Run and Gun: "Huh?"
A man logged into Digital Inside with a big grin, looking forward to his usual community browsing session. While diligently reading through the mountain of concept posts as always, he noticed something was off. The banner ads... weren't rotating. Normally three or four different ads would cycle through, but today a single green banner had completely taken over every slot.
Buy not just books, but everything on Amazon!
The message was straightforward. But the real reason the ad captured his attention wasn't the text. It was the red oval stamped with [Finally!] and the face of Yoon I-seo winking playfully. ...It just drew the eye. How could any person possess such a perfect face? There was something almost magical about it, an irresistible pull that made you click as if hypnotized.
When he clicked the banner, it took him to the Amazon homepage. The ad hadn't been lying. Not only books, but cosmetics, music CDs, computer parts, and more were all sporting bright on sale tags.
"Tsk... That's a brand-new CPU right there. It's cheaper than the market price with the discount. Should I just pull the trigger?"
The moment he linked his bank account to the PayPal payment system and hit the purchase button, the money vanished from his account. Just like that, he had fallen into the swamp of impulse buying. This single act would later earn a small share of the credit for Yoon I-seo realizing the seductive power of the word "sale" and becoming a serial discount addict.
Finally, launch day! The Digital Inside ad banners had been completely conquered by Amazon, who had successfully plotted with KIN behind the scenes. And on the actual launch day, the servers... surprisingly didn't crash. All the investment money poured into building massive refrigerator-sized servers had paid off.
As for the money that flowed in that day?
"One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand... fifty thousand dollars?????"
"The commission is five hundred bucks! Pretty successful for day one, right?"
It was an unusually strong start. The combination of Amazon's established trust and the massive ripple effect of Yoon I-seo's personal endorsement had created something special.
"Actually, I bought some stuff too. My usual cosmetics ran out, and they had them on Amazon, so I went for it. I-seo, you should buy some things like that and start wearing makeup once in a while."
"Ehh... Makeup feels like wearing a mask on my face, so I don't really like doing it..."
"But you're already so pretty. Why... Don't tell me you're walking around bare-faced because you think you're already beautiful?"
Ugh. Direct hit.
"Uh, anyway, since the project went well and we've all worked hard, let's take a week off before we start game development."
"Don't change the subject!"
"Can't we just start right now? I really want to make games..."
Oh no. The coding slave had broken down! He'd become a person who literally couldn't survive without programming. How truly tragic.
"No matter how much of a developer trainer I am, I make sure everyone actually rests. If you don't want to see me really die from overwork, quietly go and have some fun."
This advice came from experience, so I hoped they'd take it seriously. If you don't rest now, you'll actually die from overwork!!!!!
"Then I-seo, while you're resting, how about we go cosmetic shopping..."
"Rejected. I'm not going."
"Hing..."
I'm just going to roll around playing infinite-coin rhythm games. Don't even think about dragging me outside. Even while cooped up in my room, I can do everything and know everything I need to. That's half the reason I developed the internet in the first place.
For example... Through Kim Mu-sik and Digital Inside, I heard about the situation back in Korea, and it was quite the spectacle. I didn't explain the details to the people here, but seeing how everything falls apart the moment I leave is honestly a little tempting. This is the exile you all chose! Endure it with pure spite and willpower! In exile stories, the protagonist eventually reclaiming the house is a basic element anyway.
Like a lie, a week passed by. Oh fuck, does this even make sense? I clearly only played rhythm games the entire time. Though I did manage to shatter a few ranking records in the process.
"Kiyaaaaaaaaa!!!! The time for game development has finally arrived!"
"You said you already had a rough idea! If you don't want to drink kolongtang again, spit out that design document right now, Yoon I-seo!"
"Okay! I'll tell you everything! I'll spill it all! Just please spare me the kolongtang!"
The ancient traditional information extraction technique known as [Kolongtang] was the one thing I could never handle! It overlapped too much with the grand interrogation room and was genuinely terrifying. I still can't eat seolleongtang because of the trauma.
"Ahem. The core concept is still a shooting game, but it's not a bullet-hell shooter like Strikers or Galaga."
"Then what genre would you accurately call it?"
"Run and gun."
Just wait for me, Metal Slug. I'm on my way!
As someone who had loyally watched a certain giant spirit's broadcasts, I already had the entire series' stage structure memorized! Stage leveling and pacing were already complete inside my head!
'Here you jump-cancel while firing your gun as you fall.'
Ugh, the autoplay in my brain turned on again! Get out of my head! Ugh!
"The player character who shoots guns will move in a side-scrolling format. It might be easiest to imagine the plumber from Super Plumber Brothers firing a gun."
"Hmm... When you put it that way, I can kind of picture it."
"The overall progression will be similar to Strikers. Stage-based format with regular enemy waves leading up to a boss fight right before the stage ends."
"But bullet-hell games have unique bullet patterns for each boss. That's what keeps the boss fights from getting boring. Won't this just make the bosses feel too generic?"
"In bullet-hell shooters, 'patterns' usually refer to the bullets the boss fires. Run and gun is a little different. We're talking about creative attack patterns that make use of the map itself and the boss's concept, not just simple bullets."
"...?"
"For example, a boss that charges forward while destroying the bridge it's standing on, or a pattern where it opens and closes three gun ports. Things like that. You just need to create patterns—in other words, 'gimmicks.'"
Honestly, it didn't matter if they didn't fully understand. Since I'd be making it myself and working everyone to the bone, it would come together somehow.
It was finally time for Yoo Ji-young's dot-art skills to shine again after so long. When you think of Metal Slug's most distinctive feature, the animation-quality dots come to mind first. To achieve that level of fidelity, I had no choice but to work Ji-young hard! I'd already prepared a separate canvas and tools optimized for dot art in Photoshop, so the workflow should be much more efficient.
"You're not just trying to suck out all my blood again... right?"
"Of course not. To be precise, we need to squeeze our blood out together^^"
"Ah... ahaha..."
In the end, Yoo Ji-young resigned herself to her fate. Good attitude. Still, I didn't push her as brutally as I had in the past. Watching people's bodies wear down in real time made me uncomfortable, and I'd already learned during the SimCity days that simply driving people harder doesn't produce perfect results. This really came from a pure heart. This time it wasn't wicked capitalist intentions. Really.
"By the way, those Mars People? What exactly do those aliens look like? I still can't picture it even after hearing the description."
"First the head is round... coming down like this... and then here like this... This part is the mouth, the mouth... Add tentacles and some blush too... Now even I can draw Mars People. You can do it too."
"What does that even mean, and why would you add blush to an alien... Isn't that less an alien and more a pet jellyfish?"
"Pet jellyfish! Please call it interspecies romance!"
Later, among the dummy data setting illustrations, a picture remained of a female Moren soldier and a Mars Person with bright red blush sitting together on a bench, clearly on a date. This single image not only got exposed during data analysis, sparking the birth of the legendary tentacle genre, but somehow even shifted the genre's direction from humiliation to pure love. Yoon I-seo had done it without the slightest idea of the massive impact it would have.
Meanwhile, in Digital Inside's Electronic Entertainment Gallery.
The gallery was suddenly experiencing an unexpected [Great Game Creation Era]. Of course, no one could match Yoon I-seo's over-technology, but the important thing was that game creators were no longer limited to just the Yoon I-seo faction.
Most were doing it as a side job or hobby, and those who were truly serious about it mostly wanted to join Yoon I-seo's team.
"Could I possibly work in this garage?"
Occasionally people would even show up at the garage in person to beg to be accepted as colleagues, but...
"We're not planning to recruit anyone right now. Our English still isn't good enough for proper communication. If we can't communicate clearly, the project will inevitably fall apart."
"Wouldn't one person be okay?"
"No. It would create fairness issues, and it's not too late to recruit after we've grown bigger."
This was Yoon I-seo's sincere belief. Communication breakdowns happened even when everyone spoke Korean. Working with people you couldn't even talk to properly would destroy a project in an instant. This concern came from hard-earned experience.
Still, it was a good thing that more people were becoming serious about games. It meant games were gradually spreading, becoming mainstream, and that more people were enjoying them.
In the end, they couldn't accept that person, but after he wrote a post titled [Garage Visit Review], the situation changed slightly.
[Garage Visit Review]
...(omitted)...
In the end, I couldn't become Yoon I-seo's colleague. I've decided to train harder. Ah, but the fact that she added "for now" suggests that once the team grows, they might start recruiting. Conclusion: Everyone, let's wait for the KIN job posting that will come someday.
Digital Inside burned once again. —So when is Yoon I-seo going to hire staff? The meme of spamming "when is she hiring" whenever anything about KIN came up lasted for quite a long time.
"I'm exhausted..."
"It's so hot..."
Oh no! As summer arrived, people who couldn't withstand California's scorching sunlight began appearing one after another!
"Let's take a week off. Just one week. Everyone's too tired and progress has slowed to a crawl."
"Eh...?"
"Damn it, Yoon I-seo got possessed by the body snatcher again!"
Always this kind of reaction. Why do they see me as some evil capitalist boss drenched in corporate greed?
"Let's go out and have fun! I don't want to just sit in a chair anymore!"
"Ji-young unnie... Where would we even go in this weather... We should stay inside where the air conditioning is..."
"Last time I looked at a map, since we're in California, if we drive a little bit there's a beach. Summer means water play!"
"Oh?"
"We have to go, right?"
"We male members lack confidence in our bodies, so we will not be going."
"Agreed."
"No, if not anyone else, Kim Jeong-jun, your body is perfectly fine! I can't be the only one who suffers!"
"I don't have the confidence to remain calm after seeing I-seo's swimsuit, so I will abstain."
"Agreed."
My plan to drag everyone down with me sank completely thanks to Kim Jeong-jun's testimony.
"No!!! I also don't have confidence in staying calm after seeing the female members' swimsuits, so I will also abstain...!"
"Wouldn't it be fine since it's just girls?"
Kim Jeong-jun was trying to throw me under the bus again. I'm a man on the inside! Argh, this is so frustrating, so frustrating.
"I'm fine with I-seo doing that? Ehehe..."
"I-seo's swimsuit is extremely arousing. Once you see it, you won't be able to resist the urge to draw."
"I like whatever unnie does!"
Agh, this was completely over. In the end, the female members restrained my limbs and dragged me away.