Chapter 141: Volder’s First Test
Some might ask why it would be a bad thing if it was free, but if the profitability was poor, it simply could not be maintained for long. On top of that, management quality would continue to decline, and things like additional content updates would become impossible as well.
If players wanted to keep enjoying it, then the developer also needed to make a certain amount of profit.
He still needed to think about it more, but for now, he was considering operating it for free for about a year after launch, then later charging a relatively low usage fee.
He had even considered servicing it entirely like an MMORPG, but this was fundamentally a package-based single-player game, and the multiplayer portion was closer to a bonus feature. Earlier, he had said it required MMORPG-level resources, but honestly, Volder’s multiplayer did not even have a fixed world, and interaction with maps was also limited.
The in-game community features were also weak, and since it focused primarily on combat, the areas the servers had to handle were far smaller compared to TLF Online.
These thoughts had already been shared with the development teams. They were also planned to be included in the game terms and multiplayer terms. Since the pricing had not yet been finalized, it was currently only written that the details would be announced later through multiplayer and the community.
Insu clicked single-player instead of the unresponsive multiplayer mode.
The character selection screen immediately appeared.
Naturally, it was completely empty right now, so he immediately clicked Create Character.
Collapsed buildings, shattered asphalt roads wedged between them, and plants growing through the cracks perfectly captured the atmosphere of an apocalypse. Far away in the sky, a structure resembling a spaceship drifted through the air.
Within that setting, futuristic-looking characters dressed in all kinds of outfits and possessing wildly different appearances cautiously scanned their surroundings. That was the game’s character creation screen.
There had also been proposals for a screen showing a spaceship filled with transparent capsules containing sleeping characters, or even a version with no elaborate illustration at all, using only a desk and character profile files placed on top of it. In the end, however, the current design had been selected.
It was still only a prototype, so nothing was finalized yet, but seeing it like this, it did not feel bad at all. There did not seem to be any real need to change it.
Since not all the characters had been developed yet, only two were selectable for now: “Psyker” and “Body Modifier.”
The Psyker was an artificial human created by analyzing the psychic abilities of the superpowered followers of the “Cult of the Absolute Truth,” which served as the game’s enemies. They were pale-skinned humans with tall statures, hairless bodies, and large dark eyes.
They possessed greater strength than ordinary humans, but because they had been created primarily to wield psychic powers, they did not possess transcendent physical abilities. As a result, they wore relatively light outfits made from smooth, skin-tight materials, with metal plates added to supplement defense.
Body Modifiers were one category of mercenaries in this world. They privately modified their bodies to acquire abilities suitable for combat. Rather than maintaining balanced abilities, they altered their bodies according to their own experiences and knowledge, resulting in bizarre physiques and tricky combat techniques.
The one shown here had an grotesquely oversized right arm, a mechanical tail-like attachment, a gigantic build, and half its face covered in something resembling hardened scales, making it look more like a monster or alien.
That was the setting, but simply put, since the purpose was demonstration and testing, they had just developed one melee combat character and one ranged magic character first.
Insu did not deliberate long.
‘A mage is still the best choice, right?’
The moment he selected it, the Psyker, who had been cautiously watching one side of the screen, slowly walked to the center. Red light flared from its eyes, and it raised both hands to support what looked like a mass of blue lightning energy.
He casually named the character “Chuunibyou.” Since it was single-player anyway, the character name would hardly ever be used.
Then he pressed Play.
After a brief loading period, a black screen appeared.
At first, he thought it was just a loading screen, but then faint lights emerged from one side. Those lights rapidly expanded, and blazing stars, planets of various forms, and gigantic structures such as spaceships and space stations swept past the screen.
Then everything suddenly stopped.
Something that had looked like a tiny green dot in the center of the screen rapidly zoomed closer at tremendous speed until the entire display was filled with the image of a green planet.
The planet then rotated rapidly before stopping at one particular location and zooming in again.
Soon, the scenery of a town unfolded, and the screen stopped once more.
It felt like a modern provincial city, except that vehicles and machinery everywhere were overturned, destroyed, and wrecked. Countless corpses, blood, debris, and crows filled the streets.
Then a Psyker slowly walked in from the left side of the screen and stopped in the center.
‘This actually seems pretty good?’
He was talking about the presentation.
Of course, it still stuttered badly because optimization had not been done at all yet, but that was unavoidable. It would probably improve in the alpha version.
Thud! Thud!
The moment the game began and he walked a few steps, half-rotten zombies immediately appeared.
Insu clicked on them with the mouse, and his Psyker swung something resembling a metal rod. It was probably the same weapon that had emitted blue light earlier in the character window.
Since the setting was a space-age world, they had considered using guns as the default weapons, but it did not feel suitable for the Psyker character. Since the character was ultimately meant to rely mainly on psychic powers, they ended up designing equipment similar to a mage’s staff, something with poor direct striking power.
Still, the instant response of the character moving immediately after he clicked and smashing the zombies made something stir within him.
Insu liked turn-based games too, but he had originally been more accustomed to real-time action. Even in 2025, he had enjoyed real-time action RPGs on mobile quite a bit.
Back then, he had been so used to them that he felt nothing special about it. But after coming to this era and being unable to play such games for so long, experiencing an RPG that responded and moved instantly like this again gave him a unique thrill.
The zombies at the beginning were practically just tutorial enemies, but because of that thrill, he became absorbed and killed every single one before heading toward the city afterward.
<Who are you!>
When he arrived at the village, a hastily constructed metal wall greeted him, and a guard standing on top addressed him.
The villagers did not seem to know anything about a rescue request, but the Psyker’s attitude was not hostile, he at least looked like a living human rather than a zombie, and most importantly, once he mentioned the name of the person who had sent the request, they opened the iron gate.
<If you head another fifteen kilometers east, there’s a communications facility there. Decker is probably there.>
It felt like there was something hidden beneath the surface, and it was a story structure designed to naturally guide the player forward. Rather than forcing the player to understand the setting or story through long text explanations, it simply provided direction, so the dialogue itself was brief.
Insu immediately moved onward and began slaughtering zombies and monsters again.
‘The effects definitely look good.’
Earlier, he had only swung his weapon around, but this time he registered and used a basic skill available from Level 1.
The skill system had been copied directly from Diablo. One skill could be assigned to the left mouse button and another to the right mouse button, creating a highly intuitive click-based control method.
The basic skill was Neurostatic Burst.
Blue light flashed around the character’s head, and a thin white beam of light surged forward. Near the target, it exploded in bursts of red and blue light.
Since there were still barely any effect-related libraries available and computer performance also had limitations, every effect had been created manually. Still, the effects were vivid, and the colors and shapes fit appropriately, so they blended naturally without feeling cheap or out of place.
It genuinely felt like using real psychic powers.
As expected from someone endorsed by Noona Eunha, the graphics team leader really did seem skilled. Without realizing it, Insu glanced toward where the graphics team leader was sitting.
As the game progressed, his level steadily increased, and he had to distribute stats and skills.
Insu had designed the overall planning and systems, but the detailed parts, such as stat effects and balancing, had not passed through his hands. So he had to assign them based solely on the in-game descriptions.
If this had been a fully released game, strategy guides would already be uploaded on communities, but there was no way to expect that right now.
‘My firepower doesn’t seem lacking for now.’
Since he hated missing attacks, Insu first invested a few points into Dexterity (DEX), then placed the rest into Mind (MIND).
As for skills, he just chose whatever looked strong.
He also picked up and equipped various pieces of gear, but that carefully designed farming system did not mean much in the early stages. The real fun would probably begin only after reaching max level and challenging higher difficulties to farm endgame equipment.
For now, he was simply equipping whatever dropped and replacing it whenever something slightly better appeared, like a ragpicker.
After wandering around and progressing through quests for quite some time, he finally encountered the first boss.
[Corrupted Zombie Priest]
It was not merely something contaminated by aftereffects. This was a being who had directly received blessings through faith in Volder, but failed to endure them, becoming partially transformed into a zombie. It suffered endlessly, yet continued to endure through fanatical faith bordering on madness.
When first encountered, it hid behind a curtain and spoke calmly, so he had not expected anything strange. But the quests it gave gradually became more bizarre, and it slowly revealed hints of madness. Eventually, when Insu’s character expressed suspicion and finally rejected its insane demands, it revealed its true form.
<How dare you reject the Lord’s blessing!!!!>
Smashing apart the curtain and church pews, the creature revealed itself.
It was a gigantic monster over three meters tall, with three half-rotten arms attached irregularly to its body, an enormously swollen head, and huge glowing red eyes.
The difficulty felt appropriate.
There were several attack patterns capable of dealing powerful burst damage, so concentration was required. However, as long as he avoided getting hit by those attacks and did not get cornered with no room to escape, it was manageable through careful hit-and-run tactics while constantly chugging potions.
“Whew…”
After nearly dying several times, Insu finally managed to defeat the creature and let out a relieved sigh.
His fingers felt slightly sore from all the frantic clicking.
Whenever he thought about Diablo, he usually only remembered repetitive farming grinds, but after playing this recreated game himself, memories resurfaced of how much he had genuinely enjoyed the story while playing Diablo II as well.
Then he suddenly looked around.
The other team members were also completely immersed, busily clicking their mice.
At the very least, it seemed the prototype had passed one of its primary goals: confirming whether it was actually fun.
Still, the large number of bugs was a problem.
It was normal for prototypes to contain many bugs, but compared to their previous games, this one had noticeably more.
At first, he thought it was because this was a newly formed team rather than an existing one. But after thinking about it again, the developers on this team were not particularly inferior to the previous teams, especially compared to the TLF Online team.
And as he slowly considered it further, he felt like he could roughly understand the reason.
‘Well, compared to before, the game itself has become way bigger and more complicated.’
Volder’s gameplay itself was simpler than the TLF series, but that did not mean its structure was simpler as well.
If anything, the code required to implement its farming systems and real-time combat, along with all the variables branching from them, was even more complicated and diverse than calculation-heavy turn-based games.
Because of that, development also required far more manpower, with as many as thirty-five people currently devoted to the project. That too was probably one of the reasons the bug occurrence rate had increased so much.