WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Game Director that Returned from Hell ◈
Chapter 8
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Game development didn’t end with finishing the game.
In fact, something else was just as important as everything that came before it: publicity and feedback.
A game was, first and foremost, a product.
Without publicity, no one would know about it even after it was made.
That was why we needed to start promoting the game properly around the time of the beta test.
Of course, major game companies tended to launch huge publicity campaigns as soon as they announced a project, but that had nothing to do with me right now.
Next came feedback.
Even if people knew a game was coming out, they wouldn’t take an interest without hearing what others thought of it. Whether positive or negative, outside opinions were an important factor in choosing a game.
We needed to start on both at once, and there happened to be two of us.
“You handle the publicity. I’ll take care of testing.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I’ll ask people I know.”
“You have friends?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, sorry. You’re always in the clubroom, so I thought you didn’t.”
Seorim didn’t look the least bit sorry, but anyway.
“You’re right. I don’t have friends.”
“?”
“I’ll pick a few people from my department and have them do it. I’ll pay them.”
It was embarrassing, but I hadn’t exactly made the most of my school years.
I didn’t particularly enjoy talking to other people in the first place.
That meant I didn’t know many people right now.
That was why I’d decided on people from my department.
Han Seorim shot me a look as though I were hopeless.
“Honestly. I’ll find the people. Just make sure you’re ready.”
“Hmm?”
“I know some people who like games. Actually, you know them too.”
Did we know anyone in common?
As I thought about it, two noisy people finally came to mind.
“Oh, those people from your department? The ones who were there when we first met?”
“...Wow. You really don’t know?”
Han Seorim gave a hollow laugh.
I wished she would just tell me, but she didn’t seem inclined to.
“Well, you’ll find out that day. I didn’t realize you paid this little attention, though. Anyway, the test’s tomorrow, right? See you then.”
With that, Han Seorim left.
I got my answer the following day.
“This is my older brother, and these two are a classmate and an upperclassman from my department.”
“Oh! I heard all about it, Yeonho! You made a game with my little sister?”
“Hello!”
“???”
Jingyeong was laughing heartily.
I looked back and forth between Han Seorim and him.
How could two siblings look so different?
My brain stopped for a moment.
* * *
Yeonho’s mouth hung open in a stupid expression.
It was quite a sight.
“You look really shocked.”
Seorim had spent nearly half a year working alongside Yeonho, but this was the first time she’d seen such a big change in his expression.
Whatever happened, he usually showed nothing beyond a blank face or mild irritation.
She found this quite satisfying.
Of course, realizing Yeonho had taken so little interest in her hurt her pride a bit, but that was all.
“Aren’t we going to start the test?”
“...Oh.”
Yeonho began getting the computers ready.
Jingyeong spoke to Yeonho, a mischievous grin spreading across his face.
“Yeonho, what have you been doing with my little sister for the past six months?”
“...Making a game.”
“Just making a game?”
“What else would we do?”
“Well, you’d better not do anything else.”
“You crazy bastard!”
Thwack!
“Urgh!”
Jingyeong clutched his backside.
Seorim’s classmate and upperclassman burst into giggles at the sight.
Only after she shot them a warning look did they clamp their mouths shut.
‘Was bringing them a mistake?’
Not a single normal person among them.
Shippers and slackers. She’d brought them because they at least liked games, but now she regretted it.
Just then, Yeonho spoke.
“Everything’s ready.”
He pointed toward the computers.
The game’s title on the logo screen caught Seorim’s eye.
[Hellic]
She felt a little sentimental.
After all, she was the one who had settled on the title.
“Right. Have you decided on a name for the game?”
“Hell I.C. It means a tollgate to hell.”
“...Let’s take out the space and periods. Your naming sense is seriously awful.”
An unpleasant memory briefly surfaced, but anyway.
“Oh, so that’s the title?”
As Jingyeong sat down, tension began to build inside Seorim.
Something shook it a moment later.
[Kyaaaaagh!]
“Huh? That scream sounds familiar...”
“Just play.”
Why did he have to notice that? How annoying.
No, this wasn’t the time for that.
Seorim pulled herself together.
With her arms folded, she clenched her fists, her palms growing sweaty for no good reason.
Showing others the result of six months of hard work really did make a person nervous.
Memories of all that effort flashed through her mind.
Her illustrations had received praise, but she’d taken a severe beating when they ran the prototype.
What they had now was the result of her determination to make up for it. One part of that process had been especially painful.
“Let’s redo this pixel art.”
“Oh, the door?”
“Yeah. Make it look more like a butthole.”
“...”
“I told you. This butthole is the core of our game. The way this butthole moves...”
“I get it, so could you stop saying butthole? It’s seriously disgusting...”
Whatever was so important about those damned buttholes, she’d redrawn the holes used to move around the map dozens of times.
The process had been so sickening that, for a while, she’d struggled to swallow her meals and even lost weight.
This was the result of all that suffering.
And now, it was being judged for the first time.
Seorim watched with her eyes wide open.
Jingyeong spoke.
“Okay, get ready, Yeonho. I’ll clear it in no time. I know a thing or two about games.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“They all say that at first.”
“Seorim! Don’t forget you promised to come to an interdepartmental group blind date if we beat this!”
“I know. Just play.”
Only then did the three of them start the game.
Music played as the screen changed.
In a landscape that brought internal organs to mind, the playable character, the Jailer, woke up.
The moment the game began, all of Seorim’s attention focused on the three people watching the screens.
Where their eyes went, how their fingers moved, how quickly they breathed, how far they hunched forward.
All that information seemed to press down on her.
“Why are you so nervous?”
Tap.
Yeonho patted her shoulder.
Seorim flinched and turned to look at him.
Then her eyes widened.
‘Yeonho is smiling?’
Yeonho was watching the three of them with a quiet smile.
He looked deeply satisfied.
“Enjoy it. This is the best part.”
She didn’t ask how she was supposed to enjoy it. She didn’t ask if there was some way to relax, either. A strange feeling simply came over her, and she looked back at the three players.
Only then did she notice something.
The three of them quickly understood the game’s rules and moved on to the next map.
That was the result of the “intuitive design” Yeonho had obsessed over.
She saw their faces relax, then their fingers suddenly pick up speed. Tap, tap, tap! They hammered away at their keyboards, then finally let out sighs as the tension eased.
That was the result of the “pacing” Yeonho had emphasized so many times.
At last, the Cancer Giant made its first appearance.
All three of them freaked out.
“Aagh! That scared me!”
“Hey! What is that? Why isn’t its health going down?”
“Run! Run!”
“Hey! Cheon Yeonho! This is a bug! Your game’s crap!”
“It isn’t.”
“Pfft...!”
That was the result of designs Seorim and Yeonho had scrapped and remade over and over, and of the many nights Yeonho had stayed up working.
‘Oh. I get it.’
At that moment, Seorim understood what Yeonho had meant by enjoying it.
Yeonho meant enjoying the sight of players having fun.
It had never even occurred to him that the game might not be fun.
Only then did she relax.
She began watching the three players’ reactions with a lighter heart.
It felt as though something was beginning to grow inside her.
Watching people enjoy her work, right before her eyes, was starting to feel rather nice.
“What do you think? Feels rewarding, doesn’t it?”
Seorim pressed her lips together at Yeonho’s question.
She simply focused on watching the three of them.
* * *
The test ended successfully.
Jingyeong’s reaction was especially good.
“Wow, this is seriously fun. You two made this by yourselves? It could wipe the floor with most games. And the immersion’s incredible. I didn’t think pixel art could do that.”
“Of course it could. I made it.”
Seorim was pleased.
Jingyeong had always liked games, so he’d played plenty of them.
His reviews were usually harsh, too.
And he’d praised their game.
Of course, his personal feelings had probably played a part, since his little sister had made it. Still, praise was praise.
Jingyeong knew how to keep personal feelings separate from an honest judgment.
“When did you say this was coming out? Oh, and where are you releasing it?”
“On a PC platform called Steam.”
“Steam? Oh, that place.”
“Yes. It’s the only place we can release it.”
“True enough. Anyway, tell me when it comes out. I’ll buy it and play it through.”
For a while, the two continued a conversation only they understood.
Meanwhile, Seorim’s classmate and upperclassman approached her and casually spoke up.
“Seorim. We finished Chapter 1. It was fun.”
Their eyes sparkled.
Seorim couldn’t help giving a hollow laugh.
It was obvious their minds were elsewhere.
‘Still...’
They had focused while playing, so she supposed she could do this much for them.
“I’ll show up for the group date. That’s all.”
“Yes!”
The two hugged each other.
With that, the three testers left.
“See you!”
“I’m off too. Little sister, come home early today!”
Thud.
Once the door closed and only the two of them remained, Seorim felt awkward.
She searched for something to say to fill the silence, and eventually thought of something.
“Oh, by the way.”
“Yeah?”
“How does it feel to get such glowing praise?”
“I think it’s only natural.”
“Don’t you have any thoughts besides that?”
She hadn’t asked just to hear him brag.
When she glared at him, Yeonho thought for a moment before answering.
“...What I intended worked pretty well? Something like that.”
“What you intended?”
“The buttholes.”
Why was Yeonho bringing that up again?
“Don’t make that face. I told you, there was a reason.”
Yeonho sat down at one of the computers they’d used for the test and launched the game.
Then he pointed to the scene immediately after the intro.
“Here. Where the main character appears.”
“What about it?”
The main character traveled between cube-shaped organs through long, rectum-shaped passages.
As Yeonho put it, the entrances were the buttholes attached to each room.
“When the player enters this butthole, the game switches to a loading screen. And we designed the loading sequence to show them making their way through the rectum, right? That makes entering, loading, and coming out look like one continuous scene. It’s a technique.”
“What technique?”
“A long take.”
Seorim tilted her head.
Yeonho tapped the monitor as he explained.
“I removed the moments that interrupt the game’s flow.”
“Oh...!”
So that was why Yeonho had been so obsessed with the buttholes.
Only then did Seorim understand what Yeonho had meant when he said, “Make entering the butthole, moving through the rectum, and coming back out feel like a single scene.”
Without a visible loading break, players would certainly have fewer moments that pulled them back into reality.
She looked at Yeonho in a new light, and he spoke.
“Anyway, good work today. We’ll do the second test online. Get started on the publicity before then.”
“Oh, sure. Good work today.”
“Yeah. I’m heading out.”
With that, Yeonho left the clubroom.
Seorim couldn’t take her eyes off the dark monitor for a long time.
* * *
After returning home, Seorim spent some time thinking about the test. Then she suddenly remembered what she needed to do.
‘Oh, right. Publicity...’
She’d already received the guidelines.
Yeonho had said she just needed to write posts on a few online gaming communities.
“We can’t do any serious promotion anyway. We’re not big enough for that.”
Yeonho had asked her to include a trailer, a brief introduction to the game, and its distinctive weapon system.
Seorim sat down at her computer.
She’d already prepared all the screenshots she needed, and Yeonho had recorded gameplay footage for the trailer and sent her the files.
Click, click.
All she had to do was put it together.
After writing the promotional post, Seorim visited a gaming community Yeonho had told her about.
That was when she saw it.
『Only registered members can create posts.』
“Huh? What? I have to make an account? What a pain.”
She frowned, but she couldn’t neglect her task just because it was annoying.
Seorim clicked her tongue softly and went through the registration process.
『Nickname: SeorimSeorim
Profile picture: (A selfie taken at school)
Bio: Not accepting friend requests』
“What? Why do they need all this stuff?”
The only online community Seorim really used was her personal mini-homepage, so she entered her real personal information as the site requested.
She had no idea how things worked in gaming communities, where anonymity was the norm.
“That should do it...”
With that, Seorim uploaded her promotional post.
『We made a game!
Official release in two weeks!!!
Please check it out ^-^
(Body)
We worked hard on this game for six months!
You definitely won’t regret it, so please download it!』
“There. That looks pretty good.”
And with that, her work was done!
Seorim immediately turned off her computer and lay down on her bed.
That meant she never saw the comments appearing on the community.
It was a mistake on her part.
『<Comments>
zSupremeHansu: u a girl?
┕SqueakyCleanT: ugh, dumbass. is that all you can see?
┕SweetBElfGuy37: Your profile pic,,is lovely,,,is this,,a game,,made by a student? The quality,,is very,,good,,^^
HighSchoolBigSword: why is this a featured post? did you rig the upvotes?
┕S2PoppyS2: see above
┕HighSchoolBigSword: oh... lol...
BangbaeBloodLord: Oh, horror action?
┕Waiting4Zodiac3: when’s Zodiac 3 coming out... sigh, guess I’ll try this
┕NationalPaladinAssociation: this bastard’s still waiting for that
┕LuvSpaceWar: uh, Space War 2 comes first~
┕Kukshinanayo: instead of fighting, anyone up for some KOF?』
A wild, male-dominated online community in 2008.
A female college student making a game was the ultimate bait for attention.
News of the game’s release spread much further than Yeonho had originally expected.
Of course...
“...Seorim.”
“Yes?”
“Change your community profile picture.”
“?”
For Seorim herself, it only added another entry to her embarrassing past.
Release
Footnotes:
“I.C.” is short for a highway interchange in Korean road terminology, giving “Hell I.C.” its intended sense of an entrance to hell.
The “shipper” insult in the Korean refers to We Got Married, a television show that paired celebrities as pretend married couples. Here, it mocks someone trying to turn an ordinary relationship into a romance.
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