Chapter 46: Beta Test
Chapter 46: Beta Test
“It’s okay! There’s still a long way to go before our target release in June.”
Insu comforted the team with those words in case their morale started dropping.
Fortunately, he had set the target date with a fair amount of leeway.
“Yes...”
But perhaps because they had been pushing themselves too hard for too long, everyone looked half-dead before morale was even worth worrying about. Yoo Juyeon looked especially terrible. His already dark circles seemed to have sunk all the way down to his cheeks.
Is he really okay?
Even while this continued, time kept flowing forward, and after spring vacation ended, Insu soon became a second grader.
“Oh! Same class again!”
Whether it was luck or not, he ended up in the same class as Kim Sangshik once more. The little girl who had always competed with him for first place in class, Lee Juhee, was there too.
Juhee had beaten him at first, but after their rankings repeatedly overtook one another, she became highly conscious of Insu. The moment they met eyes inside the second-grade classroom, she shot him a rather sharp glare.
“Oh. Same class again. Let’s get along well this year too.”
“...Yeah. Sure.”
Still, perhaps because she was not actually rude by nature, or maybe simply because she was still young, the tension quickly faded from her eyes after Insu casually greeted her first, and she accepted it easily enough. Insu grinned at that before greeting the unfamiliar faces around him as well.
His communication with people looked much more natural now. Of course, it was not because the children suddenly matured enough to match his level just by becoming second graders. It was simply that Insu himself had grown accustomed to them.
Even so, enduring school classes was still painful.
“Class has started. Everyone, pay attention!”
Back in his previous life, school had been exhausting because learning itself was difficult. But now, being forced to sit still and relearn things he either already knew or found absurdly easy made him realize just how terrible the opposite situation could be.
Actually... maybe I already realized this during reserve military training?
But after thinking about it again, reserve training was still better. At least there, falling asleep from boredom did not get you smacked around and scolded.
Insu quietly attended class. During first grade, he answered questions enthusiastically in order to establish the image of a model student, but that only led to teachers constantly calling on him, so this time he changed strategies slightly.
After safely surviving the school day, Insu went out with Sangshik and a few of the new kids he had become friendly with, demolished some tteokbokki together, then headed home.
When he arrived at the company a while later, he observed the team members greeting him. Everyone still had passion, but perhaps because they had been pouring too much energy into development, they no longer resembled bright flames. Instead, they looked like smoldering black embers.
Seeing this makes me think maybe even going to school, moving around physically, and getting away from computers long enough to clear your head with simple addition and subtraction actually helps.
Thinking such pointless thoughts, Insu turned on the computer.
Although he regretted failing to finish during spring vacation, the deadline they sprinted toward had not been meaningless. They were genuinely very close to entering beta testing.
Roughly two weeks?
By mid-March, the systems themselves would likely be fully complete down to the smallest details, while the finer content, such as events, quests, and similar features, would also be nearly done, allowing them to move into beta version development.
Of course, if they relaxed their focus and mistakes started piling up, the entire schedule could easily be delayed all at once. Because of that, Insu constantly paid attention to making sure the atmosphere in the development room did not loosen too much.
Even while they immersed themselves in development, settlement payments for The Land Of Fantasy continued arriving.
First, domestic sales had fallen below one thousand copies. Since more than a year had passed since release, it was unavoidable. According to Hyundai Soft, the only reason it was still selling this much was because news of the game’s overseas popularity kept circulating.
Sales in Japan had also dropped below ten thousand copies.
Still, after seeing Korean sales, even this still looks huge.
The used game market had already become highly active, causing new sales to plummet sharply, and newer games were beginning to bury it beneath fresh competition, resulting in a clear decline. Even so, it still sold several times more than the game’s peak sales in Korea. At the moment, it was literally ten times more.
[Deposit JPN 17,181,360 JP¥]
And the amount itself was still considerable.
At 630 won per 100 yen... that’s slightly over one hundred million won?
Of course, Japan transferred the money before taxes, so once corporate tax was paid, the final amount would shrink considerably. Even so, since Parallel Soft still operated only a small development team, it was an amount too large to ignore relative to their scale.
This alone could probably keep the company running for around a year, right?
However, unlike the declining domestic and Japanese markets, the American market had reached its highest sales figures yet.
[Deposit VEL ENT INC USA 3,153,299.325 USD]
Three million!!
Just like every time before, not only Insu but both of his parents were unable to hide their shock. The numbers felt completely unreal. This time, Velocity Entertainment had even directly informed them of the sales volume: an astonishing 347,471 copies.
In truth, sales had increased by a similar ratio during the previous month as well, but because the leading digit had now changed from two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand, this month carried far more impact.
And despite American sales constantly increasing, there was a reason Velocity Entertainment specifically called this the all-time peak.
Exceptions existed, of course, but for hit games, the general sales cycle usually peaked around the fifth month before slowly declining afterward. And this month was precisely month five.
Seeing the amount left Insu both proud and burdened.
Not because of the money itself.
The gamers already chose to pay for it themselves. There’s no reason I’d feel burdened by that.
The burden came from the game currently in development. While the previous title continued receiving overwhelming praise, they were planning to release the next game not long after finishing beta testing.
The expectations that would inevitably gather around this game felt crushing.
Then again, looking at it another way, unless the game became an absolute god-tier masterpiece, there was no realistic way it could fully satisfy those expectations anyway. Perhaps it would actually be healthier not to think too hard about it.
Ah, screw it. Forget everything else and just focus on making the game.
No amount of worrying would magically create a solution, so Insu shifted his attention back to the work directly in front of him. Perhaps this was only possible because his parents handled all the money-related matters for him.
After all, even the money causing part of the pressure was something he himself did not actually need to stare at constantly.
And finally, after another twenty days passed and late March of 1991 arrived, they were able to begin beta version development. Then, by mid-April, the beta version was complete.
“Alright, we’re entering beta testing now.”
Insu looked around at the team members as he explained the precautions.
“This beta version already had many bugs fixed during alpha, and most of the major problems have also been corrected, so it should be playable without too many major interruptions.”
Of course, because they had continued adding new content during development, it was impossible for there to be absolutely no bugs. Still, compared to the alpha version, which felt like a terrible road covered with speed bumps every five meters, this one would at least feel smooth enough to properly enjoy driving through.
“That said, don’t get so absorbed in the game that you forget to catch bugs and problems. This is still a test, after all.”
“Yes, sir!”
“We’ll be careful.”
“Got it!”
Everyone’s eyes had darkened from pushing themselves this far, but morale itself remained high because they knew this stage was practically the final step.
Still, it kind of feels like the last flare before burning out completely.
Even at a glance, nobody looked healthy. Their eyes alone shone intensely while the rest of them looked exhausted. At least Eunha noona appeared the most normal, perhaps thanks to the power of youth.
She had just entered high school this year.
It was a vocational high school called Seoul Mirae Girls’ Commercial High School. Nicknamed Seoul Migirls Commercial, it specialized in preparing students for employment rather than university. Since she already had a career path and was actively working, she had apparently chosen vocational school without much hesitation.
However, the last time Insu visited her house and heard her mother talk about it, the truth was apparently much simpler: Eunha simply was not good enough at academics to have many other options.
At the time, Insu felt somewhat heavy-hearted, wondering whether he himself might share part of the responsibility.
But unlike his concerns, Eunha noona looked genuinely happy.
It made sense, because her school focused on employment preparation. Unlike middle school, they readily issued all the necessary paperwork allowing her to work at Insu’s company. They also fully acknowledged her commuting situation, exempted her from evening self-study sessions, generously counted attendance days for her, and provided every possible convenience they could.
As a result, not only was high school more comfortable for her than middle school had been, but the emotional burden she used to feel had disappeared entirely.
“Alright then, everyone start testing.”
The moment Insu finished speaking, keyboards and mice immediately began clicking away, and the now-familiar title music and sound effects started playing throughout the room.
It really does feel different.
After choosing a race and naming his character, Park Yoonsu spent quite a while managing internal affairs inside the generated world before eventually entering war. When everything progressed smoothly without any noticeable bugs, he finally felt some of the tension in his chest ease slightly.
Of course, he still understood this was ultimately a test, but before he realized it, his mindset had naturally shifted toward simply enjoying the game.
And on top of that, this was Parallel Soft’s unreleased secret new title, a game nobody in the world besides the developers themselves had ever played. Just thinking that made it feel as though dopamine was flooding his brain.
It’s seriously fun.
Of course, he had already thought the game was fun during both the prototype stage and alpha testing.
But back then, they had been anxiously examining incomplete, bug-ridden builds, so it felt more like a beginner cook nervously tasting unfinished food mid-cooking, concentrating intensely on every flavor and analyzing it. Honestly, there had always been lingering uncertainty.
Now, however, it felt more like casually eating a completed dish and naturally thinking, This tastes good.
And this was not Yoonsu’s impression alone. Most of the development team felt similarly.
Even Eunha and Suhyeon from the graphics team, who had originally been the least familiar with games, felt the same way. Naturally, the fact that they had personally helped create it made them somewhat biased, but the fact that all five team members genuinely found it fun was still a very positive sign.
Looks like someone found a bug.
After becoming deeply immersed in the game himself, Insu was brought back to reality by the sound of someone scribbling notes on paper. Hearing someone writing like that meant they had not become too absorbed in the game and still remembered this was testing, which was actually reassuring.
And so, for two weeks, the development room echoed mostly with the sounds of gaming, interrupted only occasionally by the scratch of pens writing notes. If not for those scribbling sounds, someone might have mistaken the place for a PC café.
Of course, PC cafés did not even exist yet in this era, so only someone from the future like Insu could have formed such an impression in the first place.
Compared to alpha, this beta test definitely contained far fewer bugs. However, because they kept testing continuously for two weeks, the total accumulated number discovered during that period still became fairly large.
The infinite-turn bug they thought was already fixed resurfaced again. A newly added unit suddenly disappeared from the screen because of some issue with its values. Save-load corruption occasionally merged pre-load and post-load resources together into an infinite duplication bug. Casting a spell called Summon Locust Swarm caused the entire screen to turn black due to a graphics error. All kinds of bizarre issues appeared.
Still, as mentioned before, the quantity was far lower than during alpha, and because they had already experienced several of these bugs during earlier stages, most of them could be fixed relatively quickly.
Of course, there were also several moments where fixing one issue caused entirely new bugs to appear elsewhere, leading everyone to sigh in despair yet again.
This beta-testing period ran on an extremely tight schedule. At least Insu was still an elementary school student, so they did not pull all-nighters, but everyone still worked overtime every single day.