The next morning.
As soon as I turned on my computer and opened the Steam page without thinking much of it, I doubted my eyes for a moment.
Understandably so, because the PV for the game I’d uploaded yesterday without much expectation had surpassed 30,000 views in just a single day.
It already had over 5,000 wishlists, too.
‘What? What’s going on?’
Of course, if you asked whether 30,000 views was an enormous number, then honestly, not really—but for the first title of a brand-new studio that hadn’t released a single work yet to receive this much attention was absurd in itself.
Anyway, as I was feeling confused by the utterly unexpected surprise first thing in the morning, Yang Bibi, who was currently sharing a room with Saori, happened to come out into the living room with a yawn.
Seeing me standing in front of the computer, she asked,
“What’s going on, making a fuss this early in the morning?”
“Ah, well, you see.”
I first explained the situation to Yang Bibi.
At that, she waved her hand as if it were no big deal and said,
“Well, it must’ve gotten attention on some community somewhere.”
“It only went up yesterday.”
“Captain, do you think gamers play games while keeping track of the time?”
“That’s… true.”
Since that made sense after hearing it, I read through the reviews on the game page one by one.
Since it only supported Korean for now, most of the reviews were written in Korean, but among them were a few reviews in English and Japanese as well.
Most of those were requests asking for the game to be translated into their languages.
“Sunday.”
[Yes, go ahead.]
“Can you translate the entire script of Slash the Dragon, the game currently in development, into other languages?”
[Estimated time required: 5 minutes. I can translate it into the primary languages used in a total of 113 countries.]
“No, you don’t have to go that far. Just translate it into the major commonly used languages.”
[Understood. I’ll begin the translation work immediately.]
After leaving the translation work to Sunday like that, I decided to check the reactions on the communities just in case.
To be honest, I was curious about what kind of evaluation the game I made was getting.
The first place I entered was the card game gallery, where Slash the Dragon was being mentioned the most.
Their language was a bit rough, but when it came to evaluations, it was the most honest place.
Title: No, fuck, did they actually make SlD to be beatable?
Author: wedhklsda03
[Screenshot]
I’m already on my third retry and I keep getting blocked by the Rune Golem every time.
How the fuck are you supposed to beat this motherless bastard? Shit;
Comments
ㄴ ㅇㅇ: (thinking you’re a noob con)
ㄴ wedhklsda03: You fucking bastard, don’t just post a con, tell me how to beat it
ㄴ ㅇㅇ: (If you curse and get mad, that’s your problem, not mine, con)
ㄴ wedhklsda03: Ah, you son of a bitch
ㄴ cardgamelover: Calm down and buy a blunt weapon from the shop at the start. Swords and spears lack damage, so unless you got ridiculously lucky, you can’t beat the Rune Golem with them
ㄴ wedhklsda03: I heard blunt weapons were the best among the weapons too, so I bought one early on, but I still got blocked on floor 20?
ㄴ cardgamelover: You couldn’t beat it even after fully stacking attack cards?
ㄴ wedhklsda03: What’s full stacking, you weeb
ㄴ cardgamelover: They tell you about the card upgrade system in the early tutorial
ㄴ wedhklsda03: I skipped it so idk, bye
ㄴ cardgamelover: Ah, you lazy spoonfed bastard, if you don’t know, read the damn help menu
Title: Fuck, SlD is a garbage game all about luck
Author: ㅇㅇ(211.36)
[Screenshot]
Is it for real that I couldn’t beat it with 11 HP left?
Because the same card didn’t show up until I died, now I have to start over from the beginning. Fuck.
Comments
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(1.234): Sir, sir, I think you don’t know, but to beat the Rune Golem, you need to fully stack Smash
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(211.36): You’re a real fucking noob lololol
ㄴ WhenSlayTheSpire2: But how did you get a rare weapon? Those barely ever show up in treasure rooms
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(211.36): It was just being sold in the shop? Guess it shows up at a really low chance
ㄴ WhenSlayTheSpire2: I looked it up and the chance is 0.5%, reporting this as a humblebrag, bye
“……”
I’d expected it, but most of the people who’d tried the demo were groaning over the spicy difficulty of floor 20.
But seeing them keep challenging it while cursing, it seemed the game itself was fun.
Even though it was only a one-hour demo, posts like “How to Beat the Rune Golem Easily” had made it into the gallery’s recommended posts.
Just in case, I skimmed through a few other sites too, but their reactions were mostly similar to the card game gallery.
Of course, the card game gallery had the highest absolute number of mentions about the game.
At that moment, Yang Bibi, who had been lurking through the community posts beside me, said,
“See? I was right, wasn’t I? Hardcore game nerds actually like games more when they’re hard.”
Yang Bibi chuckled as she said that.
It was frustrating, but just this once, I had no choice but to admit that I’d been wrong.
The world was vast, and there were an incredible number of perverts who liked games more when they were difficult.
***
It felt like only yesterday that I first conceived Slash the Dragon under the name “Project Ash,” but game development had already entered its fourth week.
And the development of Slash the Dragon was gradually entering its final stages.
In truth, it wasn’t a game I’d made with a particularly long playtime in mind from the beginning.
It was a linear game that could be finished in 8 hours if short, 10 hours if long.
Of course, since it was in the roguelike genre, you could replay it as much as you wanted if you started over, but since it was a game with a story, you could say that its beginning and end were fixed no matter what.
For reference, I’d divided the game’s overall structure into five parts.
Floors 1–20: Forest Area
Floors 20–40: Ruins Area
Floors 40–60: Snowfield Area
Floors 60–80: Ash Heap Area
Floors 80–100: Celestial Area
Each set of floors had an iconic boss, and every time the player defeated that boss, the main story progressed.
As the player climbed the floors, they would come one step closer to the truth of the World Tree, and in the end, after defeating the evil dragon Nidhogg, they would learn the entire truth.
That the World Tree they had thought was still alive and well had already withered and died long ago, and that what the elves on the surface had been looking at all this time was nothing more than the burnt remains of the World Tree, set aflame by Surt, the king of giants.
“Good. With this, the map design is roughly done.”
Since it was the place where the grand finale of the story concluded, I invested more resources into the Celestial Area corresponding to floors 80–100 than anywhere else.
In terms of setting, the Celestial Area was the space where the gods had lived before Ragnarok occurred—in other words, the region corresponding to Asgard.
However, since it was now occupied by Hela, the queen of the underworld, and the evil dragon Nidhogg who followed her, its defining trait was a strange gloom felt within a bright atmosphere.
Due to the white night phenomenon, it was as bright as midday, but throughout the area were the remains of gods and giants who had met their deaths after fierce battles, as well as Einherjar—Odin’s warriors—who had become draugr, walking corpses.
Considering that the map design of the lower-floor areas had a relatively fairy-tale-like feel, the high-floor Celestial Area was simply filled with the emptiness of a world that had met its end.
‘Mm, I made it myself, but the atmosphere really is no joke.’
After praising myself like that and saving the modified file, I stretched and looked out the window.
I was sure I’d sat down at my desk while watching the sun rise in the morning, but before I knew it, the sun was already sinking toward the horizon.
It had been a long time since I’d worked so intently that I truly lost track of time.
‘I’m kind of hungry.’
Feeling peckish, I went into the kitchen, where I found a sandwich that Saori had probably made, set out wrapped in plastic wrap.
I was delighted and was about to eat it when I noticed a note beside it, written in elegant handwriting.
[I’ll be going grocery shopping with Ms. Bibi, so please eat this if you get hungry.]
It seemed the two of them had gone to the mart to buy groceries for dinner while I was absorbed in work.
‘Will they be all right?’
Of course, I knew that thanks to some special power, the two of them could speak Korean at a native level, but from a guardian’s perspective, I still couldn’t help but feel a little worried.
They probably weren’t familiar with the geography around here yet.
‘Well, if something happens, they’ll call on their own.’
Forcing myself to think positively, I took a big bite of the ham-and-cheese sandwich, then carried the plate with the sandwich back and sat down at my desk.
I had no intention of doing any more additional work today, but there were still many things I needed to check, like the Steam page and my email.
‘The number of wishlists has surpassed 15,000, huh.’
At first, I thought it was a temporary phenomenon, but thanks to steady viral spread across the internet and elsewhere, Slash the Dragon’s recognition had risen far higher than I’d initially expected.
Of course, just because there were 15,000 wishlists didn’t mean 15,000 copies would necessarily sell the moment it was released.
Some people would decide whether to purchase after seeing actual reviews, and some had probably just wishlisted it without any real intention of buying it.
That was why I couldn’t be purely optimistic.
It might not even sell 1,000 copies at official launch.
After checking the wishlist count and the PV views almost out of habit, I entered the portal site to check my work email.
I expected my inbox to be full of nothing but ad emails as usual.
But for some reason, today, mixed among them was one type of email I had never seen before.
[Hello. This is Seong Gichan, reporter for Game Insight.]
It was an interview request email from a gaming news site.