Danrito, become a consultant for the Millennium Game!

Xiao Tao slammed the table and stood up. "How could a complete novice possibly see all the traps and hidden elements in the first round?! They must have played it secretly!"

"Yeah... I can't accept it..." Xiaolu was also full of disbelief: "This game is a super retro game that doesn't even have cheat codes! You finished the first round in five hours, are you human?!"

Yuzu's expression was a complex mix of happiness at having another person complete her game, unease about the reviews, and anticipation for Danrito. It was as if the person before her saw through her completely, all the confusing options, all the hidden paths, all revealed.

"Could it be that this person is—a soulmate?"

In the music world, there's a saying about soulmates: two people who can connect with each other and completely understand each other. The same is true for game producers and players. It's like the relationship between Eigao Miyazaki and a seasoned Souls gamer. There's bound to be a big guy crouching around the corner waiting to steal someone's ass, and near that white flash in the distance, there's bound to be a nasty little thief lurking around the corner who can push you off a cliff. Could it be that—

"Yuzu, you are the game producer, right? Come forward."

Danrito rubbed his eyes, feeling a tinge of exhaustion, a state of mind he'd barely experienced since becoming a Collapse-type. Perhaps only slightly better than when he was developing the Ultra Invincible cartridge. He hadn't expected this game to be this grueling, even with all the data already in hand.

"How. How is it? The legendary sword of the final goddess?" Yuzu asked expectantly.

"It's just—"

Xiaolu opened his eyes wide: "Masterpiece?"

“Shit work!!!”

a bolt from the blue!

3. A Few Things About Game Development

"It's just—shit!"

Danrito's sense of professional responsibility as a game producer was fully aroused, and he scolded Yuzu without hesitation: "Games are something that should keep pace with the times! Even if you want to pursue the pixel art and complex gameplay of retro games, you have to find a balance between them and modern gaming concepts!"

Yuzu's eyes turned into circles: "Wow... B-But the romance of retro games..."

"Raising the game's difficulty and deliberately grossing you out are two completely different things." Tan Lidou rubbed his eyes. "Limiting game saves, lacking item guides, and relying on external manuals for the game's plot were all compromises forced upon them by technical reasons and hardware limitations back then."

"Although there are some authors who can develop good works under such conditions, even though such games were hailed as masterpieces at the time and would still be highly praised today, most people won't buy such games! - Because it's too tiring!"

Tan Lidou slammed the table and said, "Playing games is as tiring as farming. Who wants to endure that? Farm Simulator doesn't really ask you to click the mouse and plant rice seedlings one by one!"

"Wow...I was wrong..."

Yuzu's newly built confidence crumbled, her voice choking. The image of Danrito, the kindred spirit she had just cultivated, vanished. It was as if she was reminded of the time when she was inundated with negative reviews and spit upon online. Just as she was about to retreat into the closet with her head in her hands, Danrito changed the subject.

"Don't worry, I haven't finished talking yet."

Danrito reached out his hand to stop her. Perhaps the best approach for such a timid and cowardly girl was to gently integrate into her world. But Danrito didn't care. He was a genius who went his own way. Picking locks was not easy, but kicking down doors was the only way!

"After experiencing your game in depth, I can understand the effort you put into it." Danrito's words made Yuzu's expression stunned.

"Although the game's mechanics are so focused on a retro gaming experience that only a niche audience truly appreciates this genre, the branching routes, the nested quests, the polished worldview, and the characters' personalities gradually developing as they explore—these details are truly the game's highlights."

Danrito reached out and forcefully clamped down on the cabinet door that Yuzu was trying to get back into, blocking her escape route. "So, even though your game is a niche one and its quality is only average, it's undoubtedly the product of your hard work."

"Wow... I've been acknowledged..." The changes in the expression on Yuzu's face were difficult to describe. First, there was the sadness of being denied, then the fear of receiving a bad review, then she was stunned by Danrito's sudden change of words, and now, there was the joy of being acknowledged.

After a series of expressions, it was hard to tell whether the expression on Yuzu's face was crying or laughing. It was a mixture of several expressions, a bit ugly and cute.

Xiaolu beside him sighed and showed an embarrassment: "Mr. Tan, as an adult, can't you be more straightforward when praising me? Yuzu-chan is not easily scared."

"That's right!" Xiao Tao also crossed her arms and nodded repeatedly: "Youyou is a very sensitive girl. The scolding before was too much!"

"Isn't this the mildest criticism we can get in this industry?" Tan Lidou couldn't help but grumble, "I haven't even started to exert my strength yet?"

"Don't apply mature industry standards to a student club-level game development department!" Xiao Tao's eyes suddenly turned into two white circles: "We are just generating electricity with love!"

"Idiot!" Danrito fetched a folding fan from somewhere and smacked it on Tao's head. "Half-hearted efforts will lead to nothing! To reach the pinnacle of gaming, both talent and hard work are essential!"

"Woohoo! Stop cursing, stop cursing!"

Xiao Tao rubbed her head in frustration. Xiao Lu, who was watching Alice's progress, couldn't help but exclaim, "Wow, so fast! Alice has conquered several games!"

"Really?" Xiao Tao walked around behind Alice and said, "Really? She's really fast at reading subtitles! Although her strategy isn't as accurate as Mr. Tan's, it's still efficient and quick!"

"Two extraordinary people have arrived..."

Yuzu felt less frightened. Alice was a lovely girl, and she didn't criticize her. Danrito's tone was a bit harsh, but every word hit the mark. He even managed to unlock her final legendary sword of the goddess! That alone was a plus for Danrito!

"Oh right! That's what I said before, about getting Sister Alice to join our club to make up the numbers!" Xiao Tao walked towards the door of the activity room: "I'll ask everyone in the Truth Club to add Sister Alice's information to the student files of Millennium Academy! And I'll also go get Sister Alice some school uniforms!"

Tao wasted no time, stomping out the door. Alice waved at her and continued with her studies. The remaining three, Danrito, Midori, and Yuzu, sat together, looking at each other in bewilderment.

"Well, that..." In the end, it was Xiaolu who broke the awkward situation first: "Mr. Danrito, regarding 'how to make the best game', can you... tell us?"

"Hmm... after all, we have to get back to the topic." Danrito nodded, his arms folded like Commander Ikari. "To prevent your game development department from being disbanded, you're planning to use this new game to win a prize at some 'Millennium Grand Prix' and silence the Student Council, right?"

"That's right." Xiaolu nodded, "So... Mr. Danrito?"

"Hmm... Judging from the 'Final Goddess Legendary Sword' just now, although your grasp of the gameplay is terrible, there are still some good points." Danrito said to the two people in front of him, "Let's just say you have passed my first level."

"Great! This way we can catch up with the Millennium Awards!"

"So... great!"

Yuzu and Midori high-fived each other in celebration, but Danrito then asked, "So, you two, do you want me to just bring out the 'Ultimate Game', or do you want to create your own 'Ultimate Game' from scratch?"

"This question—" Xiaolu and Yuzu looked at each other and made their own choice: "Why bother asking? Please teach us how!"

Danrito pushed his computer away and stood up from his chair. "Just now, I was browsing the various games released by your Kivotos. I'm not sure why it was only Kivotos' internal network, but I have a general understanding of your entertainment industry."

"learn?"

"Judging from the game producers, they basically come from a wide variety of studios." Tan Lidou extended his hand and displayed a virtual screen, listing dozens of game studios from top to bottom. "Besides your Millennium Academy, there are also many game studios in the autonomous regions, large and small, under the jurisdiction of Gehenna and Trinity. However, large, fully-fledged game companies are rare, if not non-existent."

"After all, the gaming industry is already saturated with just the dozens of studios we have now..." Xiaolu nodded. "Our game development department can't even be counted among them. After all, we've only been able to produce one game in such a long time, 'The Legend of the Final Goddess'..."

"Wow...Little Green..." Yuzu cried bitterly.

"Okay, okay~ Yuzu-chan has tried very hard~" Xiaolu patted her head and comforted her.

"Well, if you want to learn from me, you have to develop the game according to my method!" Danrito pointed his finger at the two of them. "And all of you must become my employees!"

"Employees?" Xiaolu and Youzi were puzzled.

"It's my—Dream Game Company!"

Danrito pointed in another direction. Xiaolu and Yuzu were surprised to find that a strange handwritten sign had been hung on the door of their activity room. It read "Dream Game Company" in large letters and even had the initials of GD painted on it. "When was this put up?!"

"That's right. I also have my own purpose."

Danrito reached out and pulled out his crystal card from his storage space. "This is a game cartridge called 'Zhuanwan Cartridge'. It's also a game cartridge I developed myself. It's ahead of its time."

"And in exchange for helping you win the Millennium Awards, I'll help you set up my company and become my employee!"

Danrito smiled, a bright, healthy smile. "And in return for agreeing to my terms, I will teach you how to develop and use your own 'cartridge transfer' method. Using this method, you can create your own ultimate game!"

"'All-Action X'?" Yuzu walked forward curiously, and Danrito generously placed the cassette on the table.

Picking up the cassette, Yuzu could feel its weight. The handle was just ordinary plastic, but the crystal plate seemed to have been made with some special technology. Yuzu could see the densely packed tiny lines engraved on the crystal plate, forming a human-like shape. "Is this... some new storage method? Sorry, I don't know much about this..."

"And how do we read this cartridge..." Xiaolu also came over curiously: "Is this crystal card part a plug-in reader? It doesn't fit into any of the currently available machine sockets... Do we need to prepare a new platform?"

"Hmph! You think I wouldn't think of something like this?" Danrito snorted proudly. "I'm a genius in game development! The Turn Play cartridge is a groundbreaking game cartridge with an integrated game reader and 'game field' functionality! This technology is absolutely unique!"

In the world before Danrito was resurrected, the Transmigration Cartridge was also all the rage. Unlike the Knight Transmigration Cartridges that required a player driver, the standard Transmigration Cartridges only needed to press a button to start. They used the technology transcribed from the Collapse Virus to realize the 'gaming realm' beyond reality.

However, what Yuzu was holding was a genuine Knight Transmigration cartridge, something that could be transformed simply by using the player driver. However, even though it was a Knight Transmigration cartridge, Danrito had thoughtfully equipped it with a play function.

"Is it this one?"

Yuzu found the only button on the cartridge and pressed it. A light curtain shot out from the cartridge in her hand, and the game field quickly expanded with a flash of light, enveloping the surrounding space. Various in-game boxes flew out, and more game props spawned within the space. As the game field expanded, a loud voice shouted the name of the game cartridge:

"Mighty Action X!"

“Wow?!!”

Startled by the sudden noise, Yuzu shuddered and instinctively searched for the cabinet, but the space around her had completely changed. Alice, who was playing a game over there, was pulled into the game realm and turned her head around in confusion. "I've discovered a lot of inexplicable things, and Alice is shocked!"

"The surrounding scenery has changed..."

Xiaolu looked around in surprise. The world before him seemed to have transformed into an external space, like the streets of a city in Kivotos. However, the decoration and architectural style did not resemble those of the interior of Kivotos. A dessert processing factory stood among a multitude of flowers, plants and trees. Everyone was standing in front of it.

"Where is this?" Yuzu nervously glanced to the side, trying to get an answer from Danrito. Danrito simply pointed at the game cartridge in her hand and said, "This is the game space of 'Full Action X'. It looks like it's fully expanded."

"Is this a game?!" Xiaolu's eyes widened. "This, this, this is simply another world! No! This kind of technology! Even the most advanced reality projection technology in the past thousand years can't project such a small activity room into a building of this size without being exposed!"

【ganxunノ╲1㈣⒐0③ 撒玖巴

"Puchi~ Projection?" Tan Lidou sneered, "Why don't you walk forward and see?"

"Eh?"

Xiaolu took two steps in confusion, and walked extremely carefully, because according to her memory, if she took two steps ahead, she would see shelves full of game discs, and there would be all kinds of debris thrown on the ground under her feet. But she took these two steps and didn't bump into anything. On the contrary, she was getting closer and closer to the dessert processing factory in front of her?

"This is my masterpiece, transcending its time! How could the technology here be just some bluffing holographic projection?" Danrito folded his arms across his chest, leaning back with a smug smile on his face. "This ultimate technology, which allows you to experience the game world with 100% super-realism and immerse yourself in it, combined with the brilliant ideas conjured up by my divine mind, has combined to create the ultimate product—this—"

"Let's play the cassette tape instead! Hahahahahaha!!!"

Xiaolu and Yuzu looked at each other and felt the shock in each other's eyes. As game developers, they certainly knew what this meant.

Just as Danrito said, this is technology that transcends time, technology that even the most technologically advanced clubs at Millennium Academy can't come up with! They use this technology to develop their game!

"—I won."

"Yeah, I won."

Alice, standing by, laughed heartily at Danri Doushin, while Xiaolu and Yuzu clapped their hands and sang "We Are the Champions." She had already reached the gate of the dessert factory and waved to the three people behind her. "Alice, entering the mysterious building! Sending out team invitations!"

There are pictures here, which can be viewed after the updated version

4. Giving people cassettes is not as good as giving them development technology.

"Alice, entering the mysterious building! Sending a team invitation!"

Alice smiled and waved to the others behind her, wanting to explore this mysterious factory together. Xiaolu and Yuzu exchanged a glance, feeling a sense of relief.

"The solution to the Millennium Prize problem is already in sight."

"Now is the time to... enjoy the game?"

The two hit it off immediately: "Alice, wait for us~"

The dessert factory building is the factory in the background setting of "Full Action X". In the game mode, players use their bodies enhanced by the game field to complete various difficult parkour moves, just like a famous plumber game, and make it all the way to the end to face the final boss of the entire game - Count Solti.

“That’s the game for it.”

Danrito dutifully explained how to play the game, just as he had always done before, when facing his enemies, by first explaining what kind of game his cartridge was. He was the president of Dream Games! Wasn't it his duty to promote his own game cartridges?

"Action games... I don't seem to have much confidence in my physical strength." Yuzu was a little worried. She was still wearing slippers, and it was obvious that she was a stay-at-home who never went out for exercise. Her physical strength must be a mess. "Parkour too? Isn't that a bit too difficult?"

"Naive! Do you think I haven't noticed this? — This genius has already considered every factor!" Danrito's voice suddenly rose several degrees. "The 'Game Field' that has been unfolded is a special space specifically for players to enjoy games! Here, even those without legs can be given two more legs to play games! Physical limitations can also be supplemented with props!"

Danrito pointed at the various energy items scattered throughout the game scene. "Those are the 'energy items' that appear randomly within the game. They were previously collected due to someone's mischief, but I added them back myself!"

Alice didn't understand Danrito's words, but she didn't need to. Games didn't require excessive thought. A good game is easy to play once you get it, just like the three people exploring the vast factory.

"Yuzu-chan, you've grown so big! Is it because of that item you ate just now?"

Xiaolu, standing on the steel platform of the factory, sighed. The grapefruit in front of him was already more than three stories high, and even the gun in his hand had become as big as a giant railway cannon. He was looking at a giant who was about to kick down the city gate.

"It seems to be... the effect of that item just now?" Yuzu carefully lifted her foot. "Little Green has become so small. It feels like the giant looking down at the ground in those VR games."

"Bang Bang Ka Bang~ Alice got the rubberization item~"

Alice, standing nearby, came across a gadget called 'Rubberization' and, giggling, launched her rubbery arms like cannonballs, sweeping several enemy soldiers walking on the factory's steel bridge in the distance into the chocolate cauldron below.

"Alice's attack power has increased~"

"Props, that's really interesting." Xiaolu looked up at the chocolate cube floating in the air, defying the laws of physics. "Props are made by breaking that brick, right?"

Raising his rifle, Xiao Lu opened fire, breaking the brick. He raised his hand to catch the props that fell out from it: "High-speed!"

"Ohhhh! My body feels so light!"

Xiaolu felt a change in the feeling under his feet, as if he were standing on a horizontal conveyor belt in a shopping mall, running in the direction of the conveyor. The wind whistled around him, and the speed of his feet was as fast as if he had suddenly ridden a motorcycle!

After Danrito finished his tutorial, he disappeared somewhere, leaving Xiaolu and the others to explore this unknown game world. Without Danrito, a new, somewhat familiar, yet still a stranger, Yuzu, the socially anxious Yuzu, gradually became more talkative.

"The experience here is almost unimaginable as a 'game'."

The giant Yuzu in the game seems to have the ability to destroy blocks and terrain. As Yuzu walks forward, the monsters and obstacles in front of her are knocked away one by one. Yuzu, who is quite surprised by this feeling, gradually immerses herself in the game, and the initial feeling of timidity gradually disappears.

"Maybe this is the future of gaming." Xiaolu followed Yuzu on an aerial path. Her high-speed movement allowed her to easily keep up with Yuzu's enlarged pace. "I've played virtual reality and augmented reality games at game conferences before. The idea was to immerse players even more deeply in the game world. The game cartridge that Danrito-san brought out has already realized this concept in a way that goes beyond that."

㈨㈤０一８０90九

"However, rapid technological advancements don't necessarily mean equally rapid improvements in gameplay!" Yuzu said seriously. "Retro games pioneered a whole new genre, and narrative-based games, or RPGs, aside from improved graphics and flashier lighting effects, the core gameplay isn't much different from the old games!"