WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Potter

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◈ The Game Director that Returned from Hell ◈

Chapter 21

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Looking back, this was when the girl had just begun her journey with the butterfly.

In the gloomy forest behind the beach, there wasn't a single bright color.

There, the girl learned basic survival skills from the butterfly.

How to eat, how to hide her presence, and sometimes, how to fight enemies.

[That's an evil spirit. They're residents of this hell. They used to be people, but they wandered for so long that they wore away. They hate everything alive.]

What the butterfly called an evil spirit was a skeleton burned pitch-black.

In game terms, I supposed it was something like a skeleton monster.

It wandered aimlessly, charged at anything alive, then lay limp as a corpse once its surroundings grew quiet again.

Those skeletons were the girl's first enemies, and the first ones she defeated.

Holding the butterfly, which had turned into a slingshot, the girl fired stones to knock the skeletons unconscious.

Just as she was getting used to that, the butterfly spoke.

[Do you understand? Hell is full of truly frightening things. And it's a place where you become just like them. We have to escape quickly if you don't want to end up like that.]

“How did they end up here?”

[...Come on. Let's go to the cave.]

The butterfly didn't tell the girl everything.

It simply kept leading her onward, guiding her to a cave that offered a way off the beach, and urged her inside.

[There's another hell beyond this cave. This is where things really begin.]

The girl followed the butterfly's words.

Rather than thinking for herself, she obeyed as if it were only natural.

“Okay. Let's go.”

As if under a spell, I followed the girl and the butterfly into the cave.

The place beyond that first hell.

I still remember the scenery vividly.

[This is the Hell of Heretics.]

It was called hell, yet it looked like heaven.

The sight filled me with awe, as though someone had created a utopia that could never truly exist.

A profound peace hung over the entire hell, making my chest ache. But more than that, coming face-to-face with a being far beyond my reach left me unable to breathe.

[Can you see that enormous figure?]

Where the butterfly pointed, there was a god.

Even seated on the ground, the god was so huge that their body seemed to pierce the sky.

I couldn't make out anything else.

[That's a god. Not a false god made up for profit, but a real god that has existed in people's minds since long ago.]

I had definitely seen the god with my own eyes.

Yet I couldn't describe anything beyond the fact that the god was there.

It was as if the information recorded on my retinas never reached my brain.

Even a brief glance away erased the god's shape from my mind.

The butterfly explained why.

[What do you see?]

“...I don't know.”

[Hehe. That's because you don't have a religion.]

To sum up the long explanation that followed, the god existed only as an idea, so its form couldn't be defined.

The form you imagined and believed in became the god's shape. As an atheist, I couldn't make out any clear form.

That was all there was to it.

The butterfly finished talking about the god, then told the girl how to escape this place.

[This is where people who worshipped wicked faiths come. Under the god's constant gaze, they're made to regret their beliefs. Now, look over there. The heretics are begging the god.]

Just as the butterfly said, somewhere in the pure white temple, people as thin as famine victims were looking up at the towering god and pleading.

“Please, please give us an answer...!”

Even so, the god remained silent, certain that the silence itself was punishment.

[At first, they all run away to escape the god's gaze. The moment they realize that's impossible, they charge toward the god. But they can never get there. Heretics aren't allowed to reach the god's body or soul. No matter how far they run, the god stays out of reach like a mirage, and they grow afraid. Only then do they regret what they've done. They give up everything and beg like that.]

As the butterfly explained, the heretics being punished were split into several groups.

Those hiding in the temple, those begging at the altar, and the mad ones charging toward the god.

[Let's avoid them and reach the god. The spot where the god is sitting is the only way out of this hell.]

And so the girl's adventure began.

The girl had two kinds of enemies.

“A sacrifice! A sacrificial lamb sent by the god!”

Heretics who sinned to earn forgiveness.

And...

Boom!

The god.

[The god doesn't like things that don't belong here. That's why the god isn't pleased to have you here. But it's all right. You're not a wicked heretic, so you can be allowed to reach the god's body and soul. This is a test!]

From time to time, the god clenched a fist and slammed it down at the girl.

With the butterfly's guidance, the girl barely avoided those attacks while fighting the heretics charging at her.

Mostly, she hid or dodged. When she couldn't avoid a fight, the butterfly turned into a sword or a club in her hands.

The way the girl fought... Well, she looked like a mad person being dragged around by a cursed sword in a comic.

Anyway, what mattered was that the girl reached the god, and there she faced the final trial.

Without a word, the god shrank.

To exactly the size of a two-story building.

[The god is asking whether you're worthy. Let's fight.]

The girl fought alongside the butterfly.

She dodged, blocked, and countered the god's attacks, which defied understanding even when seen firsthand. In the end, she earned permission to pass.

The god quietly watched the girl sway with exhaustion, then opened a path for her.

It was a pure white door.

[Let's go. To the next hell.]

The girl walked on.

* * *

The scaled-down demo map and the heretic models had just been finished.

At last, I placed Alice and the butterfly in the Hell of Heretics.

First, I set up the basic controls, the attack patterns for the heretics who would serve as monsters, and the farming routes for various items.

Apart from problems like bugs caused by interactions, none of it was difficult.

From a game design perspective, the mechanics of the Hell of Heretics were fairly easy to adapt.

“Hell Of Alice” only needed to show the girl's journey through hell in a linear sequence.

That meant my focus was on expressing the various features I'd planned and refining the details of the systems.

'Hellic 2 is an adventure game.'

But horror was the foundation of the Hellic franchise.

I had to add horror mechanics to the adventure.

'I'll make stealth missions, which weren't in the first game, the main focus. The god will serve as the incomprehensible enemy until players reach the boss room. I can work the jump scares into the god too, with punches and things like that.'

Then there were the weapon Properties and combinations.

I could work these into the gameplay more smoothly than in the first game.

All I had to do was integrate them into the butterfly.

'I can give the butterfly stats that grow. Alice just needs to provide the body.'

I borrowed the idea from skill progression systems.

I would create a skill tree in the form of a mind map.

Depending on their choices, players could develop in several directions: a ranged build using the slingshot, a blunt-damage build using clubs, a cutting build using blades, and so on.

They would unlock higher-tier weapons for each build using materials they'd farmed.

'As for switching forms... quick slots 1, 2, 3, and 4.'

The weapon transformation animations turned out quite smooth and pretty.

Of course, the effects weren't up to my standards because of the era's limitations and our limited staff, but that couldn't be helped.

Anyway, with all that done, only one thing remained.

'Implementing the boss.'

The boss model wasn't ready yet.

No, even the concept art wasn't finished.

So, for now, I'd roughly represented the boss with a lump of polygons.

I looked up toward the art team.

It was nine in the evening. Han Seorim was still there alone, reworking the concept art from scratch.

“Haa...”

A sigh came every ten minutes.

Her hair was a mess from how much she'd run her hands through it.

I felt guilty.

After all, the reason she was struggling so much was the god design I'd requested.

“Give it a human form that isn't immediately recognizable as one. But it still has to clearly feel like a god.”

That was my attempt at a compromise, since I knew it was impossible to reproduce the god's form exactly as I'd seen it.

After all, if you couldn't understand a shape even while looking at it, how could you model it, or even imagine it?

But I knew.

“Do whatever you want” was the hardest request of all.

What it really meant was, “Satisfy me using nothing but your own judgment.”

Even so, there was one reason I wouldn't take it back.

'She can grow further. She needs to develop her instincts. This will give her experience as an Art Director.'

I could be certain because this was Han Seorim, and because I knew her future.

The game director had once said something in an interview about [Lost Kingdom].

“I don't give specific design instructions. I only describe the feel I'm after to the AD. She produces her most beautiful designs when she's free to explore ideas.”

Han Seorim's greatest strength came from her unique, creative ideas.

Ten years from now, that creativity would reach a level where she could produce designs no one could match through instinct alone.

There was something I now knew.

Han Seorim had originally entered the game industry later than this.

Then, now that I'd brought that moment forward, wouldn't polishing this rough gem make her even better than she'd been back then?

She could do it.

So I made her do it.

But...

“...Seorim.”

I still had to look after her.

“Yeah. Oh... yes.”

Han Seorim turned toward me sluggishly.

Her gaze wandered. The dark circles under her eyes were deep.

She was pushing herself too hard.

She took her work as seriously as I did, so she never did anything halfway.

'I need to adjust things.'

This wasn't like developing a game alone.

I couldn't expect every member of the team to keep up with my pace.

Above all, it would be foolish to become so obsessed with her potential that I broke the Han Seorim in front of me.

“Let's call it a day. Go home and get some sleep.”

“What? Just let me finish this...”

“I'm cutting the power.”

Discontent showed on Han Seorim's face.

So I asked her a question.

“Are you even attending your classes properly?”

“...Yes.”

“That answer took too long. And I heard from Yumi and Hyeji. They said your attendance was getting dangerously low.”

I'd started hearing that after assigning her the boss design.

Her perfectionism must have flared up.

After seeing her every day for almost a year, I was starting to understand her a little.

“...I'm still fine.”

Her tone was unhappy.

I said, “Resting is part of the job too. Especially for you.”

I got up and walked over to Han Seorim.

The drawing she was working on was visible on her monitor.

The basic structure was there, but traces of revisions covered it.

They were signs of her struggle, and of her uncertainty.

I pointed at it.

“It's getting worse the more you change it. You're drawing without thinking now, aren't you?”

Han Seorim pressed her lips into a straight line.

A silent yes.

It wasn't an uncommon problem.

Unlike ordinary work, creative work followed an inverse relationship between the time spent planning and the time spent producing the actual piece.

Ideally, you spent a long time planning, then a short time creating.

That was how the details came through most clearly.

Of course, revisions and refinements were a separate matter. Setting those aside, my point was that, by that standard, Han Seorim was only making things worse.

I spoke a little harshly.

“You don't have a clear image in your head. That means you haven't settled on a direction. So you probably started thinking that if you just kept working, something would eventually click. You poured your time and energy into it, and when you still couldn't get a good result, you grew anxious. Then that anxiety led to more overwork.”

“...”

“You know it's a vicious cycle. You know, but you can't break it. Am I wrong?”

Han Seorim frowned.

Grrk. For a moment, I even heard her teeth grinding.

Only then did she cover her face.

Her voice sounded gloomy.

“...I haven't really taken a break lately.”

“I know because I've done the same thing. At times like this, you need to sleep.”

“Even when I lie down to sleep, I keep thinking about it. That if I just keep going, I'll get there somehow.”

“That's because you're too caught up in it. If you don't clear your head, you can't see the bigger picture.”

“Is that really it?”

Han Seorim stared at the monitor with hollow eyes.

Then she let out a humorless laugh.

“Wow, this really does look weird.”

“But you can't tell what's wrong with it, can you?”

“No. Wait, can I?”

Sounding confused, Han Seorim continued with something close to a complaint.

“It's all your fault, Seonbae. Making me do something like this.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize. That just makes me feel worse.”

Of course it would.

Proud as she was, Han Seorim would hear my apology as, “I asked too much of you.”

In fact, words often came across that way in similar situations.

“...Like I said, I gave you this because I thought you could do it.”

“I know.”

“You're just not in good shape right now because you haven't rested.”

“I said I don't need comforting.”

Han Seorim suddenly let her forehead fall against the desk. Thump.

She looked dejected.

Ah, what was I supposed to do at times like this?

I thought for a moment, then found an answer.

“Team Leader! Let's call it a day and go drinking!”

I just had to get her to do something else.

No, in Han Seorim's case, I needed to get her attention away from work.

“Seorim.”

“Why do you keep calling me...?”

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Work...”

“Forget that. Meet me outside. Come wander around with me and take a break.”

Han Seorim turned her head.

With her head still resting on the desk, she glared at me through half-closed eyes.

Hmm. I could tell what she was thinking.

“I'm not asking you on a date. I don't think you can take a break on your own, so I'm helping.”

“Isn't that asking me on a date?”

“Let's call it an employee benefit.”

Han Seorim was silent for a while.

Eventually, she gave me an answer.

“What kind of bullshit is that?”

The crooked smile that accompanied her grumbling meant yes.

“Go home and sleep. I'll see you around lunchtime tomorrow.”

Managing employees was pretty hard.

Boss Design (1)

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