Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Since he was already doing this anyway, Ras decided he might as well recruit a programmer too, so he immediately pulled out another sheet of paper and began writing a recruitment notice.
“Yes, well... I don’t think it’ll be a problem. Go ahead and send it.”
Using a telephone directory he had bought at the bookstore, Ras contacted the administrative office of Samidugib University, which was famous for computers.
The staff sounded rather indifferent and not especially welcoming, but at least they did not refuse.
Ras contacted several more universities afterward.
None of them rejected the idea either.
The moment he finished confirming things, he immediately left home to make copies of the documents.
“Welcome. What brings you here?”
It was a photography shop near his home.
The owner was an elderly Orc with a white beard and orange-dyed streaks running through it like highlights.
At first, Ras had been startled by the man’s green skin, but this Orc had grown old enough that instead of muscles, he possessed a warm, round figure softened by fat.
Combined with his relaxed demeanor lacking any sense of aggression, Ras had long since become comfortable around him.
Though perhaps because his memory was poor, despite Ras visiting many times to make copies, the owner never seemed to recognize him.
Ras had heard that some people were especially insensitive to the faces of other races, so perhaps this man was one of them.
“I’d like to make copies of this.”
In any case, it was not especially important.
If the owner acted overly familiar, that might actually become uncomfortable, so perhaps this arrangement was better.
Copiers in this era were not very advanced, so the process took quite a while.
At first, Ras had simply been grateful that dry photocopiers existed at all rather than mimeograph machines, but now that he had grown accustomed to them, complaints naturally emerged.
“That’ll be 10 Del.”
Ras pulled the requested money from his wallet and placed it onto the owner’s green palm.
It was quite expensive.
And even taking that into account, copying costs still felt outrageously overpriced.
At one point, Ras had seriously considered simply buying a copier himself to avoid repeatedly coming here, but after discovering that one machine cost as much as an automobile, he immediately gave up.
Back then, he had genuinely wondered whether the internal components were literally made of gold.
Still, even if not a copier, he felt he probably needed to buy a printer at some point.
Printers were expensive too, but at least they only cost around the level of the game console he had bought previously.
Even now he occasionally needed to prepare documents, and since he planned to hire more employees and expand the company further in the future, having one available seemed worthwhile.
Afterward, Ras placed each copied document into envelopes one by one, addressed them to the various universities, and mailed them out.
The seeds had been planted.
Now there was nothing to do but wait a long time.
So he decided to return to his real work and make games again.
First, Ras considered creating Land of Adventure 2.
Producing sequels to successful works was usually the easiest way to continue success.
Of course, Ras did have other successful works already.
But Tetris and Pac-Man were ultimately copied works, which still left him feeling somewhat uneasy.
But honestly, Land of Adventure feels a little awkward too.
The current game was still selling extremely well, so releasing a sequel too quickly felt like it might cannibalize his own sales.
On top of that, expectations were now incredibly high, creating pressure to produce noticeable improvements.
And when he thought about improvements, the first thing that came to mind was graphics.
Unfortunately, that was not something Ras could solve immediately, so he needed to think in other directions.
While sitting on the sofa in the office with his arms crossed in thought, his attention drifted toward Pana, who was busily sketching something into a sketchbook rather than using the computer.
Suddenly, he became curious about her opinion.
For quite some time now, she had been completely immersed in Land of Adventure.
He had also heard recently that she bought a computer with the money Ras gave her and was now enjoying the game at home too.
That made her the perfect person to ask.
“Ms. Pana.”
“...Yes?”
At the sound of her name, Pana flinched slightly, quickly folded her sketchbook shut, slid it to the side of her desk, and cautiously turned toward Ras.
Ras had never particularly scolded her before, but she was still a new employee with only four months of experience, so she seemed naturally nervous.
“I just wanted your opinion. If we make a sequel to Land of Adventure, what do you think should be improved? Other than the graphics.”
Once she realized he was not criticizing her for drawing manga during work hours, her expression visibly relaxed.
And the question itself was not difficult either.
After all, there had already been things she personally found disappointing.
“Hmm... shouldn’t the sound be improved?”
That was true.
Among the feedback coming from magazines and Barbal Soft alike, sound was one of the areas players most commonly felt dissatisfied with.
Since some games in this era already had relatively decent sound, comparisons were inevitable.
“But that’s a resource limitation issue... Still, I understand. Is there anything else?”
There probably were ways around it somehow.
Ras himself had considered several ideas.
Perhaps reducing the graphical display area, or using a trick he had seen in some shooting game where two horizontal pixels were merged into one, lowering the resolution slightly in exchange for freeing up resources that could then be used for sound.
“Other than that... maybe the story?”
Pana spoke quietly while carefully watching Ras’s expression.
After all, the story had been created by Ras himself, so criticizing it felt somewhat like criticizing her boss’s abilities.
But Ras did not particularly mind.
Not because he was especially magnanimous.
If the game had failed, perhaps he would have reacted defensively.
But Land of Adventure had been an overwhelming success.
So he simply thought that naturally some people would dislike parts of it, and since he was not perfect himself, there were probably areas where he was lacking.
“Can you explain more specifically? That feels a bit vague.”
“It’s just... the connection between the characters’ personal stories and the overall plot feels a little weak.”
Ras immediately understood the general feeling she meant.
He did have excuses for it.
But rather than making excuses, he first chose to think about whether there really had been a better way.
And a solution came to mind surprisingly quickly.
Simply recruit someone experienced in that field.
Even if he refused to make excuses, it was still true that Ras was not a novelist or literary expert.
Meaning there were undoubtedly countless people in this world capable of creating stories far better than his own.
However, if he simply advertised for a “story writer,” all sorts of random people would probably swarm in since the position required no obvious technical qualifications.
So it would probably be better either to recruit an active novelist directly or hold a contest and choose from submitted scenarios.
The scale of things suddenly felt as though it was expanding rapidly.
Writing contest announcements, deciding where to post them, making copies, mailing letters, reading incoming submissions, answering inquiry calls...
Even just the immediately obvious tasks already felt overwhelming.
And now that I think about it, once the programmer recruitment and graphics card developer recruitment notices get posted on university bulletin boards, inquiry calls are going to start pouring in too.
Of course, he himself had initiated all this.
And while some matters would naturally require his personal judgment, there were also many smaller miscellaneous tasks that simply wasted time.
More than any other type of employee, it suddenly felt like he needed to hire an office assistant first.
For this role, there was no need to contact universities or anything complicated.
A simple advertisement in the local newspaper and neighborhood job postings would suffice.
Since the work itself was not especially difficult, inquiries from applicants started arriving the very next day.
“If you hire me, I’ll work hard!”
Among the applicants, Ras liked one particular boy with dark brown hair.
First of all, he was local rather than a drifter, making it less likely he would cause problems and disappear.
More importantly, his clear reddish-brown eyes gave him an impression of both intelligence and honesty.
And the fact that he was fifteen years old — even younger than Ras — also counted as a positive.
After all, Ras intended to have him handle miscellaneous tasks, and ordering around adults older than himself felt uncomfortable.
Of course, Ras’s original age was thirty.
But that belonged to his previous life.
In this world, everyone simply saw him as a seventeen-year-old boy, making the distinction meaningless.
The boy’s name was Diska.
He had completed only mandatory elementary education before going to work at a garment factory.
But this was not considered particularly unfortunate.
For teenagers living in the Republic of Smite, it was actually fairly normal.
The country possessed severe wealth inequality.
There were plenty of middle-class people wealthy enough to buy computers and enjoy games, while others were poor enough to start working from a very young age.
Still, as long as people worked, they generally survived without issue.
And since unhappiness itself was not something purely objective, Diska — having grown up among peers in similar situations — was simply a normal boy without particularly dark tendencies.
“I’ll do my best!”
“Good.”
“I’m looking forward to working with you too.”
Pana warmly welcomed Diska as well.
Partly because she found a younger boy cute, and partly because she was happy not to be the company’s only employee anymore.
In any case, now that they had hired a secretary and office assistant, Ras explained all the duties to Diska — answering phones, organizing letters, and the tasks likely to arise in the future — before finally returning to game planning.
In truth, Ras already had a game in mind.
It was a game he had absolutely loved as a child.
Though it had originally been a console game rather than a computer title, it was still a masterpiece from the 8-bit era, and he thought recreating it in this world might hold some meaning.
That game was Super Mario.
Ras began writing down the characteristics he remembered.
A side-scrolling game where the protagonist jumped on enemies to defeat them, hit bricks and question-mark blocks overhead, and ate mushrooms that made the character grow larger. Some items granted extra lives, while others gave temporary invincibility.
It had seemed like a simple game at first, but once he started organizing things like this, there was actually quite a lot involved.
Afterward, he began planning out the game logic, thinking through how to structure the code, and even asked Pana to work on concept art.
Then, just before entering full development, he checked computer magazines at a bookstore almost on a whim.
And there he discovered an article announcing the release of a very similar game.
Of course, it was not identical.
The protagonist was a monkey Beastman rather than a plumber. Jumping on enemies did not defeat them; instead, all enemies had to be avoided.
Eating fruit from trees transformed the protagonist into a gorilla or granted the ability to throw fruit as projectiles.
Most of the maps took place in trees, but occasionally there were magical vines functioning similarly to the pipes in Super Mario by transporting the player to different maps.
Honestly speaking, Super Mario itself was clearly more polished.
But since something so similar already existed now, any attempt would inevitably be seen as imitation.
Ras disliked the thought of criticism, but what bothered him even more was the possibility of failure.
If he copied Super Mario and still failed, he felt like it would utterly shatter his mental state.
So he decided to abandon the idea.
Not permanently, though.
If he later became confident enough to completely overwhelm competitors through undeniable quality differences, then perhaps he would revisit it.
Ras felt somewhat disappointed, but not especially shaken.
There were still many worthwhile games left for him to create.
Another title quickly came to mind.
This time it was Uncharted Waters, a game he had enjoyed immensely as a young child.
Of course, the second game he personally played originally required a 486 computer, but the first game existed too, and the original inspiration for the series — a game called Pirates! — had apparently run on 8-bit computers.
So if he made a few compromises, recreating something similar should be entirely possible.
No...
Thinking about it again, simple recreation would not work.
He would need to take only the basic framework and reinvent it.
After all, this world had never experienced a historical Age of Exploration like Earth did.
There had been intercontinental maritime trade, certainly, but nothing equivalent to Earth’s spice trade — no extremely high-value goods valuable enough to make everyone willingly risk their lives for ocean voyages.
Ras began borrowing large numbers of history books from the library in search of a suitable setting.
Though before doing that, he had first tried asking Pana — a highly educated university graduate — about it.