Chapter 100: The Hard Disk Prototype and the Bubble Bobble Series Prototypes

“Can he clear this somehow?”

“It seems impossible.”

As the commentators said, Geeks tried somehow to handle it. However, because of the dragons, he could not trigger the chain he had stacked, and there was not much space left either. There was no sharp solution.

In the end, without being able to cancel out even a few of his opponent’s dragons, he was struck by dragons again, and the game ended.

“It’s over!! Player Sinajon! He seizes victory with an incredible strategy!!”

And so the winner was decided.

The players who had fought through the difficult finals and the audience who watched them were both exhausted, so after a short rest, the awards ceremony proceeded.

Sinajon received the trophy and the prize envelope, then raised both hands in joy, overwhelmed with emotion.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

That did not mean the second- and third-place winners were dispirited.

Of course, they may have been when they lost. But once they came up on stage, received congratulations from the pretty female event staff, and received everyone’s attention and applause, their mood could not help rising at once.

With that, the First Tetris 2 Tournament successfully came to an end.

The players and the thousands of spectators left Rica Stadium with the regret of waking from a pleasant dream. And Arcade Game Land personnel, including Ras, lingered a little longer, watching the stage being dismantled and the cleanup afterward.

While the tournament was underway, the other businesses continued progressing as well. Because of that, around the time the tournament ended, many projects began showing progress. The first to start was the hard disk.

“For now, there are no problems with the read and write functions. The mechanical system made using the technology received from Tundarka is also fine. We just need to adjust the transfer speed a little more, but that should be resolved quickly.”

Karkov brought over a thick, heavy lump of metal the size of a palm. Ras listened to what he said, but the first thought that came to his mind was that it looked terribly crude.

“This is a computer with another prototype connected.”

Karkov turned on the computer he had prepared in advance and showed its capacity and input-output speed through commands. He wore a confident expression, but honestly, Ras could not really get a feel for it just from the text displayed on the black screen.

“Good.”

He did not completely fail to understand, so he answered that way for now.

Still, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠capacity at least stood out clearly to him.

It was a full thirty megabytes. By Earth standards, it would make one say, “That’s it?” but by this world’s standards, it was truly an amazing capacity.

It was technology from the Kanish Kingdom, the best in the world for computer technology, so that kind of capacity was possible at this size.

“Then now we’ll try using it in practice. We’ll install an OS, boot from it, and run high-capacity software.”

This part was more worth watching.

Seeing the computer boot directly without the OS disk he always inserted diligently made it feel a little like the computers he had used in Korea.

Then they inserted Land of Adventure 2, which would be used as the example, one disk at a time and began installing it onto the disk. Of course, there was no installation program. They manually moved each item one by one.

He would have liked to run the latest game if possible, but since it was still a prototype and had some slight shortcomings, they demonstrated it with a slightly older game.

“Oh! It works.”

The hard disk made a loud “drrr!” noise for quite a while, but before long, the game ran without problems. They also confirmed that even when the game loaded parts requiring the next disk, it proceeded immediately.

Development had succeeded.

Ras smiled broadly and held out his hand to Karkov.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

“Ah, yes.”

Karkov swallowed the words that there was still a little work left and shook his hand. In truth, as he had already said, only a small amount of adjustment remained, so it was as good as complete.

In any case, since development had succeeded, they now had to begin planning mass production together with the business team.

“For now, we have ordered equipment from the Kanish Kingdom.”

Unlike Karkov, Ustar’s expression was not very bright. This business was quite risky, after all.

Hard disks were completely different from the existing joysticks or crane machines. Not only was the difficulty different, but the technology itself was confidential, so it was impossible to make them by renting factories.

They had to set up their own factory, of course, and train workers from the beginning. Naturally, they had to be prepared for low yield rates. Moreover, some materials were entirely imported, and they had to buy the manufacturing equipment as well.

The already expensive goods had to cross the sea and would even have tariffs added, so even Ustar, who trusted Ras so strongly, had wrinkles forming on his face.

Of course, since ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he knew there was no turning back now, he did not say anything negative.

In any case, Ustar did his best to prepare for mass production.

And aside from this welcome but heavy news, there was also purely welcome news.

The prototypes for the Casual Team’s Bubble Bobble series had been completed.

Bubble Bobble itself was completed first, followed by Puzzle Bobble. However, the difference was not large. Ras had expected Casual Team 1 to be much faster, so this was a little unexpected. Casual Team 2’s development ability was not particularly inferior after all.

“Oh? It’s cute.”

Pana pressed the button and made the character spit out bubbles, then looked pleased. Meta Soft now had quite a lot of personnel, so instead of having the development team test its own game directly, it had become possible to pass it to other development teams for testing.

Since other teams could view it more objectively, it was quite helpful.

Overall, the character received good evaluations. It seemed Casual Team 1’s design ability was not bad.

“So they get trapped in bubbles and float up. That’s unusual. It’s cute too.”

Jenny focused on the bubble gimmick. It was already proven on Earth, but it was still pleasing to see an interested reaction.

Garazt seemed to have already learned all the rules and was working hard to defeat enemies. In truth, there was nothing very difficult in the early stages, so he was progressing smoothly.

But Ras was not sure whether he could continue rushing forward like that once he learned there were one hundred stages.

Naturally, Ras also took a seat and tested it. It truly felt like old memories were rising one after another. That was how good the prototype’s quality was.

Of course, it was a simple game. But game feel was an extremely delicate thing. A character’s movement speed, jump height, bubble firing speed, and many other tiny things could throw it off. The fact that they balanced those without issue was worthy of praise.

It seemed only minimal revisions would be needed. Of course, it was far too early to draw conclusions, and they would need to keep testing for quite some time to find bugs or other issues.

Next, they began testing the Puzzle Bobble prototype.

There was even less to worry about on this side. That did not mean Casual Team 2 was more skilled. It was simply because the game was so static. Since there were very few parts to control, there was little to call handling, and the action amounted to little more than the speed at which the balls flew.

Of course, that did not mean it lacked gameplay.

The members of Development Team 1, especially the women, actually found Puzzle Bobble more fun. The men also seemed to enjoy the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠versus element, because they paired up and seriously competed against each other.

Enjoying it was a good thing. It also proved the gameplay, and it would make them test more passionately.

However, Puzzle Bobble’s Versus Mode did feel somewhat plain. After all, the side that burst everything first simply won.

In truth, there was nothing particularly strange about that. Competing on speed was the most basic competitive element.

But the versus games Ras had popularized lately included elements of attacking each other. In particular, Tetris 2, another puzzle-type game, had the chain magic gimmick, so Puzzle Bobble inevitably seemed plain by comparison.

Ras did consider adding such elements to Puzzle Bobble as well. However, the gameplay was too different.

First, attaching non-reactive balls the way Tetris 2 did was naturally out of the question.

As for making the ceiling drop, that would simply decide victory and defeat faster and would not be fun at all. Other ideas existed, such as randomly changing the opponent’s balls or shortening the firing standby time, but those seemed more likely to be irritating than to make versus matches exciting.

Hmm...

In the end, Ras gave up and decided to keep it the same as the original.

In any case, after testing ended, the two games returned to their original development teams to fix minor bugs. It seemed they would soon be completed and presented to the world.

Several months earlier, at Joy Systems’ game development team.

“Hah-hah! Just trust me!”

Kodayo loudly told the president to trust only him, but he had to think quite a lot. When he tried Metallic Jumper, the game the president had mentioned, it was no ordinary game.

It’s almost perfect...

It possessed gameplay where the beauty of simplicity he liked had been cleanly applied. The entire game could progress almost entirely through jumping alone. Moreover, although excessive simplicity could become boring, it even included appropriate unpredictability.

Having to surpass this made the mission far too difficult.

That did not mean he fell into despair.

He was naturally full of arrogance. This was a flaw, but on the other hand, it also gave him a mindset that did not easily shrink back and believed he could beat and surpass anything.

Of course, if he only had the mindset, it might merely prolong the suffering. Fortunately, Kodayo also had the talent to support it.

After struggling and thinking for several days, Kodayo managed to grasp a few clues.

First, he felt he could find something to improve in the jumping. It was the stress caused by failing, falling, and dying. Of course, because this created tension and made players immerse themselves more in the game, it could also be considered an element ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of fun. But it was too empty.

And if it were an arcade machine, they would need to make players die like that to extract more coins, but on a console, there was no particular need to go that far.

Kodayo first removed the system where players died by falling. He also decided that even if the player hit an obstacle or monster, instead of dying instantly, their health would decrease.

Another weakness he focused on was that while experts might be different, beginners progressed extremely sluggishly. In other words, the game lacked a sense of speed. Kodayo sprang up from the sofa and wrote that down too.

Then he wondered what would happen if the transformation gimmicks that could only be used in certain areas of Metallic Jumper were applied constantly.

Like transforming into a lump of flame and charging forward in Metallic Jumper, the player could use a command, or perhaps a dedicated transformation key, to gain the ability to run quickly. And while in that state, if they pressed a certain button with the right timing, they could destroy monsters and obstacles alike.

On a computer, a short dash within a single screen, like Metallic Jumper, would probably be the limit.

But with Talados’s powerful graphics capability, it should be fully possible to portray a charge that felt fast even while scrolling the screen.

If the player only charged continuously, it could become boring instead, so obstacles that could not be broken through with a charge would need to be placed here and there.

It seemed like stress could be reduced by warning the player in advance, such as by displaying a stop warning sign on the screen or using a countdown.

And if they ignored it and kept running, instead of dying, it might be fun to use a gimmick where they bounced back from the impact and were sent far back.