Chapter 36: Beat Heater and Porting
Chapter 36: Beat Heater and Porting
Naturally, he was interested. Back then, he had struggled just trying to figure out where he even was, but now more than a year had already passed since he began living in this world. He had also developed a rough understanding of foreign countries.
“Overseas? I’ve never really thought about it before. But if it’s possible, then of course I’d welcome it.”
Ras first acted modest for appearances’ sake before immediately expressing interest. This man especially held Ras in high regard, so he found himself pretending to be more composed than he actually was.
“I’m glad to hear you’re interested. This time, our company established an overseas distribution department. So we plan to attempt overseas expansion focusing on software that has already proven itself. Naturally, all of Meta Soft’s games are under consideration.”
“Ah, thank you.”
“No. They’re all games worthy of it.”
His tone was extremely sincere. It felt a little embarrassing, but honestly, it wasn’t unpleasant to hear. Though Ras had briefly thought a distributor from abroad had already contacted them, so it was slightly disappointing to realize that wasn’t the case.
But thinking about it carefully, it made sense. Unlike Earth, this world didn’t have a single nation dominating the entire globe with overwhelming influence. Instead, countries constantly checked and competed against each other.
Perhaps because of that, unless something was an absolutely necessary resource, countries generally avoided using products they could manufacture themselves. Furthermore, each nation even used different programming languages, creating yet another barrier, so naturally they wouldn’t actively import foreign games.
To begin with, there were no satellites or intercontinental communication facilities. And even aside from that, information exchange was unbelievably underdeveloped compared to Earth. Unless something was an enormous event, news rarely crossed oceans. So whether anyone overseas even knew about Ras’s games was questionable.
Now that I think about it this way, I’m more worried whether that overseas department is going to collapse.
Ras decided not to expect too much. Instead, he silently hoped Barbal Soft’s challenge wouldn’t end in catastrophic failure.
“Once we find suitable overseas distributors and establish proper guidelines, I’ll contact you again.”
“Yes. I’ll leave it in your hands.”
After that, Ras decided not to worry about overseas expansion for now and focused on finishing the rhythm game.
The bugs had already all been fixed. They had only been waiting for Nebrania’s work, and they had repeatedly tested the game using the completed songs in the meantime.
He had originally planned to make final adjustments after adding the last song. But after continuously polishing things while waiting, there no longer seemed to be anything needing further correction.
Still, we should at least do internal testing.
Ras briefly considered releasing it immediately, but since he himself wasn’t especially experienced with rhythm games, he decided it would be better to gather more opinions. He stood and drew the employees’ attention.
“Alright. One game is finished. We need to test it, so please stop working for a moment.”
The employees frowned or sighed because their concentration had been interrupted, but naturally no one looked genuinely upset. Playing games was still preferable to working.
If he had told them to continue working while testing at the same time, they probably would have cursed him internally. But since he pushed the deadline back by the amount of testing time, no one particularly complained.
Soon afterward, the employees returned to their seats carrying copied diskettes and started the game. The office, which had previously contained nothing but constant clicking sounds and the noise of pedestrians and cars drifting in from outside, was suddenly filled with music.
This is actually nice.
At first, Ras hadn’t thought much of it since this was the game he had ordered them to make. But after continuously hearing songs throughout the office, he felt strangely relieved of stress.
The thought suddenly crossed his mind that maybe they should place a record player in the office. Having soft music playing while people worked seemed like it might create a pleasant atmosphere.
Still, he didn’t immediately decide on it. Ras personally liked working while listening to music and even had excuses from Earth involving white noise and concentration. But he also remembered coworkers from Earth who were extremely sensitive to background music.
Especially that bastard Jang Mansu. He’d stay quiet until he heard even the faintest music somewhere, then suddenly start throwing a fit.
Remembering those days, Ras pouted slightly and decided against placing one in the office. Instead, he resolved to buy one for his house.
His interest in music had grown somewhat after recent events anyway, so filling a display shelf in one corner of his room with stacks of records didn’t sound bad at all.
While Ras drifted off into unrelated thoughts, the employees were diligently playing the rhythm game.
This is good.
Pana liked the game. Honestly, the previous games they had made all felt too quiet, so she already enjoyed the fact that proper music was playing.
Then the countdown ended, and flat rectangular shapes began falling from above. Pana missed the first few at first, but she quickly understood the timing and soon started seeing the yellow “GOOD!” messages appear.
Afterward, various other compliments burst forth in succession following the rhythm and the movement of Pana’s fingers. Through her thick glasses, she focused entirely on the falling nodes entering her vision. Before long, most of the words appearing over the exploding nodes had become “PERFECT!!!”
Huh? It’s already over?
Once the song ended, the nodes stopped falling. Only then did Pana realize how deeply concentrated she had become, which surprised her. She stared blankly at the performance evaluation and score results.
But not every employee became so absorbed.
In Aspa’s case, perhaps because he lacked a sense of rhythm, he couldn’t properly play even on the easiest setting. And maybe because he became impatient, his thick fingers frequently pressed the wrong buttons, causing “BAD” messages to appear repeatedly.
What is this?
People naturally struggled to enjoy things they were bad at, so he quickly became uninterested.
Still, since testing was part of work, he couldn’t stop. But as he gradually became more accustomed to it and his score improved, he began to understand the game’s appeal. Thanks to that, he eventually managed to enjoy it without getting bored.
Nebrania adapted to the game even faster than Pana and enjoyed it to some extent, but she didn’t particularly feel the desire to keep playing.
Partly because the sound quality still felt terrible to her ears, but also because she simply preferred touching an actual piano or guitar rather than pounding on a computer keyboard. Not every musician necessarily felt that way, but Nebrania certainly did.
“Okay. Thanks for the feedback.”
After listening to the employees’ opinions, Ras made several adjustments. At the very least, lowering the entry barrier wasn’t difficult.
He simply added an even easier beginner difficulty. Apparently, even though Ras considered himself weak at rhythm games, his memories and experience from Earth had unconsciously caused him to set the baseline slightly too high.
Aside from that, he discovered and fixed several other issues, such as lag occurring on hard difficulty in certain songs, finally completing the final polishing phase.
“We’re counting on you.”
“Yes. Don’t worry.”
Once again, the dependable Beastman man from Barbal Soft came to collect the game diskettes.
“Beat Heater?”
Several hours later, after hearing rumors that Meta Soft’s new game had arrived, Amans, who had been waiting near the office entrance, finally received the game from Tshtet. He hadn’t heard what kind of game it was, and judging solely by the title, he couldn’t guess either.
Tilting his head in confusion, he headed back to his seat.
“That it?”
As soon as he entered the office, a man with a long head shape and heavy dark circles spoke to him. It was his fellow programmer, Kadanio. Earlier, Kadanio had mocked the whole plan as strange, but now that the game had actually arrived, he apparently became interested.
“Yeah.”
“...Copy it for me.”
“You sure changed your tune after what you said earlier. Fine, whatever. Hold on.”
Amans smugly teased him, but since testing was part of their job anyway, he couldn’t refuse. Simply seeing that awkward expression was enough satisfaction.
Then he launched the game and was startled by the flashy sound pouring out. This opening song was one of Nebrania’s originals, featuring strong, rapid beats designed to immediately hook players.
Press the keyboard to the rhythm?
The intense beat simplified as the opening screen appeared. Beneath the title, text explaining how to play briefly scrolled by. It was literally just a single line.
What? What am I even supposed to do?
Fortunately, before he exploded in frustration and hit ESC, an animated explanation immediately began playing. It was extremely intuitive. Rod-like objects fell from above, and pressing the corresponding keyboard button below caused a short evaluation and score increase to appear.
So the more accurate your timing, the higher your score.
It seemed almost too simple, which slightly disappointed him. But one couldn’t properly judge without trying it first, so he pressed ESC to bring up the menu.
Then he began furiously pounding the keyboard to destroy the falling nodes in sync with the music.
“It’s over, right?”
When he finally regained his senses, the music had ended and the screen had changed to display the score. Meanwhile, Yondo was already staring at him with his large eyes. Yondo was another programmer coworker and a Gnome.
“Ah... yeah. Want me to copy it for you?”
“Obviously. That’s why I’ve been waiting here.”
As he copied the game for Yondo, Amans reflected on it. It was an unexpectedly incredible game. No — an overwhelming game. The music, speed, and storm-like feedback felt unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
Since it was such an unfamiliar genre, he couldn’t tell whether it would succeed or fail. But he was certain it would create a sensation.
Afterward, Barbal Soft’s office remained filled for quite some time with intense beats and the frantic clatter of keyboards struggling to keep up with them.
Two weeks later, at the Meta Soft office.
After Beat Heater received favorable evaluations from Barbal Soft, Ras felt considerably more relaxed and immersed himself in developing the war game.
As expected, trying to develop two games simultaneously with barely enough people for one team really was a terrible idea.
It felt like his focus kept splitting apart, preventing him from fully concentrating. He finally understood why the position of director existed. Later, if they ever had multiple teams developing games simultaneously, it seemed better to simply entrust things to them completely instead of constantly worrying over every detail himself.
No... wait. Actually, by then I probably wouldn’t be personally developing things anyway, so maybe it wouldn’t matter?
As he stopped typing and drifted into unrelated thoughts, the telephone suddenly rang. Startled, he looked toward Diska, who informed him it was a call from Barbal Soft.
He had already heard the evaluation for Beat Heater they recently sent over. So at first he wondered why they were calling again, until he suddenly remembered the overseas expansion discussion from before. Excitement welled up inside him.
“Yes, I’ve been well. I hope you’ve been doing well too, President.”
So he exchanged greetings in a noticeably more upbeat tone. But the topic Roxy brought up wasn’t that at all.
“Mr. Ras, have you considered porting your company’s games to other platforms?”
“Hm? Porting?”
The sudden unexpected topic caught him slightly off guard, but it wasn’t bad news. No — it was good news, assuming a few issues could be solved.
“Are you talking about game consoles? We really don’t have enough room to handle porting work.”
Actually, it wasn’t just a matter of lacking time. He had absolutely no idea how to code games for consoles in the first place. So what he really meant was that it would be fine as long as someone else handled the actual porting.
“No. There’s no discussion regarding consoles yet. I’m talking about arcade machines. And naturally, we plan to handle the porting work ourselves.”
“Arcades?”
Arcades were good. No, they were even better than consoles. Although computers were rapidly spreading and home consoles were gradually gaining power, this was still unquestionably the age of arcade machines.