Tutorial Bug
The Project Management Bureau.
“This is Alpha Dog. Current time is 10:30. Entering the containment facility with the strike team.”
> Roger that.
The man glanced back at his team members after hearing the operator’s voice through his earpiece. Unlike him, a seasoned veteran, the two rookies couldn’t hide their tension. One was sweating profusely, the other’s pupils were visibly trembling.
“Nervous?”
“N-no, sir. Not at all, Team Leader.”
“Yeah, right. Your hands are shaking so hard you can barely hold your gun.”
The rookies gripped their weapons tighter, pretending they hadn’t realized.
“S-sorry, sir.”
“No need to apologize. It’s perfectly natural.”
Though he didn’t show it, the team leader’s own palms were slick with cold sweat. Anyone who knew what waited beyond that thick iron door would be tense, veteran or not.
“Have you ever seen an anomaly before?”
“N-no, sir.”
Anomaly.
Strange, bizarre things that defied human common sense.
That was exactly what lay inside.
“Don’t get too worked up. Even if they’re anomalies, the ones held in this facility are only low-risk Depth 1 entities. You received the classification training, right?”
“Yes… Among the five depth levels, Depth 1 has the lowest risk, and anything labeled Depth 5 is the most dangerous. Also, after the risk rating, the anomaly’s type is appended: ‘Object,’ ‘Entity,’ ‘Phenomenon,’ or ‘Location.’”
“Good. You studied well.”
The team leader, who had been worried they might not even know the basics, patted their shoulders reassuringly.
“There won’t be anything to worry about, so try to relax a little.”
“Yes, sir!”
There was no more time to waste calming the rookies. With a heavy heart, Team Leader Alpha Dog opened the entrance to the containment facility.
Creeeeak. Clank.
The door that had sealed the facility from the outside world opened with the distinctive metallic screech of friction. They stepped into the pitch-black interior, flashlights on, moving with extreme caution.
Hssssssss─
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The hard soles of their combat boots echoed through the unpleasant silence.
Stop.
Alpha Dog raised his hand without looking back. The team members immediately froze in place. The rookies, following their training, halted and swept their gun barrels across every direction, staying alert.
What Alpha Dog had spotted was blood.
Thick, dark blood that had long since dried and caked onto the floor and walls. An ordinary person would have recoiled in horror at the sight, but he was a veteran of the Management Bureau. Stepping into a sealed containment facility after a containment breach? A little blood was nothing.
The reason he had stopped at the sight of mere blood was because something felt off.
There’s no body.
With this much blood, there should have been a corpse. Yet no matter how he scanned the area, the person who had bled it was nowhere to be found.
It might have seemed like a trivial detail, but every little thing here was a clue.
“This is Alpha Dog. We’ve found traces. Heavy bloodstains consistent with fatal injury, but no body in sight.”
> Stand by. Checking database.
If they waited a moment, the operator who could access the database would identify the anomaly. While waiting for a reply, Alpha Dog and the rookies kept scanning their surroundings.
Crackle.
> This is Operator. I’ve narrowed down candidates, but we still lack sufficient data.
“Copy that. Continuing forward.”
As he took a step, the rookies followed.
A short while later, a foul stench hit him so hard he wrinkled his nose.
“Ugh…!”
Pretending not to hear the retching sound behind him, he kept moving until he reached the end of the corridor and froze at the horrific sight.
“This is insane.”
People had been put on display along the wall.
Some who appeared to have been researchers, others who looked like security personnel, all hanging on the wall in grotesque poses.
“Bleeegh!”
“Get a grip and watch all directions!”
He shouted at the rookie who was throwing up at the gruesome scene, then quickly reported what he was seeing to the operator.
“This is Alpha Dog! Bodies! The bodies are hanging on the wall! Like… like toys!”
> …
“Operator? Respond! Operator?”
When no answer came, his expression darkened. A terrible sense of foreboding washed over him. Every hair on his body stood on end. He quickly turned to the rookies.
“We’re pulling out! Something’s wrong with the operator!”
But the team members stood frozen, staring down the corridor as if hypnotized.
“Hey! Snap out of it! Didn’t they teach you at the training center to respond immediately to the team leader’s—”
“T-Team Leader… That… isn’t that a person?”
“What?”
The rookie pointed into the darkness beyond the reach of their flashlights. Following the direction of that trembling finger, Team Leader Alpha Dog froze.
Something that clearly didn’t belong in a containment facility modeled after a research lab was staring at them.
It was a clown holding a sword made of balloons in one hand.
“That’s no person! It’s obviously an anomaly!”
“Hahihuu!”
“Open fire!”
The moment the clown waved, the team leader recoiled in horror and gave the order to shoot.
Ratatatatatata!
He had thought a Depth 1 entity could be suppressed with gunfire, but the clown seemed to enjoy the bullets peppering its body. Its smile never wavered.
Click. Click.
The dry sound of the hammer striking an empty chamber echoed faintly in his ears.
“Reload—”
Shuk.
“T-Team… Leader?”
The clown had closed the distance in an instant and drove its balloon sword straight through a team member’s throat.
“Aaaaaaaaah!”
The surviving rookie, who had just witnessed his comrade’s murder, finished reloading and unleashed a hail of bullets, but—
Shuuuk.
He too joined his colleague in death.
“Damn it!”
Realizing there was no hope, the team leader spun around and sprinted with everything he had.
There’s no way that was Depth 1…!
He had never heard of a Depth 1 anomaly that could shrug off bullets. He had to survive somehow and report this to headquarters.
He ran desperately toward the exit.
Even as his breath grew ragged and his legs grew heavy from the all-out sprint, he kept his eyes fixed forward.
But that was the worst thing he could have done.
Because he never noticed that his body was slowly sinking into the ground.
“W-what the…?”
His body was sinking as if into water. First his legs, then his thighs. By the time it reached his waist he could no longer move. He continued to sink, and once his head went under, his consciousness began to—
.
.
.
“Hmm.”
I was playing the only part of the game that actually had a story—the tutorial—when my character sank into the floor. I took my hand off the mouse and stroked my chin.
“It’s a fall-through-the-world bug.”
A classic map-clipping glitch commonly seen in games.
“I-is it a bug?”
“Yes. Not a critical one, though.”
“I-I’ll fix it right away…”
I left the debugging to Jae-min and shared my impressions of the tutorial with the rest of the staff.
“The current atmosphere of the game is way too dark. The bloodstains and corpses are far too graphic. Who worked on this?”
“Umm… That was me.”
“Seong-bae. Are we making a 19+ game? At this rate we’ll definitely get an adults-only rating. I told you to tone down the gore. Why hasn’t it been fixed?”
“I’m sorry… I did lower it, but I wasn’t sure how far to go…”
“Lower it until it looks childish to you, Seong-bae. Right now the balance is completely off.”
“Understood…”
Seong-bae was excellent at his job, but the problem was that he couldn’t let go of his ego in areas like this. Min-ji lacked ego entirely, while Seong-bae had far too much when it came to creature design.
“And Seok-ho. There are still mismatches between the colliders and the assets. The iron door model and the character’s hands aren’t aligning properly. Didn’t you check?”
Colliders were the invisible boundary boxes used to detect collisions between objects. Players couldn’t see them, but their interactions were what made the game function.
“I’m sorry! I’ll fix it immediately!”
“Check the colliders and go over every single hitbox as well.”
“Yes, sir!”
That was the feedback from playing the Management Bureau prototype. Next, I moved on to review the work of those handling other tasks.
“Daniel. Track 32. This one feels like my heart is dropping with a heavy thud. I’d prefer something more like a pulsing heartbeat—thump-thump.”
“Hmmm. Okay. Any other instructions?”
“How’s the sound effect work going?”
“Foley and ambience? No roadblocks so far. What do you think?”
“It sounded good to me. Nothing felt out of place.”
“Good. Then we’ll keep going like this.”
I gave Daniel—who was single-handedly handling all the game’s audio—a pat on the shoulder as encouragement, then moved on to Cha Ju-hee.
“Ju-hee. I looked at the concept art for No. 77, the vampire. It needs some revisions. You drew it too aristocratically. Make the vampire form much more monstrous so it contrasts sharply with the human form.”
“Yeeees…”
“Is it that hard? Your voice has zero energy.”
“It’s fine… I didn’t expect to get approval on the first try anyway…”
“Well, if it’s not too difficult, that’s good.”
“Ugh… Thank you for your concern.”
“Then please revise it as quickly as possible and send it over.”
“Ughhhhhh.”
I could hear her teeth grinding—probably from a slight overbite. Since a trip to the dentist would cost a fortune, I picked up Som-mungchi, who had been rolling around on the floor as if to say “work hard,” and placed the kitten in her arms.
“Nyaat!”
“Som-mungchi, stay by Ju-hee and cheer her on, okay?”
“Nyat!”
The way Som-mungchi nodded as if it actually understood was so adorable that the corners of my mouth lifted into a smile.
After encouraging Ju-hee, I took a moment to look around the entire office.
The programming team, chugging coffee like water while battling bugs.
The art team, hunched over their tablets like monks in meditation, meticulously carving out assets.
The sound team, wearing headsets with perfectly blank expressions, pressing MIDI keyboards like practitioners polishing their discipline.
It was a satisfying sight for a director.
*
Although it looked like the entire company—seven people—was focused solely on the next project, that wasn’t entirely true.
Just as you don’t abandon your main base while building a second one in a multiplayer game, we also had to take care of Dot Hero, PlayForge Studio’s cash cow.
Even if it wasn’t a major update, we added new stages, new characters, and aimed for one big or small update every three months.
We had also noticed that Dot Hero’s growth was starting to plateau, so we began running low-cost advertising campaigns.
We asked global gaming webzines to write articles in exchange for coupon codes and payment, and ran SNS challenges where players who posted their high scores in Challenge Mode could unlock a coupon for one paid character.
Although legacy media like TV and newspapers were still strong in this era, the advertising costs were too high, so most of our promotions were internet-based.
Just because it was cheap didn’t mean the effect was weak. The return on investment was more than sufficient, and as a result, Dot Hero achieved a historic milestone.
“Dot Hero has surpassed five million total downloads! Let’s give a round of applause!”
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The employees clapped with half-dead expressions. They looked like they thought it had nothing to do with them, so I set them straight.
“Performance bonus.”
“Waaaaaaaah!”
Only then did their faces light up with genuine joy. I let out a dry laugh. No matter how tired they were, how could they be so indifferent when a game that was practically their own child was soaring in popularity?
“Everyone, just think how sad Dot Hero would be if it knew. It worked so hard to succeed, yet its parents show zero interest and only care about the money it brings home. Let’s all try to be parents who show affection to their child.”
“Child? Oh… you mean Dot Hero. But technically, isn’t it more like your child? You and Team Leader Daniel did almost all the initial development. We only started working on updates after launch.”
Cha Ju-hee’s unexpectedly sharp observation made me pause. It was true that since I hadn’t been involved from the very beginning, my affection might be a bit lacking.
After thinking for a moment, I came up with a new analogy.
“Then let’s say you’re all teachers. Do children only grow up because of their parents? From kindergarten to elementary school, middle school, and high school—they grow thanks to the care and effort of countless teachers. ‘The king, the teacher, and the father are one.’ Since a teacher is like a parent, all of you who have been like teachers to Dot Hero are essentially its mothers and fathers.”
“…Right. If the director says so, then it must be true. But have you considered that we’re not uninterested, we’re just exhausted?”
Cha Ju-hee pointed at the heavy dark circles under her eyes that even makeup couldn’t hide.
“Reaching five million is great… really great. But what are we supposed to do when we have no energy left?”
“I’ll admit that’s fair.”
“You think so too, right, Director? Then how about we leave work on time today? Don’t we need time to recharge?”
“Denied. Just take your overtime pay as usual.”
“I didn’t even expect it…”
When Cha Ju-hee, the leader of the “Leave Work On Time” faction, drooped her head in defeat, the others also looked deeply disappointed and wore gloomy expressions.
Not a chance.
The company was currently split into two factions.
The “Leave Work On Time” faction (six members) and the “Overtime” faction (one member). The factional warfare within the company grew stronger every day, but as long as I, the leader of the overtime faction, was here, the “Leave Work On Time” faction would never become the mainstream.
“Stop dreaming about leaving on time and get back to work! In return, dinner’s on me tonight!”
“You always buy dinner anyway… Please don’t act like it’s some special treat…”