Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Wouldn’t it be better to just study hard and get into a major corporation instead?
It was not that he looked down on studying, but he was only five years old right now. Since he was starting far earlier than everyone else, he definitely had an advantage.
Still, after trying the games in this world, he gained some confidence.
Since I’m living life a second time, I should do what I actually want to do.
And thinking about it again, even if he failed, he would still learn something along the way and at least make a living. The age of computers was coming, after all.
Insu exited the game and stared for a moment at the black default screen with the blinking cursor before climbing down from the chair and heading toward the bookshelf.
“What’s wrong? You’re done already?”
Seongcheol looked slightly surprised when he saw the child, who had been deeply immersed in the game, get up in less than an hour. Children’s focus and obsession could be intense, and he had been wondering how he would eventually make him stop.
“Yes.”
Maybe he’s not as interested in computers as I thought?
At the neat response, Seongcheol felt a little disappointed. But then he saw the child walk over to the bookshelf and begin selecting computer books, causing his thoughts to change immediately.
The first thing Insu reached for was a game magazine.
It’s in English.
Seongcheol really did seem to be someone deeply interested in games. Insu’s first thought was why it was not a Korean magazine, but then he remembered that Korea probably did not even have game magazines yet during this era.
Looks like it’s the same in this world too.
He was not completely incapable of reading English, but he was far from fluent, so his eyes naturally drifted toward the pictures first. Despite the retro designs, the magazine itself felt unmistakably brand new, which was strangely disorienting.
Still, these look much flashier than the games in the house.
Perhaps because the articles focused on newer releases, there were almost no monochrome games. And the graphics looked more impressive than he expected.
Of course, it would be unfair to compare them to games from the era he had lived in. But unlike the earlier games he played, where “color” only meant barely distinguishable shades, these games contained properly drawn images and far more detailed visuals.
Oh? That’s 3D?
One racing game appeared to have graphics that looked almost three-dimensional. Of course, it was not real 3D. It was simply a 2D graphical effect designed to imitate depth. But regardless, it looked convincing.
I think I saw something similar once in the corner of an arcade I visited a long time ago.
The magazine was both interesting and informative. At the very least, it gave him a rough understanding of what kinds of games were being released, what was popular, and how far technology had advanced.
But what mattered most right now was development ability.
So this world uses C language too.
If Insu remembered correctly, the creator had named it “C” because it came after the B language. Apparently, developers in this world had similar sensibilities.
Though it was also possible that the sequence had shifted here, turning it into the B language or D language instead. If that had happened, it would have felt incredibly awkward. Even in his previous life, D language existed much later, but its status and use cases were completely different.
He glanced sideways at Seongcheol. His father was watching TV with his mother, smiling happily. He had said he was some kind of engineer. Perhaps he was related to computers as well. Besides C language, there were also books on BASIC and even Assembly.
Of course, simply owning the books did not mean he had mastered all of them, but it definitely showed deep interest.
Insu pulled out a book on C language.
Assembly interested him somewhat too, but he could not even imagine learning that from scratch and developing games with it right now. For the moment, he intended to rely on what he had learned in his previous life.
It seems pretty similar.
He slowly opened the thick book and began reading carefully. Since this was a different era, there would probably be version differences, and he certainly did not remember every detail of C language perfectly, but overall, it did not seem very different.
Well, even if this was another world, it was still a similar one. Most things probably converged in roughly the same direction. He had expected this to some degree, but he still let out a relieved sigh.
Seeing his tiny son seriously reading through a thick computer book before suddenly sighing heavily, Seongcheol could not help chuckling.
Unlike Seongcheol’s amused gaze, however, Insu was deadly serious.
But there’s no internet.
The language itself seemed to be the same, but the environment was completely different, and that was a problem. The biggest issue was the inability to search things online.
Not only would reference materials be scarce, but without samples to copy from, he would have to make everything manually. Thinking about how, in his previous life, he usually pieced things together by borrowing existing code made the current situation feel incredibly daunting.
On top of that, everything had to be done entirely through text, and there were barely any tools available. Just imagining the debugging process made him dizzy.
Still, it doesn’t seem completely impossible.
Fortunately, games at this point in time were much simpler than in his previous era, and the genre he wanted to make was not particularly difficult from a technical standpoint either.
Who knows? Maybe reincarnation turned me into a coding genius.
After reading for quite a while, that absurd fantasy suddenly crossed his mind, causing a pleased smile to appear on his face. Like most people, he did not particularly enjoy coding itself. He had wanted to make games, and since he lacked money, he had no choice but to do it himself as a solo developer.
That was why studying and practicing coding had always felt painful, something he forced himself through little by little. Even back then, he envied geniuses like John Carmack and their overwhelming talent.
(Translator’s Notes: John Carmack — Legendary American programmer and game developer best known for co-creating Doom and pioneering 3D graphics technology in games.)
Come to think of it, I wonder what kinds of geniuses exist in this world.
Surely this world also had people leading the industry, just like the one he had lived in. People like John Carmack, Richard Garriott who created Ultima, or Gabe Newell.
(Translator’s Notes: Gabe Newell — Co-founder of Valve Corporation and later creator of Steam.)
His heart pounded. If he wanted to achieve his vision and ambitions, he would eventually have to compete against geniuses like them. But strangely, he was not afraid.
Maybe he lacked their natural talent. But Insu possessed a weapon greater than talent itself. He was practically someone who had seen the future.
Still, even that was not enough to guarantee success. Even if, as he had jokingly hoped earlier, reincarnation granted him exceptional coding ability, it would not change that fact.
Either way, I just have to start making something first.
In the end, he would not know until he threw himself into it.
What should I make?
Of course, even in his previous life, there had been games, many games, he wanted to create. But his circumstances now were different. Something like the subculture-style open-world games he loved would be technically impossible in this era, and gamers’ tastes changed depending on the time period.
Though honestly, if it could actually be made, a subculture open-world game would probably sell no matter the era.
For a moment, Insu thought of the characters he left behind in his previous life.
For now, the genre would probably be RPG. That decision reflected a great deal of his personal tastes and vision, but it also happened to coincide with the period when RPGs were beginning to rise dramatically.
That meant he would have to compete against other pioneers, but if things went well, it could also become the foundation of a powerful IP.
Come to think of it, in my previous world, wasn’t this around the time JRPGs first started becoming popular?
(Translator’s Notes: JRPG — Japanese Role-Playing Game. Often used to describe RPGs with Japanese-style character art, turn-based or party-based systems, and story-focused progression)
He could not remember the exact dates, but Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy had probably come out a year or two earlier. Thinking about how the first entries of those legendary IPs were still brand new in this era gave him an odd thrill.
Of course, this world might contain entirely different games, or those games might not exist at all, but simply sharing the same era stirred those emotions in him.
And if they don’t exist, I could make them myself.
Insu did not necessarily prefer JRPGs over Western RPGs. But JRPGs were more familiar to him. They had always been more common in Korea, and many later Korean games had clearly been influenced more heavily by them.
Of course, Western RPGs eventually became widespread too, and their elements were absorbed over time. But in the early days, the influence of JRPGs had definitely been stronger. Even later on, external aspects like character design still tended to favor the JRPG style.
The thought that he could personally open the door to that genre was incredibly tempting. Morally, it felt somewhat questionable, but after thinking about it again, perhaps it really was not.
There’s no guarantee JRPGs will even exist in this world anyway.
Naturally, because of cultural differences with the West, something with a different flavor would likely emerge instead. And since this was still a similar world, there was also a possibility that something similar would appear. But that was only a possibility.
Besides, he had no intention of recreating JRPGs exactly as they were.
After all, he had grown up enjoying RPGs that incorporated Western RPG elements and various improvements.
First off, I should get rid of rigid, linear storytelling.
People’s opinions differed on that point, but considering both Insu’s personal preferences and his long-term plans, those elements were out. In fact, since such things were often considered defining features of JRPGs, perhaps the game he envisioned could not even truly be called a JRPG.
As Insu examined the books and thought endlessly about what kind of game he should make, he completely lost track of time.
“Insu, it’s time to wash up and go to bed.”
“Huh?”
Insu looked up in surprise. He had eaten dinner only a short while ago, so hearing it was already bedtime shocked him. But when he checked the clock, it was not even that late.
[8:35 PM]
Though he was surprised time had passed so quickly, it still felt far too early to sleep. But despite feeling like he should still be energetic enough to study computers all night like in his previous life, his eyes were already drooping.
Oh right. I’m five years old now.
Though it felt like a distant memory, he remembered that even in his previous life, he used to sleep early as a child. He could also recall the rhythm of his current daily life.
I want to study a little more, though.
Still, he knew he could not think properly while sleepy, and he wanted to grow taller too, so he obediently followed his mother’s words and headed toward the bathroom.
And so, Insu’s first day after reincarnating came to an end.
The next morning, after breakfast, Insu immediately opened the C language book again.
Yeah, it really doesn’t seem that different.
After reviewing the remaining sections from yesterday, Insu came to a conclusion. Thankfully, it did not seem like he would need to relearn everything from the beginning.
He could not be one hundred percent certain, but he had never memorized the entirety of C language in his previous life either. He had always coded while consulting books, so this level of similarity was more than enough.
Still, I’ll need to study a lot harder here.
In his previous life, he could constantly alt-tab through Windows and instantly look things up online. Now he could not. Of course, he had books, but repeatedly flipping through them would waste enormous amounts of time.
It was not impossible. But game development was a battle against time. He would probably have to work as a solo developer in the beginning, and unless he planned to spend five years creating his first game, he needed to cram as much knowledge into his head as possible.
It’s like trying to play a competitive game without shortcut keys.
But before coding came planning. He already had a vague outline in mind, but if he started recklessly in such a vague state, there was a real chance the project would eventually spiral into something unfixable and collapse entirely.
Even in his previous life, he had made practice games before, only to discover after finishing them that they were nothing but lifeless piles of code devoid of fun, leaving him in tears.
I spent three whole months on one of them.
He had realized halfway through that something was wrong, but by then it had already become impossible to salvage.
“Ah!”
While trying to refine his planning further, something suddenly occurred to him, and he hurried toward the computer. Then he rummaged through the box of floppy disks.
There it is.
Now that he had seriously decided to make games, he had naturally started thinking about whether all the necessary tools were available. And among them, the most important was the compiler. Thankfully, there was one in the disk box.
[POWER C]
It was an unfamiliar name, but since it did not sound like a game, he checked the label and saw that it was indeed a compiler.
Apparently, since his father had such a strong interest in computers and owned all these programming books, he had prepared things like this as well.