Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Art Director (1)
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I pride myself on having a deep understanding of fantasy.
And I wasn't wrong.
My job is a game director.
To imagine, plan, define, and bring non-existent things into the physical world requires a vast amount of material—in other words, input.
That's why I grew up consuming popular media like games, movies, comics, and novels from a young age.
Based on my understanding of things.
“Yeon-ho! How long are you going to stay cooped up in your room!”
I had regressed.
To the past, to an autumn day in 2008, right after I'd finished my military service.
Back to when I was a fresh-faced 22-year-old.
Surprisingly, at the end of hell, there was the past.
*
It would be a lie to say I wasn't bewildered by the current situation.
At the moment of my death, I was clearly a 41-year-old man.
I retired in '23, and the game I developed alone won an award in '27, so I must have been around that age.
I couldn't dismiss my memories as a dream.
Because I had definitely existed in the future, and I had a way to prove that future was real.
[Aah! The Giants have lost!!!]
“Ah, shit! Those damn bastards lost again! They lost again! I was an idiot for believing in them!”
“What are you getting so worked up about?”
“Goddammit! If I ever watch baseball again, I'm not even human!”
My father, a die-hard baseball fan from Busan, was shouting outside again.
In the 2008 postseason, the team my father cheered for had made it to the glorious stage for the first time in a while, carrying the fans' high expectations, only to betray them with a swift elimination.
The event had unfolded exactly as I remembered.
What more proof could I possibly need?
Setting aside the unfortunate future where my father would continue cheering for that team for another twenty years, proving he was a beast for punishment, my time travel was now an established fact.
At this point, I wasn't even surprised.
If regression was real, then hell must be real too.
Thinking about it the other way around, if hell exists, why would time travel be impossible?
There was no reason to deny the reality before me.
I just had to humbly accept it.
From the moment I made up my mind.
I lost track of time and began to immerse myself in one thing.
*Scratch— Scratch—*
On a blank A4 sheet, I sketched the landscapes of hell, still vivid in my memory.
They were fragments of a wondrous world that made my heart pound like crazy just by recalling them.
*It would be so much fun to make a game out of what I saw then.*
*I want to share that sight.*
Such thoughts stirred the morbid obsession that had dominated my past life.
There was a sense of urgency.
I was afraid this impression would fade, afraid that time would tarnish the awe and the memories.
As that fear cast a shadow of despair, I had no choice but to cut back on sleep and devote myself to documenting that world.
But I didn't just stop at drawings; I also recorded written annotations and all the object elements that constituted that hell.
Throughout the process, my young brain worked as smoothly as a well-oiled machine.
It was a step in the process of shaping the scenery into the form of a game.
What genre? What scale?
What's the design direction and the level of performance I can achieve?
How much money do I have?
Time! How much time will I need!
The calculator in my head ran nonstop.
I gradually narrowed the gap between reality and my ideals, searching for a point where they could align.
And just as I finished a rough draft and my calculations.
‘I can't take it anymore.’
I found myself maddened by a thirst I could no longer endure.
I went to the bathroom and washed my face to calm down, but neither the thirst nor the excitement subsided.
All I saw was myself, grinning from ear to ear in the mirror.
I'd have no defense if someone called me crazy.
I'd just have to accept it.
But it was a rather welcome feeling.
Because the thrill of having one's creative desire stimulated is an excitement that never fades, no matter how much time passes.
My resolve was finally set.
‘Let's do it.’
I could do it.
It wasn't just some pipe dream.
The self-doubt that had tormented me throughout my past life had now vanished.
If it's true that I've returned to the past, and if my past life wasn't a lie…
…then I must be someone capable of such things.
‘I am…’
…someone who has already proven myself.
* * *
I gathered my thoughts and began planning in earnest.
A blank white page from a word processor filled my computer monitor.
‘First things first…’
I need to assess my situation.
I already had a dream of what I wanted to create, but to shape it into a realistic form, I needed to consider many things.
In other words, I needed a reality check.
I thought calmly.
‘Capital: fail.’
Right now, I was a 22-year-old who had just finished his military service.
The money I had was 2.4 million won saved from half a year of tutoring after starting college, 800,000 won saved from the military, and a savings account I hadn't touched yet with 3.2 million won.
A total of 6.4 million won. That was it.
So, couldn't I grow this amount?
Unfortunately, that's impossible.
My knowledge of the financial world is too shallow to do anything with this 6.4 million won.
The only dramatic financial events I know of are the ones everyone knows, and I don't even know the exact dates they happened.
What about other areas, then?
Unfortunately, no.
‘Manpower: fail.’
Right now, I was in a position where I had to develop the game alone.
Tackling complex, labor-intensive tasks and a massive workload is next to impossible.
I can't secure any help either.
Even if I found someone talented enough, there's no reason they would help a nobody like me make a game.
In short, I have nothing.
No money, no manpower, and on top of that, this being 2008, no technology.
‘I'll have to compromise.’
Not a compromise on quality, but a compromise on scale.
The kind of game you can make with limited resources is fixed.
An indie game—the equivalent of a low-budget independent film.
Fortunately, that's my specialty.
‘Even better.’
I'm the guy who won an award for a solo indie project, after all.
Of course, the technological gap between then and now is terrifyingly wide, but that doesn't mean my know-how has disappeared.
In fact, considering I can use techniques and technologies that haven't even appeared yet, this is an incredibly advantageous stage for me.
Plus, it's 2008, a time when indie games were just starting to get attention in the market.
The development direction was set.
Now, I needed to choose a genre in earnest.
Once I started setting a direction, ideas gushed out like a fountain.
‘I can't increase the scale as an indie game. I need to present the game intuitively within a limited setting and system.’
To do that, what genre should I choose?
Horror that utilizes imperfection.
An aesthetic that can cover for the low budget and lack of manpower.
A clear mechanism. In other words, the control scheme.
Something was taking shape in my mind.
‘Pixel art horror.’
It's a proven formula.
The human brain has a tendency to assemble and complete unfinished information internally.
From that perspective, the imperfection of pixel art and its lack of polish were enough to stimulate the brain.
In fact, there were several horror games created with this in mind, and they gained considerable recognition and high praise, marking a corner of the era.
Of course, I can't expect a hit with just a generic horror game.
Fundamentally, horror games are a niche genre.
Isn't that right? How many people in the world willingly seek out frightening experiences?
If I made a game that simply stimulated fear, it would just be chewed up and spit out by the hardcore fans and forgotten.
Besides, my goal was far from just scaring people.
What I want to create isn't fear, but hell itself.
I have to change my approach.
Like some of the representative games that led this scene for a long time.
‘Genre fusion.’
A new kind of horror, not limited to just fear.
Combining it with other genres was the way.
‘There are already successful examples.’
There are horror IPs that have been loved worldwide from the romantic 90s until now.
And there are horror IPs that are about to be loved.
Each one was an IP with enough impact to become a movie, a drama, or even a social phenomenon, and all of them attempted to fuse horror with other genres. Among them, the most mainstream combination was none other than this.
‘Survival horror.’
‘Action.’
A genre where you don't just tremble in fear, but confront it head-on and overcome it.
A genre through which you can achieve catharsis.
Survival horror action was one of the most popular horror conventions of the 21st century.
‘I've got just the thing.’
I immediately rummaged through my collected materials and pulled out a single file.
Because a hell that suited this genre immediately came to mind.
It was a hell with remarkably intuitive rules.
A faint smile appeared on my face.
‘This is it.’
The setting for the first game of this life will be the ‘Hell of the Self-Destructors’.
* * *
There was something I realized while wandering through hell.
The sins spoken of in that land were based on different standards than the laws of the mortal world.
Among the various hells, the ‘Hell of the Self-Destructors’ was a world that starkly illustrated this dissonance.
“What did I do wrong—!”
That was what the prisoners there said most often.
And they weren't entirely wrong.
Because, according to human law, their sins were ambiguous enough that it was hard to call them crimes.
The sin that hell accused them of was one thing.
Neglecting one's own body.
And thereby driving oneself to death.
…It was a hell I might have fallen into myself.
“I never hurt anyone else! Aaaaaaah!!!”
One of the sinners had died from excessive drinking that destroyed his liver.
Another had died from smoking that rotted his lungs.
Those were the mild cases.
There were drug addicts.
There were masochists and those addicted to self-harm.
The highlight was a severely afflicted soul who had done it all.
He always said.
“It's my body! I can do whatever I want with it!”
He'd ask why he had to suffer at the hands of others for simply treating his own body as he pleased.
But the guard never answered the man.
To be precise, he was in a state where he couldn't answer.
Hairless blue skin, a gaunt frame, and black rags.
These were the guard's features at first glance, but a closer look revealed the reason for the lack of communication.
The guard's eyes and mouth were sewn shut.
His nose was gone, as if sliced off by a knife, leaving only a trace, and large nails were driven into his ears.
They symbolized the absence of communication.
With all senses blocked, they carried out torture mechanically.
They forced the prisoners into a position where, no matter how much they screamed in agony, the torment would not stop.
Perhaps they were saying, ‘Now you feel the despair your bodies felt.’
Anyway, what I drew as a motif for the game was none other than this.
“Did you think we'd just take this forever!!! Everyone!!! Let's kill those blue monsters!!!”
One day, a man plotted the prisoners' liberation.
He was the man I mentioned earlier, the one who had committed the greatest sin in this hell.
I watched the man's coup d'état from beginning to end.
The prisoners and guards engaged in a vicious game of tag, moving from room to room, and a relentless scuffle.
Countless people bled and fell, but none could die.
Because hell was a place for those who were already dead.
“Aaaargh!!!”
The outcome was, of course, the prisoners' defeat.
Naturally.
No matter how much they struggled, there was nowhere for them to escape in hell.
In any case, the important thing was that I had drawn sufficient inspiration from that event.
The coup in the Hell of the Self-Destructors.
I draped the genre of ‘survival horror action’ over that day's deviation.
Art Director (1)