Horror Game Developer: My games aren't that scary!
Chapter Summary
The building was unusually quiet, the silence broken only by the faint creak of the floorboards beneath my steps. It was a little early, and a certain emptiness hung in the air, but I paid it little mind and continued toward my office. The office fell silent almost instantly, not a single sound breaking the air as every pair of eyes turned toward me.
Chapter 397: Global Ranking [1] The next day came quickly.
After going to the gym and washing up, I headed to the Studio.
I had yet to check the game’s statistics.
In fact, I hadn’t even gone online.
I didn’t know how the situation was going over there.
Arriving at the Guild, I took the familiar path through the corridors and made my way toward my office.
The building was unusually quiet, the silence broken only by the faint creak of the floorboards beneath my steps.
It was a little early, and a certain emptiness hung in the air, but I paid it little mind and continued toward my office.
"Boss!
" "...
You’re here, boss!
" "I was dying to wait for you!
" Three voices soon broke the silence as I turned my head to see Noah, Joseph, and Ryan heading towards me.
Seeing them, I paused.
The three of them...
How could I even begin to describe the state they were in?
They still wore the same clothes as yesterday, their hair disheveled, and dark circles ringed their tired eyes, giving them a hollow, sleepless look.
I grew speechless.
"You didn’t sleep last night, did you?
" In fact, I could even smell some alcohol.
These guys...
"Hehe, we were a little too nervous for the results.
We all wanted to check, but we just stopped ourselves.
" "Yeah, yeah.
We promised to check in the morning.
" "I’m dying to know!
Can we check!
" "Not yet.
" I stopped them before they could do anything else.
Looking around, I pointed at my office.
"Let’s do it inside, not here.
" I didn’t want them to cause a mess over here.
The three also appeared to have understood as they hurriedly lowered their voices and moved into the office.
Clank—!
The office fell silent almost instantly, not a single sound breaking the air as every pair of eyes turned toward me.
I could feel their anticipation, the weight of their stares pressing in, but I didn’t rush.
Instead, I calmly set my things down, pulled out my chair, and took a seat.
Was I nervous?
I was.
In fact, I was also dying to know.
However, I was confident in my game.
There was no need for me to worry.
I knew it was going to be a success.
This was how much confidence I had in the game.
Nevertheless, there were no guarantees, and that little seed of ’doubt’ only grew with each passing second as I eventually turned my attention to Noah.
Trying to keep myself grounded, I smiled.
"Alright.
" "....!!
" ".....!
" ".....!
" The three immediately jumped up, Noah whipping out his phone and hurriedly logging on to Dock.
Ryan and Joseph both stared at Noah’s phone in anticipation, but stopped a moment later, pulling away while closing their eyes.
"Actually, I want to hear it.
" "Same.
" Both of them shut up.
The room turned deafly quiet.
".....
" I sat in silence, trying my best to remain collected; however, my fists were clenched beneath the desk.
’50,000 sales.
That’s all I need for success.
Let it be 50,000.
’ The sales would increase after that.
An opening day of 50,000 would suggest a good opening.
Given how the game was priced at 10$, that would also mean that I’d make nearly half a million, excluding Dock fees.
That was all I needed.
".....
" The silence dragged on, Noah’s eyes reflecting the glow of his phone’s screen.
I waited in the heavy silence, each passing second stretching longer, pressing tighter against my chest.
Just as the tension began to feel unbearable, Noah finally lowered his phone.
He looked around, not making a single sound.
And then— "O-one...
" His lips quivered.
"One hundred and ten thousand.
" The words left Noah’s mouth slowly, almost disbelieving, yet heavy enough to fill the entire room.
For a moment, I didn’t know how to react.
The same was true for the others as they stared at Noah dumbly.
But then— "Holy shit!!!!
" "What did you just say!?
" "Did you just say 110,000 sales!!!
What the fuck!!!
" "This can’t be real!
Are you sure it’s real!!?
" Ryan and Joseph both shouted at the top of their lungs, their eyes wide and faces full of disbelief.
I was just like them, but the words refused to come out as I struggled to process the information.
110,000 sales?
’That’s more than double what I wanted.
’ In fact, this was far more than any other game I had ever made before.
These numbers...
They almost felt unreal.
"Check again!
Check again!
This has to be a dream!
It has to be a dream!
These are unreal numbers for such a small game!
" At Ryan’s insistence, Noah searched again, but the result was the same.
The Dock page didn’t lie.
The first day’s sale value was indeed like this.
"Holy shit!!
" Ryan screamed again, jumping up while staring at me.
"Boss!
Boss!
This is insane!
Boss!!
" "...
I know, calm down.
" I smiled at the three of them, pretending to be calm.
"This is just the first day.
This might all be due to the momentum that we’ve gathered following the stream.
There were indeed a lot of people watching.
Let’s wait to see how things will progress in the future.
" Although I said all of this, I was inwardly doing all sorts of acrobatics in my mind.
Backflip, frontflip, middle fingers...
All of that nonsense.
Yes!!!
"Wow, I can’t believe you’re so calm, boss.
" "I guess you really believed in the game a lot.
" "You’re right.
Let’s be calm like the boss.
There’s no need to be excited just yet.
There’s still a lot of work that we need to do.
" My ’fake’ calmness seemed to rub off on them, and they quickly calmed down.
They all turned into work mode shortly after.
"There are several bug and glitch reports.
Let’s handle those first.
" Noah was quick to take charge.
"Ryan, you’re better than I am at this stuff.
I’ll download the report and send it to you.
Make sure you tackle that.
I want them to be fixed as soon as possible so that we can improve the user experience.
" "Got it!
" Ryan hurriedly took out his phone and received the report.
He didn’t waste a second after that and rushed away into the Studio.
"Joseph, you work with me.
Given how many people are playing the game, we need to expand the server size for when the multiplayer feature rolls in.
" "Understood.
" There were plans to add a multiplayer feature.
However, given the time constraints and the challenges of adding multiplayer, we chose to delay it.
We also wanted to see the total number of players who would be playing the game.
Now that we knew, Noah and Joseph got to work.
They were so focused on their job that they didn’t even look at me, rushing towards the Studio to work on the changes.
Staring at the two, I smiled.
’I didn’t make a mistake hiring them.
’ I could tell that they truly cared for the games, and not only that, but they were also extremely capable.
Where would I find more people like this?
This was just the start.
I wanted more.
I wanted my games to reach the entire globe, and to do that, I needed an even bigger team.
But still, this was enough for now.
’There’s no need to rush.
’ Taking out my phone, I started to look at the comments.
Seeing them, I smiled.
There were quite a lot of positive ones.
However, a certain comment made me pause.
—Do you all think...
that this game might reach the global rankings?
Global Rankings?
I paused.
—I think its possible.