WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Game Director that Returned from Hell ◈
Chapter 20
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The next day, I contacted the team and called a meeting.
In the middle of the office, I used the projector to display information about G-STAR.
Han Seorim was the first to speak.
“What’s that?”
Right. Han Seorim had only just entered the game industry, so it made sense that she didn’t know.
Especially at this point in G-STAR’s history.
I’d have to explain.
I kept it simple.
“G-STAR. Game Show & Trade, All-Round. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a gaming exhibition.”
It was a government-backed project meant to promote Korea’s game industry, first held at KINTEX in 2005.
But it hadn’t gotten off to a very good start.
It had attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors, but that was about it.
Its early shortcomings had held it back.
“The event had some clear problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Two things hurt its reputation at the first event. The booths focused too heavily on online games, and there were gambling elements.”
Another major issue I remembered was how revealing the booth models’ outfits had been.
Well, that controversy had come up several more times afterward, so it wasn’t unique to the first event.
“After that start, the event kept shrinking. It’s still not all that well known among the general public.”
“...You haven’t said anything good about it.”
“Because that’s how things were up until last year.”
“So this year will be different?”
“It will.”
“You sound like the manager of a bottom-ranked baseball team at the start of every season.”
“...”
Beep!
I quietly changed the slide to a photo of BEXCO.
“Starting this year, it’s moving to Busan. It’ll also be bigger. Most importantly, a huge upcoming game will be there. Public interest will be on a completely different level from previous years.”
At a gaming exhibition, what ultimately determined the event’s success was interest in the games on display and the developers’ name recognition.
That was the key to the changes to come.
This year’s exhibition would feature an upcoming game that had attracted far more attention than anything previously shown at G-STAR.
“Space Craft 2 will be at this year’s G-STAR.”
“Oh, that!”
“I know that one!”
The excitable duo reacted.
I nodded.
“Right. The one everyone plays at PC cafés.”
The sequel to a game considered a national pastime in Korea and the one true god of RTS games worldwide would have a playable demo at this year’s G-STAR.
Its developer, Blizzid, was unquestionably one of the leading companies in the industry.
Its participation would be the biggest driving force behind G-STAR 2009.
Of course, Space Craft 2 hadn’t been as successful as its predecessor, but that wasn’t relevant right now.
It wasn’t as if I was going there to play it anyway.
“We have one goal. We’ll take part in G-STAR and promote our game to the crowds.”
It wasn’t just a place where lots of people gathered. It was a place where lots of people interested in games gathered specifically for games.
Even a small booth would do.
Interest in Hellic hadn’t faded yet. If we revealed our next game at G-STAR and got people talking, couldn’t we reach a huge audience without paying for a major advertising campaign?
Han Seorim asked another question.
“...There’s something I’m wondering about.”
“Go ahead.”
“It says the event’s in November. Can we finish the game by then? I mean, if we’re exhibiting a game, don’t we need something to show? And you said Space Craft 2 would be there. Won’t everyone just crowd around that booth?”
Good points.
I’d been about to address them.
I held up two fingers.
Then I folded one down.
“First, our purpose at G-STAR is the first stage of promotion.”
“The first stage?”
“Right. Think of it as finding people who’ll play our game and spread the word.”
Naturally, the games that attracted attention at G-STAR would be the new releases from major companies.
To be brutally honest, as an indie studio, we were going there to pick up the scraps of attention they left behind.
But there was no reason to see that as a bad thing.
Indies had to be persistent.
If there was a way forward, we needed to know when to set our pride aside.
“Our marketing strategy is word of mouth. ‘I tried that game at G-STAR, and it was fun.’ We only need to attract enough people to get that conversation started. We’ve got a good chance of succeeding, too. Our previous game already achieved meaningful results, so we’re in a better position than other small developers.”
Han Seorim nodded, apparently understanding.
I folded down my remaining finger.
“Second, you asked about finishing the game. That ties into why I called this meeting.”
I could feel everyone paying closer attention.
I continued.
“We’ll be exhibiting a demo version of Hellic 2.”
“A demo...”
“We’ll only show a tiny part of the game. A short introduction to its core features, enough to make people look forward to it.”
Of course, we wouldn’t limit its release to G-STAR.
First, we’d get people talking.
Then, just as interest in our next game started rising...
“After G-STAR, we’ll release the demo for free on Steam. It’ll help us keep building interest.”
It wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the players. Instead, it would only whet their appetites and leave them wanting more.
The demo itself would become a promotional tool.
“We’ll use the prologue and part of Chapter 1 for the demo.”
Enough for people to understand the game systems and get a taste of the combat and story.
Just enough to make them want to play what came next.
“Applications are open until September. Until then, let’s put all other work on hold and focus on developing the demo.”
We were short on time.
But it wasn’t completely impossible.
I’d already made some of the development tools.
Character modeling was progressing smoothly, and we wouldn’t need to build every map for a demo.
We only had to show the parts we needed.
We could also live with a few bugs.
Of course, anything that made progress impossible would be a problem, but calling it a demo would make people somewhat more forgiving of bugs.
“Seorim, focus on Chapter 1’s design starting today. Yumi and Hyeji, follow Seorim’s instructions. I’ll pay you for any overtime, so if you think you’re running short on time, please stay and work as long as you can. I’m counting on you.”
“Okay.”
After giving the art team their instructions, I turned to Jo Ayun.
“Ayun, you have more breathing room than the art team. It’s May now, so focus on studying through August. But start thinking about what kind of music you’ll make. The same goes for sound effects. I’ll help you with those, so don’t worry too much.”
“Y-yes...!”
That took care of sound, too.
Clap!
I clapped my hands.
“That’s it for the meeting. Everyone, get to work.”
We’d set our short-term direction.
All that remained was the same old exhausting task of actually making the game.
* * *
Before making a demo, we needed to develop a prototype.
I’d just finished the system design based on the design document. Now I had to build each part and check it against the list.
Of course, we hadn’t even finished building the maps yet, so I was working on implementing Alice and the butterfly, whose models were already complete.
Today’s task was to check whether they moved properly and performed the right actions when I pressed the controls.
And then I encountered it.
‘Ah. A bug.’
A goddamn bug had appeared.
It was a record-setting first bug.
On the screen, Alice had grown a full three meters in the middle of a jump over a roughly built polygon map.
She looked less like a little girl and more like an eight-foot ghost. The butterfly was twitching at her calf.
A sharp ache shot through the back of my neck.
But what else could I do?
‘...I’ll have to redo it.’
First, I needed to find the problem.
I was about to check the code I’d just written when someone spoke.
“Seonbae, I’m done.”
Han Seorim had come over.
When I looked up, she was holding out some printouts.
“Check these for me.”
She looked a little tired.
Come to think of it, she’d been determined to finish them today.
Maybe I could give her some feedback and clear my head at the same time.
“Let’s have a look.”
I took the printouts and spread them out.
They were map concept art.
First was the beach for the tutorial.
“Looks good.”
It was just how I’d imagined it.
Honestly, there wasn’t anything particularly distinctive about it, so I’d given her some references. I could see that she’d used them well.
The gloomy beach, the narrow path leading to the cave, even the colors.
“This one’s approved.”
“Good. Look at the next one.”
Han Seorim sat beside me, her eyes bloodshot.
Was she unsure of herself?
Wondering what she could possibly have drawn to make the arrogant Han Seorim so nervous, I checked it.
“This looks fine, too.”
“This does?”
“Yeah. It’s just what I had in mind. This one’s approv...”
“Wait. Look again. Are you sure it’s okay?”
Why was she acting like this when I’d said it was fine?
“What’s the problem?”
At my question, Han Seorim’s expression turned strange.
Her face twisted, then relaxed again. She let out several deep sighs and looked down at her drawing.
Finally, she spoke.
“I don’t get it...”
“Hmm?”
“I mean, think about it. I gave this a lot of thought while I was drawing, you know?”
Tap!
Han Seorim pointed to the middle of the drawing.
“Why are there flower gardens in hell? And why is the sky so blue? Why is the temple so white? This looks just like...!”
“Heaven?”
“Yes!”
Oh. So that was the problem.
“It is heaven, though.”
“?”
“This is what heaven looks like.”
The first chapter’s setting used a conventional image of heaven.
Endless gardens filled with flowers of every color, a blue sky with fluffy white clouds, and a pure white marble temple.
A utopia where peace was all you could find, wherever you went. That was the concept behind the first hell.
Han Seorim’s mouth opened and closed.
“What’s wrong?”
“No, wait! You said it was hell!”
“It is hell.”
“You just said it was heaven!”
“It’s that, too.”
“...Are you trying to pick a fight? Do you know how much I agonized over this drawing?”
“...Want to tell me?”
Han Seorim’s eyes flashed.
The words poured out like machine-gun fire.
“The setting’s clearly hell, but the references are heaven. From the chapter description, this place should feel unsettling, but you told me to leave out every element that could make it feel that way. So I had to make the scenery unsettling through atmosphere alone. But no matter what I tried, it didn’t work. In the end, I gave up and showed it to you, and you approved a perfectly ordinary picture of heaven?”
Han Seorim clenched her fists.
It looked as though she might throw a punch at any moment.
“I didn’t explain enough.”
“Explain what?”
“The concept of this hell.”
Tap, tap.
I tapped the printout.
“Where is this?”
“The Hell of Heretics! Where cult followers and the people who start cults go!”
“Right. And what’s in the Hell of Heretics?”
“A real god! The Chapter 1 boss!”
“Exactly. Do you still not get it?”
“What else am I supposed to understand?”
...At that point, I realized what the problem was.
We were looking at it differently.
I answered right away.
“The narrative.”
Han Seorim gave me a strange look.
“The narrative?”
“I told you this would be a story-driven game.”
“...Right?”
“Let’s understand the setting through the story.”
I put down the printout and faced Han Seorim.
“Try looking at it from another perspective. This is a peaceful heaven. A utopia where a real god watches over everyone.”
That was the premise of this place.
The Hell of Heretics was heaven. An enormous god sat there, doing nothing but gazing down at the land.
“But the people who end up there are heretics. Heretics to the left, heretics to the right. How do you think someone would react when they arrived?”
“...‘I was right’?”
“No.”
An action would probably be easier to understand than words.
I closed my mouth.
I wiped all expression from my face.
Finally, I stopped moving.
“...What are you doing?”
I didn’t answer Han Seorim’s question.
I simply stared into her eyes.
Eventually, she began to react.
Her reactions changed as time passed.
“Are you messing with me?”
First, a disbelieving laugh.
“Are you trying to start something?”
Then irritation.
“Hello!”
Then anger.
“No, seriously, what are you doing?!”
Confusion.
And then...
“...Seonbae?”
Anxiety.
“Seonbae...? What’s going on?”
Five minutes.
That was how long it took for Han Seorim to start watching me nervously.
“...This isn’t funny. Stop it. Why would you suddenly do this in the middle of a conversation?”
Han Seorim shook me.
She forced a smile, but it looked awkward.
Her voice trembled.
This was it.
Even when it was someone you knew, being silently stared at like this brought out this kind of reaction.
That was how people reacted.
She’d probably gotten the general idea.
“What were you thinking just now?”
When I spoke, Han Seorim flinched.
Her eyes widened, then her face turned red.
A moment later, she jumped to her feet and raised her voice.
“Seriously, what the hell...!”
“You were anxious, right? Because I just kept staring.”
“...What?”
“That’s it. That’s why this place is hell.”
I showed Han Seorim the garden, which was still just as beautiful.
“‘The god you believe in is false.’ Or, ‘Gods don’t exist.’ The people who said those things go to heaven. They go somewhere a real god lives and feel that god’s gaze on them every moment. That’s all. They’re simply watched.”
In the place I’d seen, the god had never passed judgment on the “infidels.”
With a body so enormous it seemed to pierce the sky, the god had simply looked down at them.
“I’ll ask again. If you were an infidel who ended up here, how would you feel? What would it be like if the god did nothing but watch you?”
Han Seorim couldn’t answer right away.
But her expression suggested she already knew.
If I had to describe it, I’d call it aversion.
The lines on Han Seorim’s face showed clear aversion.
“Doesn’t just imagining it make you feel like you’d go mad? Wouldn’t you think, ‘If this keeps up, I’m going to wither away and die’?”
Han Seorim opened and closed her mouth.
Then she nodded.
I added one more thing.
“The infidels would imagine it. When will that god move? When will the god punish me for denying it?”
“...”
“This is a place that makes people wither away and die by forcing them to imagine a frightening future forever.”
The moment someone realized that, the Hell of Heretics became a place filled with a terrible sense of wrongness.
Han Seorim rubbed her arms.
She breathed hard.
“...I think I get it.”
Her voice was a little calmer.
Then she asked another question.
“So what does the god look like? If it’s the Chapter 1 boss, I’ll need to draw it next. Give me the references.”
Well, I appreciated her dedication to her work.
Unfortunately...
“I don’t know.”
“?”
“I said I don’t know. Even if you look right at it, you can’t make out its form. It’s a god.”
I didn’t know what the god looked like.
Even when I searched my memories, all I could recall was the certainty that a god had been there.
There was one reason for that.
“Now, that’s a god. What does it look like to you?”
“...I don’t know.”
“Hehe. That’s because you don’t have a religion.”
A god didn’t reveal its form to those who didn’t believe in it.
And to believers, it appeared in the form they wished to see.
So...
“For this one, you’ll have to rely entirely on your own intuition.”
There was nothing I could do to help.
Hell of Heretics (2)
Footnotes:
The eight-foot ghost is a towering woman from a Japanese urban legend.
Space Craft 2 and Blizzid parody StarCraft II and Blizzard. Calling the original a Korean “national pastime” refers to its enormous popularity in Korea.
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