Chapter 11
Chapter 11
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Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 11
Chapter Title: Beginning
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‘What the hell? All these people are here just to buy games?’
Walmart store manager Gibson felt utterly bewildered at the sight of the crowd swarming the toy shelves.
“Get out of my way! I grabbed this first!”
“Don’t give me that crap! My hand touched it first!”
“Fists will settle this!”
The toy section—especially the game area—had never seen young men mobbing it like this.
The mart’s game corner only ever got busy on weekends when kids tagged along with their parents, or during the Christmas season.
“Ah, damn it, they’re sold out here too. What’s with this game that makes it so hard to find?”
Overhearing the gripes from the group huddled around the game shelves, Gibson quickly realized they were all after one specific title.
Not everyone looked down in the dumps—some had bright grins on their faces, clutching identical game packages.
And the bold title emblazoned on those packages.
‘Dead Hills.’
Gibson recognized the package right away, with its image of a sheriff who looked just like Hollywood star Clint Eastwood under the Dead Hills title.
AE, the distributor that supplied games to Walmart, had sent it over as a new release and begged him to stock it.
He hadn’t expected much at first, but he remembered how insistent AE had been about displaying it properly.
On top of that, his own son had been nagging him to snag one if it showed up at the store, so he’d quietly set aside a copy.
“You’re the manager, right?!”
The pack of guys at the game shelves spotted Gibson watching from afar and mobbed him like interrogators closing in.
“Y-Yes, that’s me.”
Gibson felt suffocated by the circle tightening around him, fearing they might rough him up, but as the man in charge, he mustered his courage to respond.
“So, when’s the next shipment of Dead Hills coming in? You know, right?”
“I’d... have to check with the distributor...”
“Damn it! Can we at least place reservations?!”
“Pardon...?”
“We’ll buy it the second it comes in, so hold some stock for us! I’ll pay a deposit right now!”
That day, Gibson introduced Walmart’s very first “reservation purchase system.”
“Nah, I played it already—starting the second run with fewer characters and focusing on high-firepower weapons is the way to go.”
“That leaves you too vulnerable. Special zombies, especially the Skeeters, will shred you.”
“That’s why you gotta pay more attention to placement—”
In 1992, if you named the country with the most computers, it was hands-down the United States.
Even so, penetration was under 30%, but compared to other nations, it was overwhelmingly high.
This was before the internet went mainstream, though, so home computer use was pretty limited.
And the most common use by far? Games.
“Jimmy! Can I come over after school to play at your place?”
“You actually beat Hard mode on Dead Hills?”
“I just wanna try the full version of Dead Hills already...”
Among American students who saw computers as console game machines, Dead Hills was sparking a massive craze.
‘This month’s CGW comes with a free game!’
In any era, parents rarely bought games for their kids without a fight.
So students always craved games but had to hold out until birthdays or Christmas.
Word spread that CGW was bundling a free game, and it caused a buying frenzy.
‘Free game? Must be some trash title then.’
Kids weren’t idiots, even at that age.
Many skipped the magazine at first, figuring a freebie disc would mean crap quality.
But then...
‘Holy crap... Dead Hills deleted my entire weekend!’
‘How the hell do you survive the day-14 zombie wave?!’
‘I beat it, but... it’s just the demo—ends at day 14!’
Once kids who’d actually played the demo started raving, even the skeptics rushed to buy CGW and dove in.
Thanks to the hype, CGW—where 500,000 copies was a smash hit—sold an unprecedented 3 million, shattering sales records.
‘Jamie! You’re my successor as editor-in-chief!’
‘You’re just handing it over like that?’
‘Hell no! Prep a follow-up right now. Next issue: full Dead Hills guide and dev interview to fill half the pages. Sound good?’
‘I’m off to snag that interview!’
Even subtracting demo floppy costs, it was the biggest revenue ever, with ad requests pouring in—pure celebration mode.
CGW repaid the favor with a Dead Hills special issue, fueling the hype and birthing the “Dead Hills Syndrome” that blew past this year’s top game, Deadzone Survival 3D.
But consumers weren’t the only ones stunned by the massive buzz.
“Holy... how the hell did they compress the database so much? How does this fit on just two floppy disks?”
“That’s not all. Zombie patterns and responsiveness are insane. Seems random, but it’s adapting to the player like it’s alive.”
id Software’s devs crowded around one computer, playing Dead Hills and gasping in awe.
They’d booted it up just to benchmark at first, but minutes in, they were geeking out over the tech.
Their recent hit Deadzone Survival 3D had revolutionized FPS and was tipped for game of the year.
It clocked in at 3MB, needing four floppies for the full package.
Dead Hills? A measly 1.7MB. Two floppies.
Volume wasn’t skimped, though.
Even a quick session screamed “two weeks to a month minimum” to properly enjoy it, per the id devs.
“Carmack and Romero aren’t the only geniuses out there...”
“Right? And the graphics—super artistic, huh?”
“The zombies? Top-tier. At first glance, they look like sloppy kid drawings, but that’s gotta be intentional.”
“Exactly. The chaotic irregularity and crude edges blend with the monochrome mosaics to crank tension to eleven.”
They speculated on who designed it—some famous illustrator or art school pro, no doubt.
“Most shocking... it’s a different genre, but at its core, it’s the same kind of game we make.”
id’s Deadzone Survival 3D was simple: slaughter every enemy on screen, escape the maze map.
That was the core loop. Story? Meh.
It maximized the thrill of mowing down hordes.
And now, playing Dead Hills, they felt that same rush.
Zombies swarm, you block with placed characters. Simple.
Yet time vanished in total immersion.
‘What placement this time?’
‘This character combo?’
‘Next weapon?’
Mind locked in, nothing else mattered.
“Savior? Never heard of ‘em... Origin and Eastwood aside, looks like we’ve got another rival company now...”
Playing Dead Hills, id’s devs got pumped thinking about pitting their next game against it.
“Huck, you really... took a leave of absence?”
“Yeah. Planning to move out of the dorm this week too.”
“You lunatic! Professors fight over you just for breathing! Why drop out?!”
The frizzy-haired, innocent-faced Black guy was my classmate Jason, who’d introduced me to CGW’s Jamie.
He’d barged into my room after hearing the rumors and was grilling me.
“I agree with Jason this time. Something wrong?”
My buddy Rogers—alpha male poster child—had shown up too, trying to talk me out of it.
“Nah, nothing like that. Just got something that needs my full focus now over school.”
“Full focus?”
“I’m gonna make games.”
“What?!”
They yelled in perfect sync the second I said it.
Not an easy choice to get, honestly.
‘Graduating Caltech guarantees a golden future—grad school or any job, no exaggeration.’
That was 90s Caltech.
A ticket to any job you wanted, just flash the diploma.
Even Wall Street firms with zero tech ties hired Caltech grads on sight.
“Right, that game you made... it’s blowing up lately?”
“Blowing up? Jamie’s hounding me daily ‘cause you ghosted him! Blames me for it!”
No exaggeration from Rogers or Jason.
I’d expected buzz and good sales from the hype, but the first 100,000 copies sold out; they were reprinting nonstop.
“Not going far. Got an office in Redwood City.”
“Office? Wait... you’re starting a company?”
“Company’s already set up. Just moving the address.”
Before signing with AE, I’d incorporated “Savior Soft” using my dorm as the address.
No reason to stick around now with a real office lined up.
“CEO beats college kid vibes, right?”
Future games were beyond solo scale.
Needed capital, graphics experts, sound pros, writers—specialists galore.
Solo to team, team to organization. Time to grow.
“Swing by when you’re bored. I’ll hire you two special.”
To their still shell-shocked faces, I pulled fresh business cards from my wallet.
— Savior Soft
CEO Sun Woo Heuk
The start of the company that’d build virtual reality games.