Chapter 78: Metallic Jumper
Chapter 78: Metallic Jumper
Barbal Soft had already grown into a large company, unlike before. It no longer relied only on sales visits as it had in the past. Instead, it produced posters and placed sleekly designed advertisements in magazines and newspapers.
If possible, they probably would have considered TV commercials too. However, this world was extremely conservative, so the chances of a broadcasting station accepting game advertisements were low. And in the first place, it would be difficult to find celebrities willing to film game commercials.
In any case, once the name value of being a sequel to Tetris was combined with advertising, Tetris 2 sold at a terrifying pace from the very beginning.
There were some people who opened the package, ran the game, and felt confused by the atmosphere, which was very different from the previous game. However, there were no particularly harsh reviews.
Part of that was because the gameplay was good enough, but the light and cute atmosphere also played a major role. After all, this kind of tone naturally caused less divided reactions than something dark and gloomy.
And while Tetris 2 was fairly fun even when played alone, its true value lay in Versus Mode, so it became an especially fun game for people with siblings or others they could enjoy it with.
Once Ras judged that the PC version had sold enough, he immediately contacted Panchi Games. After all, it had been made with the arcade version in mind from the start.
“We’ve been waiting.”
Cheims answered that way as soon as he heard Ras’s proposal.
Panchi Games had already maintained a close relationship with Meta Soft before, but after Fighters’ Club, they had completely abandoned all doubt. Because of that, as soon as they heard Meta Soft had released a new title, they obtained it and examined it.
Cheims realized that Tetris 2 had been made with arcades in mind from the beginning. He also judged that it was a game capable of selling well. More than anything, what made his mouth water was the title.
It was none other than the sequel to Tetris.
Compared to Fighters’ Club or rhythm games, this game might have had slightly less impact, but its greatest advantage was that its popularity simply refused to cool down.
Especially in the Brunyard Federation, orders continued to come in just when one thought the game had been forgotten.
“Then I’ll leave it to you.”
Since they had already worked together several times, the terms were obvious, and the contract proceeded immediately without much push and pull. As the two companies grew closer and Meta Soft’s capabilities strengthened, Barbal Soft had already been removed from the middle.
Since that meant losing revenue, Barbal Soft naturally was not happy about it.
However, Paul Roxy was not shameless enough to stay in the middle and collect money when he was no longer needed. No, even if he were shameless, he would not have dared to pressure Meta Soft forcefully.
Meta Soft was far too precious a partner to Barbal Soft for their relationship to sour over something like this.
While proceeding with that contract, Ras also entered the final test for Robot Mario. Of course, the entire Casual Game Development Team had gone on vacation.
“You didn’t just wrap things up roughly because Development Team 1 also wanted to go on vacation, right?”
“Ahaha. Of course not.”
Garazt smiled bitterly and answered Ras’s half-joking words. In truth, it was not as though he was not envious of the Casual Game Development Team, which had left first, but everyone in Development Team 1 was now a developer with quite a bit of experience.
Apart from money, they had affection for the game they were making. They had struggled over it for months, so they did not want to finish it carelessly.
Garazt, who had become the team leader of Development Team 1, was especially that way, since he was a man with the ambition to one day create virtual reality and had a strong sense of pride.
Ras first received the diskette and inserted it into the computer.
<Metallic Jumper>
When the game started, the title appeared in illustrated letters that looked like riveted steel. In truth, to Ras, who was familiar with the title Super Mario, it felt somewhat strange. But it was a title Development Team 1 had chosen by vote, so after some thought, he had approved it.
Unlike the title, however, the background simply had a feeling similar to Super Mario. Just because a robot appeared did not mean it was a game set in the distant future.
The game began with the Demon King invading the laboratory of a friendly scientist couple, ordering them to build a mechanical army for the Demon King’s army to conquer the world, then kidnapping them.
Then a robot sitting like junk in a corner of the laboratory opened its eyes and looked out the window. Mountains, waters, plains, rivers, a lava zone, and finally the Demon King’s Castle beyond them appeared, ending the opening.
It clearly showed that they had worked hard on it in their own way. But honestly, Ras wondered whether story and setting had much meaning in this kind of action game.
In any case, the game began, and Ras started controlling the cute robot as it moved forward.
He jumped over bottomless pits, collected coins, and avoided monsters that looked cute despite being the Demon King’s subordinates. Goblins and ogres were not actually cute creatures, but they were deformed in that kind of style.
The controls were excellent. The response was immediate, and the jumps felt refreshing. At the same time, the inertia system was properly included, giving difficulty through a realistic feeling.
Whew.
Ras took a full running start and barely landed on a brick floating in midair, letting out a sigh of relief.
Then he jumped again and rammed his head into a box with a question mark on it. Ras had tried to change many parts of Mario in his own way. However, there were some things, including the question mark box, for which he could not create a convincing replacement.
He could not tell whether it was because Super Mario was too excellent, or because that image was lodged in Ras’s mind almost like a fixed idea. The one fortunate thing was that it blended into the game Ras made without much sense of mismatch.
In any case, when he collected the golden screw that came out of the question mark box, a burning mass of machinery fell from the blue sky where white clouds drifted. It dropped over the little robot’s head, flashed, and a structure like a backpack with short wings attached to its back.
Now, should I try flying?
Unlike that presentation, the way it flew was not exactly cool. It did rise into the air while spouting flames, but there was an effect where it rattled, emitted smoke, and small screws flew here and there.
Even so, floating and flying over a wide pit instead of taking a nerve-racking running start gave him considerable pleasure.
Of course, he could not keep flying all the way to the goal. Soon, the flames behind the nozzle began to rattle unsteadily, and the flight module itself exploded, causing him to crash.
“Huh?”
If he fell onto the ground, it simply ended with a thud and a dust cloud effect. But because he got too greedy and tried to fly too far, it exploded above the pit. Ras let out a deflated sound as he watched his robot fall into the bottomless pit.
After losing one life so emptily, Ras pulled himself together and resumed the game.
Fortunately, he had played Super Mario a little on Earth, so after that, he was able to proceed without major mistakes. Then he collected various screws and transformed. No, calling it combination probably suited it better. With those combined transformation abilities, he swept through monsters and maps.
“Wow!”
It felt extremely satisfying to instantly smash hard Living Armors that could never be killed by stomping and spiky Golems that would kill him instead if stepped on, using laser cannons or flaming charges.
But that did not continue all the way to the boss. In the end, he failed to adapt to the increased difficulty and died.
Ah...
Ras progressed fairly skillfully, and because the game was fun, he retried several times, but clearing everything on the first day was still impossible. And his purpose right now was not to clear the game.
“I think this is enough testing. It’s fun.”
“Ah. That’s a relief.”
When Ras gave a positive answer with a raised thumb, Garazt, who had been standing there with a stiff expression waiting for his answer, relaxed his shoulders and let out a relieved breath.
Fans of the original might not agree. But Ras felt that this Metallic Jumper he had made was more fun.
By now, quite a few action games that had branched off from shooting games had appeared in the market. However, perhaps because it was still the early stage, none of them had particularly outstanding gameplay. A few showed some potential, but that was all.
Moreover, after the transition to Hammer Computer, gamers had lost interest in older games made with outdated graphics.
He looked forward to seeing how people would react when Metallic Jumper appeared at a time like this.
“This one is cute too.”
Paul Roxy smiled faintly while making the character in Metallic Jumper jump repeatedly. The robot concept was somewhat unusual, but its appearance did not cause any particular resistance. Moreover, the extremely bright background, simple story, and easy controls truly felt completely unburdensome.
“This will definitely sell well.”
“Yes. After all, having no sense of resistance is a very great advantage.”
First impressions were extremely important. No matter how grand, deep, and profound something was created to be, people could only feel that after trying it.
Moreover, what people generally wanted from games was enjoyment and stress relief. Few people liked things that felt heavy and burdensome. In that regard, Metallic Jumper could be said to start with a considerable advantage.
Paul Roxy began moving the character, which had been jumping in place, forward.
The game was very simple, just like its first impression. But that did not mean it was boring. If he made even a small mistake, he could fall and die, and even the slow, cute monsters could defeat him if he failed to avoid them properly, so the game maintained an appropriate sense of tension.
And the jumping was very addictive.
First of all, the fact that the strength of the jump changed depending on how long he held the key felt fresh. Until now, in most games, jumping only meant leaping a fixed height and distance when the button was pressed, so this gave a realistic sense that he was actually jumping.
It was also a fun experience to run and jump, then fly along a parabola through inertia to reach distant ground.
As he focused on dodging, running, and jumping like that, he obtained a screw from a question mark box and experienced a transformation.
“Oh. This is cool.”
“Yes. I think I understand why it’s a robot now.”
Until then, it had not seemed particularly necessary for the protagonist to be a robot, but once he saw this kind of transformation, he immediately understood the concept. On top of that, the techniques used after transforming were truly cool.
After he had grown used to the simple controls through repeated jumping and, on the other hand, started feeling somewhat frustrated, the transformation techniques that appeared gave him joy and another reason to stay immersed in the game.
“This is really good. It’s simple and fun.”
Roxy had been struggling in various ways while managing a company that had suddenly grown. Perhaps the reason he had stopped testing games much was because he had lost the mental space for it.
But this game truly let Roxy empty his head and become immersed.
“How should I put it? Should I say it’s a game with very strong fundamentals?”
“You seem to like it.”
“That’s right. I like it very much. This will definitely sell very well.”
Afterward, the opinions of other Barbal Soft employees were the same. A very small number complained that it lacked depth, but even they could not disparage its fun.
Ikarak City in the eastern Republic of Smite.
Ikarak was a port city connected to the vast sea called the Ilmyeon Sea, where trade with other continents, especially the Lorasia Continent, took place.
Because of that, there were many ships, and there were many sailors who boarded those ships.
Pampi, thirty-four this year, was one of those sailors. However, he was not just an ordinary sailor, but a specialist navigator. He had ten years of experience, so his income was fairly high.
Despite his massive, muscular build, he had a hobby of enjoying games.
But this was not that unexpected. Since he left port every time and spent months away, it was difficult for him to maintain relationships on land, and even at sea, he had to spend long periods trapped on a ship. Because of that, PC games, which he could enjoy alone in a cramped room, suited him quite well as a hobby.