The Game Director that Returned from Hell - Chapter 1

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Potter

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Game Director that Returned from Hell ◈

Chapter 1

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I Wasn't Wrong #1

I thought long and hard.

Should I be glad I'd seen the true face of someone I'd thought was a friend, or should I be sad?

"He's a lost cause. He's too stubborn. What's it called again? An artist complex? A masterpiece complex? He's just too pure. He still believes good gameplay alone will bring in more money. People in the business department practically shudder at the name Cheon Yeonho."

"Wow, that's harsh, boss."

"What can I do? It's the truth. Anyway, this is going to be a pain. I've got another new project to take on."

"Oh, the one Team Leader Cheon was supposed to lead?"

"What choice do I have? They asked me to do it. He screwed things up again, after all."

In the end, I decided to leave quietly.

He had made three major projects successful and was in line for an executive position. I was an unwanted burden whose projects always produced middling results.

In short, confronting him would only make me look pathetic.

* * *

There were things I heard all the time.

- "Yeonho, what were you thinking when you proposed a no-trading system? Huh? How are we supposed to run a game that uses nothing but in-game currency? Does development money grow on trees?"

That my games weren't commercial enough.

- "Core players? Sure, they're great! A bigger pasture makes for healthier cash cows. But cash cows can't live in this pasture. Why? Because even if they want to pour money into it, there's no way to do it! This is a field full of weeds!"

That my games didn't understand what players wanted.

- "You call this a revision? I don't see anywhere we can fit in randomized items. Revise it again!"

That I should follow company policy.

I willingly did as I was told.

I was an employee of the company, and I was responsible for leading the project.

This was the result.

- "Whew... Yeonho, let's end this project here. We're losing money."

- "I'm sorry. I'll work harder."

- "You always work hard. If only you'd do a good job."

I had made everything to their taste, only for them to flip the table because they didn't like the food.

There was something I always held back.

'It doesn't sell because it isn't fun.'

What fun were people supposed to find in a game that, from planning to completion, was designed with nothing in mind but selling more?

The fun of spending money? Spending money had to be fun before people would do it.

Even when I put real thought into a proposal, they tore it apart until only the payment screen remained. What was I supposed to do?

This was the result of them ripping the game apart. Wasn't it about time they realized whose fault it was?

Should I have just said it?

I didn't know anymore.

Nothing had gone the way I wanted, yet the responsibility was mine.

Trying to protect the basics of what made a game a game had gotten me branded as someone with an artist complex, a masterpiece complex.

I could only wonder.

'What am I even doing?'

What had I hoped to do in an environment like this, surrounded by people who treated me this way?

I found myself looking back on my life, the games I'd made, and how those games had been received.

I had wanted to make good games.

Not just games that sold well, but games so well-made that players could feel they were in another world while playing.

Games that people would enjoy.

That seemed to go against company policy.

No matter how I tried to meet their demands, I couldn't.

My games only became something the company liked after their very identities had been twisted.

The more I looked back, the deeper my worries grew, until they became a sickness in my mind.

That sickness was called doubt.

'Was I really wrong?'

Was a game's ultimate purpose really to make money?

Did monetization come before the game's systems?

Was I the only one refusing to face that fact?

Was I actually the one-eyed person in a village where everyone else had two eyes?

- "He still believes good gameplay alone will bring in more money."

Those words wouldn't leave my head.

I had so many arguments against them, yet I couldn't bring myself to say any of them.

I felt like an immature adult, so lost in a dream that I couldn't see reality.

The thought that the path I'd believed in and followed all my life might end at a cliff ate away at me.

I had to decide.

Would I accept that I was wrong, or would I keep believing in myself to the end?

In the process, I realized that he was right about one thing. I really was stubborn.

"You're resigning?"

"Yes."

"All right. Let's hear your reason. Why?"

"I'd like to try developing a game on my own."

"...Ah, solo development. That's good. There's something romantic about it. You'll do well. I'm rooting for you. Be sure to let me know when you release it."

"Yes."

The eyes that had always glanced at me with a strange hint of irritation brightened the moment I mentioned leaving.

They seemed to say:

- "It's obvious you're going to fail."

As if struggling against them, I repeated to myself:

'No.'

I wasn't wrong.

That was what I told myself.

* * *

At least I'd worked there long enough to receive a solid severance payment.

I also had savings, and since I wasn't married, I didn't have many major expenses ahead.

I had years of know-how and skills I'd learned through experience.

I'd originally majored in programming before switching to game design, so technical issues weren't likely to hold me back much either.

There happened to be a genre I wanted to try.

There was a system I wanted to build and a story I wanted to tell.

I began development.

From planning and design to building a prototype and full development, I didn't stop to rest.

- "He still believes good gameplay alone will bring in more money."

I tried to shake those words off.

Resentment was what drove me.

'...What's so wrong with it?'

What was so wrong with it?

What was wrong with pursuing good gameplay in a game?

What was wrong with adding detail to the world, giving characters depth, making the systems more carefully designed, and thinking deeply about gameplay?

Wasn't that what we were supposed to do?

Shouldn't a game be a game?

Since when had games become ornamental bonsai trees for showing off wealth?

Since when had they become disposable products to enjoy briefly and throw away, or labor that forced people to repeat mindless tasks?

At its heart, a game had always been an experience.

It meant exploring a new world and gaining a sense of achievement through what you did there.

It meant keeping that journey as a memory for years to come.

Once everything secondary was stripped away, that was the only truth.

- "Let's be realistic."

Wrong.

That wasn't facing reality. It was compromise.

They had given up on trying something new because they were afraid of failure.

They copied past successes and became trapped in them, blinded by numbers labeled as revenue.

'I'm right.'

I wasn't wrong.

I hadn't compromised, and I hadn't backed down.

That was what you hated about me.

You just wanted to tear me down for trying to do what you couldn't.

Anxiety and conviction clashed inside me.

Perhaps that was why the game I was developing gradually began to take a form that reflected who I was.

As if possessed, I created a game about a life and its emotions.

Every time the playable character took a step, the world rejected them.

The more firmly they pressed on, the harder it pushed down on them.

It made them doubt the path ahead, and a single wrong step could force them to turn back.

It thrust anxiety, anger, despair, and pain upon them, urging them to compromise.

Conviction was the only way forward.

All they could do was strike those walls again and again with unbreakable conviction until they broke through.

It came from my desire to show the value of taking on a challenge.

I simply wanted to say that we had to believe in ourselves and keep moving forward.

I only managed to finish the game I'd made with that feeling in my heart when the sickness in my mind began eating away at my body.

[Identity.]

That was the name of a game that let players spend about twelve hours experiencing a story about someone who found happiness by never losing themselves, despite being battered by the world.

My story was out in the world.

That day, I drank alcohol for the first time in years.

Exhaustion weighed down my entire body.

For a while, all I did was think back over the past few years.

Only after going through all of that...

[Boss? How have you been? Your new game won an award! I called to congratulate you!]

...did I finally prove myself.

[I played it, and it was amazing! How do I put it... I spent the whole weekend playing without even noticing I was tired. It was so immersive. Wow...!]

I had won the biggest award in the industry.

Because there was only so much I could do as a solo developer, I'd settled on making an indie game. The award was only in the indie category, but it was still clear proof.

I shouted inside.

It was an empty cry that would never reach them.

'See? I was right.'

What mattered in a game wasn't monetization, but the fun at its heart.

It was the gameplay. In other words, how well-made the game was.

You were the ones who were wrong, not me.

[The award ceremony's today, right? You must be on your way to catch your flight!]

It was the voice of the team member who had stayed in touch with me all this time.

My head buzzed as I listened.

Come to think of it, it had been doing that constantly lately.

As they said, I needed to catch a flight, but I could barely find the strength to move.

"...Thanks."

It happened as I stood up.

Eeeee!

Dizziness hit me.

No, it was worse than that.

My vision turned white, and I felt my breathing stop. Something inside me was clearly coming to an end.

'Ah.'

Crash!

I couldn't stop my body from falling.

Once I collapsed on the floor, all I could do was gasp for breath.

[B-Boss...?]

The voice grew distant.

My vision darkened.

My mind sank away.

My breathing faded.

At last, the end came.

[Boss! Boss!!!]

Death from overwork.

The end of an idiot who had worked himself to death, obsessed with proving himself right.

* * *

My life flashing before my eyes. A hallucination caused by chemical reactions in the brain.

Those words came to mind, but I soon rejected them.

I knew it by instinct.

I had fallen into hell.

Aaaaaaagh!!!

A scene filled with countless screams and someone's laughter unfolded before my eyes.

It was a world I couldn't possibly judge by the limits of my understanding.

Of course it was. No dimension I knew contained a world that constantly expanded and contracted, changing its landscape every time.

I saw sinners scattered across red earth, impaled on stakes.

I saw sinners who made themselves into idols and hung upon crosses, and sinners endlessly killed by those whose lives they had taken.

I saw sinners who had become ravenous hungry ghosts, tearing into one another for food, and sinners screaming and praying amid an unfathomable peace.

I saw countless other things.

Not once during any of it did I wonder why I was there.

'I have to see it.'

I was simply gripped by a strange sense of duty to take it all in, pushing my memory to its limits.

I must have gone mad.

None of it had happened by my own will. Not a single thing I witnessed was anything less than horrifying. Everything took a form that pushed human fear beyond its limits.

And yet, when I finally took it all in...

"Wow..."

...what I felt wasn't terror or fear, but excitement.

Thump. My heart beat.

Though I was already dead, it beat more powerfully than it ever had while I was alive.

It felt just like meeting my first love again.

Perhaps this was my punishment for killing myself to make a game.

No, that had to be it.

If so, there was no way to explain the endless thirst rising inside me now.

I simply thought:

'I want to make it.'

I wanted to capture this world in the form of a game.