Chapter 74
Chapter 74
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Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 74
Chapter Title: Development & Sony
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“I want to record that orchestra and add it in!”
“I’ll talk to Scarlett about it. Jane, you just list out the venue and the personnel.”
“Got it!”
The top floor of Savior’s headquarters, the president’s office, buzzed every Monday.
“Here’s the protagonist concept art. I tried capturing the image of a wanderer roaming a dystopian world, just like you mentioned.”
“Looks good. But the protagonist’s default outfit leans too much toward pure fantasy right now. It’d be better if we infused a bit more steampunk vibe…”
“That’s why I was thinking of making the grappling hook gun even more punkish. I brought a few design examples…”
Every Monday, the founding members—known among Savior employees as the original ten—gathered to discuss their new game, Eclipse.
From Jackson, the graphics team leader at Savior Games, to sound director Jane, and even game development team leader Jason.
Marcus, sandwiched among these towering figures whose names alone inspired awe, felt like he was dying inside.
“Marcus, how’s the story outline coming along?”
“Ah… yes! Out of the six factions, I’ve wrapped up the backgrounds and main quests for two. The side quests need a bit more time.”
“Hm… that’s slower than expected.”
“W-well…”
“Didn’t you say last week’s meeting that the main quest stories would be done? With four factions left, this pace might miss the schedule.”
When Savior’s CEO, Seon Woo-hyuk, who was asking about his progress, met his eyes, Marcus felt his heart pounding.
Shouldn’t have boasted so carelessly!
Marcus was reminded once again that in front of Seon Woo-hyuk—who had an uncanny memory for even offhand comments without notes—he couldn’t throw out empty promises.
“Actually, since the quest lines branch based on choices, and that affects character dialogues, actions, and even the main story, it’s taking more time than anticipated…”
“Sigh… I see. But you need to finish the second faction completely by the end of this month.”
“…Yes!”
Marcus finally let out a quiet sigh of relief inside, having bought himself a brief extension.
No wonder the salary seemed too good to be true!
Marcus cursed his past self, who had lost his mind and applied after seeing Savior’s job posting a year ago.
-Hiring: Game Scenario Writer.
Marcus, who had worked as a fantasy novelist and assistant movie screenwriter, had grabbed his portfolio and rushed to interview at Savior the moment he saw it.
-Hm, looks good. Want to sign with us?
-Yes!
Truth be told, writing was a starving profession everywhere in the world, except for the absolute top tier.
Marcus himself had bombed commercially with his ambitious novel and was barely scraping by on a meager assistant screenwriter salary at a Hollywood studio.
In that situation, anyone would sign a contract offering $40,000 a year plus incentives that could exceed it based on game sales.
However,
-The core of Eclipse’s scenarios and dialogues is variability.
Player choices must alter the world, with NPC dialogues and story progression flowing naturally from it.
To that end, design all stories and NPC dialogues to branch by state.
Don’t write dialogue scripts linearly. Since it’s a game, use conditional statements—use the tools I’ve prepared.
And write dialogues in blocks for recombination…
The ten writers hired for Eclipse’s story and dialogues, including Marcus.
They were assigned roles like scenario writers, scenario designers, dialogue writers, and narrative designers, ultimately forming the Story Team.
Marcus, with the most experience among them, became a scenario designer and team leader.
That part was fine.
But the moment the team was formed, the directive from CEO Seon Woo-hyuk left them in despair.
Is he insane? Writing dialogues this granularized, and not just arbitrarily but interconnected?
Refine the worldbuilding to be complex yet intuitive and mysterious—what does that even mean?
I’ve never touched programs like this! I just write—now I have to learn tools…
It was writing, sure, but game scenario work wasn’t just writing words.
For a team used to pure writing, it was nonstop hardship. And when they somehow pieced together a draft for review…
This lacks that punch.
Savior Games’ first gatekeeper, sound director Jane, shot it down.
At first, baffled why a sound director cared about scenarios, Marcus had gone to Seon Woo-hyuk.
-Scenarios and game sound develop together from the start for higher quality. Conversely, if you dislike the music, feel free to give feedback to Jane.
He understood after the explanation, but Jane’s feedback was too abstract.
It got so frustrating that Marcus once asked her outright what “punch” meant.
But,
Like this!
Watching her slice a soda can on the desk with her hand, he swallowed tears, went back, and rewrote the story.
Once Jane finally approved, the second gatekeeper, graphics team leader Jackson, stepped in.
Do you think our design team is omnipotent?
Pardon?
How do we make concept art from this wordy explanation and unrealistic story? Needs more work.
He sent it back, saying the current story wasn’t design-ready.
But Jackson was tame compared to the rest.
This isn’t cool.
The final third gatekeeper, game dev team leader Jason, rejected on pure vibe.
So frustrated he went to CEO Seon Woo-hyuk again.
But,
The story feels too clichéd. In a dystopian steampunk world, it seems like you compromised with ‘something like this.’ Standard stories aren’t bad, but Jason means it needs a unique kick.
Marcus slunk back to the team with just the Jason translation.
Thanks to all this, the Story Team endured harder days than their writing careers.
But it’s fun.
The thrill when their story finally passed was as exhilarating as publishing a book, erasing all the toil.
And above all,
“Thinking about it, if the story changes, the boss battle music should change too, right?”
“That makes sense. The first boss, Kylek, has different relationships with the player based on the story, so varying the music would be great.”
Three hours had flown by, but seeing the founding members passionately exchanging game ideas fired Marcus up too.
“I want to use this graphic as-is, but specs might be an issue…”
“I’ll handle that part, so go all out without compromise.”
Truthfully, founding members could just manage their teams, but their newbie-like passion was rare.
Marcus’s old Hollywood studio was the opposite.
His boss there, the lead writer, had a flashy resume but barely touched scripts, just tweaking assistants’ work.
Compared to that, Savior was grueling but filled with pride.
Bosses pondering how to make my scenarios even more fun…
Even more unbelievable: Seon Woo-hyuk, one of the world’s most famous CEOs lately, was the most enthusiastic in the room.
With wealth to idle forever and support generations, his childlike excitement over a game was endlessly fascinating.
“Oh, Marcus, Chapter 2’s sub-quest narrative engine needs redoing. The mid-sentence combos are off—will cause story conflicts as-is.”
“…Yes.”
Of course, sometimes he wished that passion dialed back a notch.
“Finishing even the demo by 2000 is proving tough.”
“Because of E3?”
“Yeah. Rumors are swirling that Sony’s announcing the PlayStation 2 there.”
Scarlett received the progress update on Eclipse and Savior Nexus from me, then made a troubled face.
No wonder—rumors of Sony unveiling a new console at next year’s E3, the world’s biggest game expo, had her on edge.
If Sony beat us to launching a sixth-gen console there, it’d impact Savior Nexus’s popularity later. Scarlett couldn’t ignore it.
I’d tensed up hearing the news too, so she must’ve been worse.
“From the dev kits Sony sent developers last time, performance matches what you predicted, Huck.”
“Sony lives up to the hype. At those specs, sixth-gen’s theirs unless something crazy happens.”
PlayStation 2.
The monster console that’d top any ‘greatest ever’ list without debate.
In my past life, it sold an insane 155 million units, claiming the best-selling console title.
It made console king Nendo consider exiting the hardware business and forced Seton to fold. Competing head-on? I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t agonized over it.
But it’s fun.
Avoiding PlayStation 2 and entering later wouldn’t be bad.
Sony’s PS3 blunder would leave a gap to stably enter the market.
But that lacked thrill and took too much time—didn’t sit right.
So, head-on collision it was.
Not fair fight, though.
“Scarlett, time to leverage your Seton experience.”
“Pardon?”
She blinked at my sudden pivot.
Savior Nexus targeted early 2001 launch; PlayStation 2 late 2000.
Six months was fatal in console’s first-mover game.
Something needed doing.
“Time to mess with Sony a bit.”
Sorry, Sony—but I was more confident here than dev work.
Just thinking of pranking them lifted my lips.
“Huck…”
“Yeah?”
“Never smile like that again.”
Scarlett banned it on sight.
I nodded helplessly.