Chapter 12

Insu did not know it, but Eunha was absolutely not the type to lack self-assertion. On top of that, she was entering puberty, so under normal circumstances, no matter how carefully Insu asked for help, there was a high chance she would react with instinctive resistance and make things difficult.

But because she viewed him as a genius, she followed along without complaint.

She definitely has good instincts.

Her work was better than expected. There were clearly immature aspects to it, but she learned quickly, and after a few revisions, she was producing artwork that genuinely felt like something out of old Japanese classic games.

Ah. It’d be amazing if we just had one more computer.

The moment he confirmed Eunha was truly a reliable asset, that regret immediately hit him.

Earlier, he said it was nice because he could work on other things while she used the computer, but their schedules and needs did not line up perfectly. There were inevitably times when one of them could do nothing but sit around waiting.

But getting another computer was far from easy.

In the twenty-first century of his previous life, computers were everywhere, but right now they were not common at all. He casually asked his father before, and apparently, a 386 computer cost over five million won each.

And he saw somewhere, maybe on TV, that in this era, the starting salary for a college graduate was not even five hundred thousand won.

That meant ten months’ worth of salary. At that point, it was not quite the price of a house, but it was comparable to a car.

“Ah. I want a computer too.”

As Eunha continued coming to Insu’s house to work, the awkwardness from the beginning disappeared. Because of that, she occasionally tossed out casual remarks like this whenever she got bored.

Insu could not answer immediately and only gave a bitter smile. The fact that she had become invested in the work and interested in computers was definitely good. But as he already said, computers in this era were incredibly expensive, so there was nothing he could realistically do for her.

If a computer cost around one million won, maybe he could try persuading or begging his parents. But right now, he was still in a position where he achieved nothing and only received consideration from them, so he could not bring himself to ask. Even this computer was merely borrowed from his father.

“...Noona, let’s just make this project succeed first. Then a computer will be no big deal.”

“Mmm.”

Eunha nodded as if that made sense. But Insu’s confidence was growing considerably. He always believed in the project itself, but now, thanks to the graphics Eunha was creating, the outline of the world he wanted to build was becoming increasingly vivid.

Does it just look more convincing because someone else is doing it?

Before, he would spend several days barely managing to make a single effect look passable. But now, they were producing several decent effects a day. They also made significant progress on races and character designs, and multiple terrain tiles for the maps were already complete.

Moreover, the results looked quite convincing.

He did not know if it was top-tier, but by the standards of this era, it definitely looked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠polished.

Of course, this was partly because Eunha was talented, but it was also largely thanks to Insu’s detailed and clean design documents, shaped by his familiarity with the polished aesthetics of the twenty-first century and the extensive game development knowledge he studied.

I guess it’s about time to start making the story and quests too.

It was around the one-month mark of working together. At this point, they could finally gauge meaningful progress.

Maybe around twenty to thirty percent?

Of course, there was still a mountain of coding left. But stories and quests also required dedicated systems, so delaying them too long could temporarily halt development. On top of that, Eunha’s work speed kept increasing, so if he did not want her breathing down his neck, he needed to start this quickly too.

Actually, for a character-focused RPG like the kind popular in the twenty-first century, story and quest work would normally have been planned out from the very beginning.

But while Insu was borrowing the visual style of JRPGs, the internal systems leaned closer to Western RPGs. There were no strongly defined protagonists, and the story progression was closer to an open world, so it was more efficient to build the systems and world first before handling those parts.

And for a package game, I should probably include a main story too.

In theory, players freely enjoyed themselves by experiencing various events across a wide world. But unless AI evolved enough for the game world to truly come alive and generate events on its own, developers still had to create everything manually.

And among those events, some would naturally have greater importance or scale than others, so even unintentionally, a story that resembled a main storyline would inevitably emerge.

Actually, Insu wanted to build a highly detailed simulation system that minimized artificiality and allowed events to occur naturally.

And he already thought through part of the design. But once he actually tried making it, the difficulty was overwhelming.

It doesn’t feel completely impossible, though.

But development was already demanding enough as it was. If he tried implementing this system too, he had no idea when the game would ever be released. Worse, if it was implemented poorly, it could end up worse than not having it at all, so for now, he decided to stick with proven methods.

Still, he had no intention of abandoning the simulation idea entirely. He fully intended to include it later in an MMORPG.

After that, Insu spent a long time struggling over the story and quests.

It was not because he lacked material.

There’s endless source material.

Since the setting was fantasy, he could draw endlessly from myths, legends, and folklore, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the amount of fantasy content he consumed in his previous life was, without exaggeration, enormous.

But he did not remember every source word for word, and he still had to adapt them into forms suitable for the game, so the workload was huge and required an incredible amount of thought.

Fortunately, in this era, events and quests did not need to be as extravagant as they were in the twenty-first century.

Even the subculture open-world games he played in his previous life required massive resources for cutscenes, animations, full voice acting, and more.

But in this era, a character portrait and a short conversation were enough. Even so, Insu intended to go one step further and include simple cutscenes using in-game characters and backgrounds.

Because the graphics were 2D, they were much easier to create than twenty-first-century equivalents, but by this era’s standards, it would still be fairly innovative. Insu did not remember the entire history of gaming, but he believed cutscenes only became widely popular in the 1990s.

If I just use a few systems like this, I could probably make enough money even with a straightforward JRPG-style progression system.

He was not serious, but the crushing workload naturally caused thoughts like this to pop into his head from time to time.

Ah. Once I start a company later, I definitely need to hire someone just for story writing.

Whenever he sat there typing dialogue and narrative text, it felt less like developing a game and more like writing a novel. Worse, while he was somehow managing it, his sense for it felt lacking.

At least it was fortunate that this was a Western-style RPG where characters were not overly emphasized.

Another disappointing point was the sound.

Because his father liked games, the computer even had a sound card installed, so he could at least create sounds using the FM synthesis chip. He learned that while studying development too.

But raising the quality there also required instinct and musical knowledge.

I can barely make simple melodies.

His aptitude in this area was even worse than with graphics. Insu had no choice but to clutch his head.

In the twenty-first century, he could have easily used existing libraries full of sound effects instead of making everything himself. But here, he truly had to build everything from scratch.

On top of that, it was not even a matter of recording real sounds. He had to create sounds by combining waveforms expressed as mathematical curves.

The only fortunate thing was that he at least learned some tricks for making certain sound effects.

Things like impact sounds, screams, or explosions?

He was still searching for someone to help with this too. But considering he had not found anyone yet, it seemed increasingly likely he would have to brute-force it himself.

Then again, finding Eunha noona was pure luck too.

Imagining future reviews saying that everything about the game was excellent except the music, Insu let out a deep sigh.

Of course, he asked Eunha too.

“Noona.”

“Hm? Why?”

“Do you know anyone who’s good at music? It’d be even better if they’re good with computers too.”

“Uhh... I don’t think so?”

She had a few friends who liked drawing, but she knew nothing about the music side of things. Since she had no interest in it, she never paid attention to who was good at music.

At most, if someone played the recorder or bamboo flute well during music class, she would think, Ooh, and be briefly impressed. Unless they were close friends, she would not even remember who it was.

It’s not like I can introduce him to the music teacher.

She was not even close with the music teacher, and she doubted that old hag would help with game development anyway. No, she was not even sure the teacher had the ability to help.

Remembering the grudge she held from being struck hard on the head with a bamboo flute after getting caught drawing comics during class, Eunha immediately eliminated the music teacher as a candidate.

“I’ll look around.”

“Yes. Please.”

But even after that, Eunha failed to find any musical talent. In the end, Insu had to somehow handle the music himself.

Afterward, Insu and Eunha struggled together as they continued making the game.

The more Eunha worked on it, the more she realized this was no ordinary undertaking, and she gradually became more serious about it. By around two weeks later, she too had become a developer pouring all her passion into the project.

“Ah. If I didn’t have to go to school, we could finish so much faster!”

“...Noona, then I wouldn’t have time to code.”

“Huh? Oh, right?”

And even while Eunha was at school, she did not completely stop working. She drew in notebooks and sketchbooks there.

Insu appreciated her passion, but at the same time, he felt slightly uneasy.

But is noona just not studying at all anymore?

She never seemed like an outstanding student to begin with, but now it almost felt like he completely ruined someone’s education.

Well, since things turned out this way, she can just keep developing games with me.

Studying was not the only correct answer in life. Insu himself already stepped away from the normal path. Thinking that way, his guilt quickly faded, and his sense of camaraderie with her deepened a little more.

Development continued after that.

It was truly not an easy period. Even in his previous life, he considered solo development and studied for it, but solo development here was far harder.

Even so, Insu was progressing at a remarkably fast pace. It was not because his development skills were extraordinary, but because he saw the future, giving him complete confidence in success and making his planning clear. On top of that, he repeatedly recreated already-existing games as practice examples before.

It was the difference between blazing a trail through unexplored wilderness and walking down a road that was already paved.

Well, maybe this counts as a cheat in its own way.

Since no one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠living in this era or this world could ever possess such an ability, the thought was not entirely wrong.

Another eight months passed like that, bringing the total development period to around ten months.

Development advanced considerably, reaching roughly seventy to eighty percent completion. Considering this was essentially solo development, or at most two-person development including Eunha, it was an unbelievably fast pace.

If Insu had not been reincarnated and were just an ordinary person of this era, making a game with systems and volume like this alone would have taken at least three to four years.

And if he got stuck along the way, it probably would have easily gone beyond five years.

But Insu planned to complete and release the game before he turned seven years old. Incidentally, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠year already changed and his birthday passed, meaning he was now six years old.