The Mor family wasn't wealthy. Not wealthy at all. So unwealthy that they had to save on everything. Clothes were worn and mended until they fell apart completely. Groceries teetered on the edge between cheap and so cheap they were unsafe to eat.
And this was despite both parents working their fingers to the bone for their children.
Nicholas loved his family dearly and considered himself very lucky to have been born into it. Even though he had asthma and poor health, and lived modestly, his parents were the absolute best. These weren't empty words; he knew from his classmates' examples what relatives could sometimes be like. You had alcoholics, sadists, dull-witted good-for-nothing idiots, and even the absence of parents altogether. He had seen or heard it all, so he never complained about his life.
Seeing the price tag that appeared in front of the bow and arrows, Nick was slightly taken aback.
He distinctly remembered the game being free. So where did this price come from?
DLC.
Content purchased with money.
Nearby was a screen listing all the weapons and opponents available to fight in the arena. Nick walked over and touched it.
Approximately 94% of the weapons and enemies were locked, with a price in dollars listed next to them.
Dollars were the currency used by North American cities, including Edmonton. Previously, each city had its own currency, but when logistics and inter-city economies were restored, a unified currency became necessary. Washington took on this responsibility. The capital – the strongest union of people on the entire continent – managed the economy.
Nick couldn't believe his eyes.
However, he soon understood what was going on.
Gamedesigners don't go on raids. They lack combat abilities but still need to develop. The only option is to buy resources, but where does the money come from? Only from games. The developer creates a game and earns from it. There are always two options: creating new games or developing existing ones.
Strangely enough, most focus on quantity, trying to create new games. People buy a product, use it, get bored with it, or the training becomes stale and loses effectiveness, forcing them to look for something new. For this reason, the matrix is flooded with a slew of monotonous creations. At least there's plenty to choose from.
But DLC is a completely different approach.
The creator adds content and asks for money. For example, in this game, the player chooses their preferred weapon and opponents. They're unlikely to want to pay for a bunch of weapons they'll never even touch. That's why the game is free, but with paid DLC.
The reason for its popularity was also clear. Most other games couldn't come close to a project developed over several years. For its developer, it was the goose that lays the golden eggs; they just needed to take care of it, and happiness would follow. The outflow of old players was compensated by the influx of new ones.
In reality, games are created for specific audiences. A novice-level mage wouldn't handle the demands of a game designed for a master, while a seasoned fighter has no reason to fuss around with the basics.
That's why games are divided into ranks.
One of the main reasons is that more complex games require not only more mana to create but also to play. A beginner mage, even if they could play a game above their rank, wouldn't last very long, as their mana would quickly deplete.
Nick picked up the sword again and chose a zombie as his opponent.
He walked out into the arena.
Everything looked so realistic…
When the corpse appeared, the young man's knees started shaking.
He had never truly fought before. And now…
Of course, none of it was real. But his consciousness perceived it all as genuine reality.
The half-rotten corpse shuffled towards him, legs dragging.
Nick somehow managed to hold the sword properly, fully aware that this avatar was on the level of an ordinary young man, meaning much stronger than a high schooler with asthma.
The corpse was very close when Nick tried to strike it.
He swung and… missed.
Teeth snapped right next to his ear, but the youth managed to dodge aside. He gripped the sword more comfortably and swung again.
Thwack!
The blade grazed the edge of the head, tearing off a piece of rotting skin. The zombie took no damage, continuing its advance.
Visibly nervous, Nikki tried to strike again, this time aiming squarely for the head.
Thump!
The sword hit the corpse's head and bounced off.
"Why isn't it working!?" Nick cried out internally.
For another fifteen minutes, the young man danced around, landing ineffectual blows. He tried stabbing the zombie; it even fell down a couple of times but got back up and continued its relentless approach. Slashing attacks only made the zombie uglier but failed to kill it.
He managed to hit the neck with the blade a couple of times, even severing muscles. But the spine held firm, which surprised him. He thought a zombie's head should fly off with a single move. It was one of the weakest opponents, so what was the problem?
Having failed to kill his opponent, Nick exited the game.
Later, his parents arrived.
His father met his mother and walked her home. Whenever possible, he always accompanied her, but sometimes he had to work late, and she would walk the dark streets alone.
Nick showed them the emblem and told them he had been issued the headband.
His parents were overjoyed, congratulating him, praising him effusively, and offering encouragement.
Nick replied that he hadn't done anything yet, but it was useless; his parents' joy couldn't be stopped… not that he tried. In his seventeen years, he had given them plenty to worry about. Now it was time to repay his debts.
He firmly resolved to succeed.
Regardless of the difficulties, failures, and hardships, he would become a top-tier gamedesigner and pull his family out of poverty.
…
Willpower alone isn't enough. Realizing such a dream is no simple task. It's often a very difficult and lengthy process that takes years, even decades.
The next day, after school, Nikki sat in the chair in front of the computer, thinking. He replayed everything he knew in his head but couldn't come up with a solution.
He even had the strange realization that he didn't have any superpowers.
An utterly bizarre thought entered his head and refused to leave. It insisted that Nick should have received a magical, fantastic system or some kind of cheat, whatever that meant, along with the foreign memories. Nick dismissed such thoughts as nonsense. The very fact that the memory of a person from another world had taken residence in his head was nothing short of a miracle. And now he was supposed to be handed a super-duper system too? Who did he think he was? How had he earned it? Had he saved the universe? As if anyone owed him anything.
Trying to distract himself from the stupid idea, the young man's hand felt something in his pocket.
It was the business card from the State Department for Game Oversight.
Without much thought, Nick decided to go there. He had no other ideas anyway.
An hour and a half later, he arrived.
A tall building with glass, panoramic windows. A wide entrance. Everything was clean, beautiful. Not like the stone box he had come from.
There was security at the entrance.
They let him through when he showed his emblem. The same emblem served as a key. A magnetic tag was embedded within, somehow cleverly linked by magic. Placing it against the lock, Nick opened the door.
Inside, they directed him where to go.
In a separate, spacious room with numerous terminals, anyone could sit in a chair and view the necessary information. Headbands for entering the matrix were also connected there.
Nick touched a terminal.
It contained a ton of useful information, and unlike what he found online, all the data here was organized, properly curated, systematized, and presented in simple language.
Real specialists had clearly worked on it.
The young man began to study it all with interest.
Nothing could be copied here. Memorize as much as you wanted, but taking digital data out was forbidden.
Reading the briefest and most basic principles, Nicholas quickly reached parts he couldn't comprehend at his current stage. It wasn't surprising that this needed to be studied in college; there were too many nuances, complexities, and obstacles.
Solutions to the main problems led to specific specializations, educational institutions, and even particular instructors. It was a form of advertising. Want to understand the subject? Go here. And there, pay and learn. Or, a much more common phenomenon, sign a long-term contract. They would teach you, but the lion's share of the income from your work would go towards tuition fees. And of course, game rights were out of the question for you.
Now it was clear why entry was free…
Nick continued reading until he found an interesting topic.
It mentioned that during a period of inspiration, a gamedesigner could enter a special state where their work efficiency significantly increased. If you worked on something you genuinely liked, the result would be better. Strangely, gaps were filled during the work process. Some believed that our subconscious engages at such moments and assists our consciousness. Others said it was our own soul helping the body.
Achieving this wasn't easy, and often this state was brief and situational. It arose suddenly and faded quickly.
Current gamedesigners had no guaranteed methods of inducing it.
A little later, when his head started spinning from the new information, Nick moved to another section dealing with management: how to sell games, make DLCs, pay taxes, sign contracts, etc.
It turned out that using a pseudonym was not prohibited.
This was important for Nicholas. What if he started earning well and others found out? They could break into his house and rob him. What if they ambushed his parents and took them hostage? Drag them into the slums, and if you dared call the police, they'd be killed instantly.
Fame had never interested Nikki. He had spent his whole life trying to remain unnoticed. He was fine with that. And honestly, he wasn't very good at interacting with people. So, the idea of a pseudonym appealed to him.
The government that issued him the headband required him to make games. He would make them, under a pseudonym… once he learned how.
Arriving home, he flopped onto the bed.
Not a trace of malaise remained. The foreign consciousness no longer tried to seize his mind. It had disappeared, leaving only memories behind.
"I won't sit idle! I need to work!" Nick resolved.
He entered the psychomatrix.
There, in creator mode, he didn't rush to create something complex. His previous experience had taught him to start small.
In about half an hour, he created a spoon, a blade of grass, and a pebble. They were quite detailed. Not bad for a novice gamedesigner.
The young man left the matrix and sat down in his chair.
He didn't want to think inside the matrix, as it consumed mana.
The answer lay in his head, in the foreign memories.
What games to make? Where to start? How to present them correctly? Most importantly – how to adapt them for the psychomatrix?
Nick knew everything, or almost everything, about them. Replaying it all over and over, he drew his conclusions.
Much of what he knew was inapplicable. At least not in the form he knew it.
Games in the psychomatrix were a kind of first-person simulator. Comparable to the VR helmets from that person's memories. Known first-person games could potentially be copied for this purpose. Some third-person games could probably be adapted. But what about the rest?
First of all, strategies. What about them? And all the isometric games? Side-view, top-down? Almost all indie games. Tactics. Economic sims. And much more.
People enter the matrix to improve personal skills and learn something new. Why would you need a game there where you command vast armies? Or control non-existent technology, like spaceships? Would controlling a little character in an isometric game, making attacks with mouse clicks, teach you how to swing a sword properly?
A whole swath of ideas became useless.
Nikki's subconscious vehemently resisted this thought; it wanted to find a solution. The young man felt that if he changed the games he knew for the worse, it would have a serious, negative impact on him. What if he lost control over the foreign memory because of it? What if the fever returned?
He felt a helplessness akin to his family's living conditions and the feeling that nothing could be done about it.
But that was before. Now he had the power to fix it. Which meant he shouldn't rush to bury the games before even properly starting.
"Start small…" Nick muttered.
He entered the matrix, recalling a character famous in the other world.
Spending literally a couple of minutes, he created a two-dimensional little man in a cap with a visor and noticeable mustache.
Mario.
A little later, Nick created the first level with green pipes, walking mushrooms, and turtles. It took a bit more time to create the movement and jumping mechanics. Coins appeared last.
The player controlled Mario from the side. Nick created buttons that needed to be pressed.
Strangely enough, it all worked. On his second try, he reached the flag, where the level ended.
A bit more time, and he managed to reproduce the music. Primitive… just like the graphics.
After that, he exited the matrix and launched a video on his computer. It was a recording of his gameplay. It looked exactly like it did in his memories.
Nick automatically placed his hand on the keyboard and pressed a key.
At that moment, his consciousness reacted with a wave of warmth and light. He desperately wanted to play this game here, at the computer, not by immersing his consciousness in the psychomatrix.
And then… an idea sparked…
What if he transferred this game to the computer?