahaha...”

The owner here was a dwarf who looked to be in his early forties. Embarrassed, he stroked his thick red beard while laughing awkwardly.

There was not much he could do against a customer who even knew the wholesale price unless he wanted to drive the customer away entirely.

In the end, as punishment for trying to rip him off, the owner not only sold the computer below the normal retail price but also threw in several software packages.

Of course, he still did not lose money.

The profit margins on computers were enormous, so even after discounts he still made plenty.

“Please deliver it at four o’clock.”

“Understood! Leave it to me!”

That was why the owner could still send Ras off without looking especially upset.

Considering he had casually attempted to overcharge him in the first place, if he truly thought he would lose money, he probably would have shamelessly kicked Ras out instead.

Afterward, the computer was delivered to the apartment exactly at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠four o’clock as promised, and Ras finally obtained the computer he had been aiming for all this time.

Simply having a computer inside his room made it feel as though part of his life in Korea had been recreated.

Of course, there were still many disappointments. The machine was only an eight-bit system, and it lacked internet access.

Still, even this much already felt like more than enough.

Whirr.

After booting up the computer, Ras launched Tetris first.

Naturally, it ran without issue, and after testing it briefly, the game still functioned perfectly.

Since he had not actually started it because he wanted to play, he quickly piled the blocks carelessly until he got a game over and exited.

Then he looked over the software packages stacked haphazardly on the shelf beside the computer before picking up one titled Electronic Painter.

Ras tore open the seal and removed the floppy disk stored inside the paper case before inserting it into the slot.

When he launched it, a screen appeared that looked somewhat like MS Paint, though far simpler.

Still, Ras felt deeply moved.

Tetris barely used graphics at all and mostly substituted text symbols instead.

But for his next project, he had wanted to experiment with drawing various things.

The problem was that James’s store had not possessed any graphics software.

So he had been forced to painstakingly create images by manually filling pixels one by one through commands.

It had taken him half a day just to create a crude stick figure that barely resembled an actual drawing.

At first, he even mixed up the coordinates and produced bizarre results, eventually needing to buy graph paper and manually label coordinates on every square before he could make anything properly.

But with this program, he could create circles, squares, triangles, and other shapes with only a few clicks, move them anywhere he wanted, fill areas with color, draw curves, and even use the mouse to sketch lines as though using an actual pencil.

Of course, the system processed everything painfully slowly due to hardware limitations, but even so, it still felt revolutionary.

The real problem is my drawing skill.

Now that he owned both a computer and stable finances, Ras wanted to create more visually impressive games.

While thinking about what kind of project to make next, he remembered the novels he had recently read and tried drawing a knight character.

But something felt wrong.

Even while copying the illustrations directly from the books, the result looked more like a strange lump than a cool knight.

After numerous attempts, he eventually realized that with the current low resolution, it was difficult to properly convey the feeling of armor on a small sprite unless one possessed exceptional artistic sense.

At the same time, he also realized that creating proper visuals required even more study than coding had.

Fortunately, because computer performance remained limited and detailed images were impossible anyway, it still seemed possible to create graphics that looked reasonably good without diving too deeply into art fundamentals.

Ras scratched the tip of his chin while thinking for a moment.

Still, he did not particularly want to create low-quality games.

And unlike when he first made Tetris, when he had possessed nothing and been forced to do everything himself, that was no longer necessary now.

He could not afford to hire people immediately, but more money would continue coming in, so eventually he should at least be able to hire someone dedicated to graphics.

Still, it also felt wrong to sit idle until he found people, and he figured that even in fields where he lacked expertise, understanding the basics would make directing others much easier.

So Ras decided to create another game with relatively simple graphics.

What should I make...?

After thinking for a moment, the game that came to mind was Pac-Man.

It was a game where a yellow circular character with a giant mouth moved through maze-like maps filled with dots, avoiding cute ghosts while eating everything.

Honestly, Ras did not belong to the generation that had actually grown up playing it.

But because it was such a famous game in gaming history, he had tried it several times before and roughly remembered the overall structure.

Ras pulled out a notebook and wrote down everything he could remember.

The ghosts moved at the same speed as Pac-Man.

Eating larger dots weakened the ghosts, allowing Pac-Man to defeat them in return.

The left and right sides of the map connected together, so exiting one side caused the character to reappear on the opposite side.

Even if he could not remember everything perfectly, he wrote down every detail he could recall.

Then he began designing the game around those notes.

Naturally, he could not remember the exact map layouts, so he had no choice but to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠create suitable ones himself.

The graphics were not difficult.

Pac-Man itself was an extremely simple design, and the ghosts were memorable enough that he could recreate them reasonably well.

Afterward, he created bonus fruit items by referencing illustrations from books or real objects.

Once he had roughly finished the map, he immediately began writing the code.

This process also was not particularly difficult.

There simply were not many events to manage in the first place.

Most of the logic consisted of triggers activating when conditions were met and producing different results based on a few variables.

The only somewhat troublesome part was making the four ghosts wander through the maze in real time separately from the protagonist.

Even that was not especially difficult.

The only concern was resource usage.

Fortunately, when he first tested only Pac-Man and the ghosts, everything moved without major problems.

Still, because he had only created a single image frame for each, the movement looked painfully lifeless, so Ras immediately started producing additional sprites.

It was nothing particularly grand.

For the ghosts, he only needed five sprites total: eye directions changing depending on movement, plus the transformed appearance they took after Pac-Man ate a power dot.

Pac-Man itself relied heavily on the visual of its giant mouth opening and closing, so he decided to use three frames: fully open, half-closed, and completely closed into a circle.

And it still runs fine.

Next, he created a dot counter so the stage would clear once all dots had been eaten.

Naturally, he tied it into the score system, though afterward he realized he had forgotten to include the bonus fruit and quickly added that as well.

What remained were secondary elements like the title screen, ending sequence, and sound.

Ras scratched his head furiously while wondering how to create the sound.

It was not that he lacked methods.

He had already researched it while making Tetris.

Simply put, one manipulated and modulated the three waveform types provided by the computer’s built-in sound chip to create audio.

The books he had found in the library even contained coding techniques specifically for that purpose.

Still, there was no need to suffer through handling everything manually.

According to the computer magazine he had purchased earlier, a dedicated sound editing tool had already been released some time ago.

Naturally, Ras had purchased that software together with the computer.

When he launched it, everything felt extremely unfamiliar.

Then again, even back in Korea, he had barely touched sound-related programs.

There were graph-like lines displayed, with widths and heights represented numerically, and the user could modify them.

This isn’t actually that hard.

The interface was reasonably intuitive, and the manual was not difficult either, so Ras quickly learned the controls and boldly began experimenting.

About an hour later, he had formed an opinion.

Unexpectedly, it was manageable.

By twisting settings this way and that, he could at least produce something resembling sound effects.

The problem was that the process felt almost random.

Someone with actual musical knowledge could probably pursue specific intended sounds deliberately.

But lacking both musical sense and theoretical understanding, Ras felt like a monkey smashing piano keys until something decent occasionally emerged by accident.

For Pac-Man, where he only intended to use simple effects, he felt he could probably manage with enough time.

But for proper background music or more advanced sound design, he concluded he would eventually need to recruit talent in this field as well.

Afterward, using Electronic Painter, Ras created large simple title text with rounded yellow letters inspired by Pac-Man’s shape and coloring.

Then beneath it, he inserted an animation using the sprites he had already created, showing Pac-Man being chased by four differently colored ghosts.

Finally, after being chased while eating dots, Pac-Man consumed a large power dot, causing one frightened ghost to be eaten whole, leaving only its eyeballs flying off-screen while the remaining ghosts fled wildly in all directions.

It was a cheerful sequence, though admittedly somewhat exaggerated advertising.

Because his illustration ability was lacking, he wanted to compensate through presentation instead.

As a result, even Ras himself felt the opening sequence turned out quite good.

Perhaps because he had already become familiar with game development after making one title previously, this time it only took him two weeks to finish.

Rather than Ras himself being extraordinary, the biggest reason was that he already possessed a complete image of the finished game inside his head, allowing him to move straight forward without wandering.

Still, it surprised him.

He had originally started this project simply because he did not want to waste time before hiring people, yet he ended up becoming completely absorbed in it and finishing the entire thing in one burst.

Ras scratched his head and laughed softly.

Then, thinking that since the game was finished he might as well try selling it, he stood up and headed toward the telephone.

But after pulling out Kandel’s contact information and reaching toward the dial, he suddenly changed his mind and slowly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠put the receiver back down.