Game Maker: Starting by Healing the Players Chapter 1: Other World

"I'm never drinking again… my head is killing ."

Lucas Hart groaned while rubbing his temples and sat up on the bed.

He blinked his sticky eyelids a few tis, then opened his eyes—and froze.

The place he saw felt completely unfamiliar.

"Wait, this place…"

Before Lucas Har tcould figure out what was going on, a flood of mories suddenly poured into his mind.

It took him nearly an hour to sort through everything in his head.

One thing was clear: in his previous life, he was just an ordinary ga planner. Now, he had sohow crossed into a parallel world.

Based on the mories in his mind, sothing had clearly gone wrong sowhere in this world's tiline, because it was completely different from the one he ca from.

Thanks to major advancents in technology, every industry had changed in a big way.

Just how big? Lucas Hart couldn't say for sure. But the biggest difference he could feel directly was in the gaming and entertainnt world.

After the war ended, peace returned, and technology exploded. In this world, people no longer had to worry about things like going hungry or not being able to afford dical care.

The economy recovered incredibly fast. Since people didn't have to stress about survival and had money in their pockets, entertainnt naturally beca a booming industry.

Gaming, of course, was part of that.

In his original world, gas were often treated like a public enemy, blad for everything.

Not just in his ho country—even overseas it was the sa. Why did shootings happen so often? "Because gas promote violence!" they said. So instead of pulling guns off supermarket shelves, they wanted to ban gas—the so-called "root cause" of the problem.

But things were different in this parallel world. Here, a well-made ga could be considered a work of art. Top-tier ga designers were treated like literary giants.

Still, one thing stood out to Lucas:

In this world, familiar nas like Ubisoft and EA didn't exist. Instead, the big nas in gaming were studios he had never heard of.

Famous developers from his original world were completely missing from this one.

People like Hidetaka Miyazaki, who left Oracle to join FromSoftware and create the Souls series.

Masahiro Sakurai, who redefined platforrs with the Smash Bros. series.

Sid ier, who defined 4X strategy gas.

Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of Final Fantasy.

The Houser brothers, who pushed the boundaries of 3D open-world design.

Hideo Kojima, pioneer of stealth gas and cinematic storytelling.

Shigeru Miyamoto, a true legend in gaming history.

None of these nas existed in this world. It was like they had vanished.

As for Lucas himself, he was now just a regular student who had graduated less than half a year ago. His dream had been to work in the manga industry.

"This world… it's a paradise for people in the arts!"

Looking back at his new mories and browsing so info online, Lucas couldn't help but sigh in amazent.

Strict copyright laws and strong protections for creative work—these things were almost unimaginable in his old world.

"Illustrations, huh…"

After reading up on the basics of this world from both his mories and the internet, Lucas Hart noticed so sketches sitting on the desk.

They were illustrations he had drawn before.

Before the "crossing," the original Lucas had wanted to beco a manga artist.

Unfortunately, no matter how many tis he submitted his work, it never passed an editor's review.

He had also posted so manga online, but they didn't really gain much attention.

Besides the small amount of money he earned from those online comics, he also made a living by drawing character art for novelists and doing concept art for ga companies.

He wasn't well-known, and his drawing skills weren't exactly top-tier. He mostly just adjusted to whatever each job required.

The usual rate for an illustration was around 120 dollar, and if the client was picky, he'd have to revise it over and over again.

"Manga? I don't really know anything about that!" Lucas Hart muttered as he recalled the mories in his head.

Even though those mories gave Lucas Hart a solid understanding of various drawing techniques, it didn't really help much.

After all, the guy before him had barely made ends et by doing freelance illustration work.

As for manga from his past life, Lucas had heard of plenty—One Punch Man, One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, Conan—he knew all the nas.

But read them? Sorry, not really.

He had only watched the ani. So how would he know how to actually draw one of those ga-hit mangas?

"From the looks of it, I might have to go back to ga developnt again... and ga dev in this world is seriously fast!" Lucas clicked his tongue after doing so research.

Unlike in his old world, where each ga company had to build its own ga engine, overseas companies here still followed that model, but in his new ho country, the governnt actually provided a standard ga engine.

Everyone knew that making a ga involved a bunch of different areas: balance, art, story, level design, and of course, code.

And code was the most important—and most basic—part of it all.

It determined how the ga actually ran. It was like the skeleton of the whole thing.

No matter how pretty or creative your ga looked, if the code wasn't optimized, it was basically guaranteed to flop.

But in this world, thanks to advances in IT, artificial intelligence had started to take shape and was being used in almost every industry. And gaming was one of the most affected.

Things like systems and commands were now handled using AI through the official ga engine.

No more situations where a programr had to be taphorically "sacrificed to the gods."

These days, if anyone got blad, it was usually the planners.

Of course, even if it was convenient, not every designer could just use the AI as much as they wanted.

That's because using AI to write code needed a huge amount of processing power.

Each ga designer had a set monthly limit.

They could also build their own private servers to handle computing, as long as they paid for the license.

But building and maintaining those servers wasn't cheap.

As for becoming a ga designer, there were three main paths.

One was to take the annual sumr exam held by the Ga Division. Pass it, and you'd earn the title of Ga Designer.

Another way was to work at a ga company for two to three years. After that, the company could help you apply through official channels to get certified by the Ga Division.

The last option was to create an indie ga that got recognized by the market. That route was ant for hobbyists or fans who didn't co from a professional background.

If your ga sold more than 150,000 copies, or got 5,000 total reviews with an average rating above 8.5, you qualified.

eting either condition was enough.

"Looks pretty strict, but getting that Ga Designer title shouldn't be hard for ," Lucas Hart mumbled as he read through the info, rubbing his chin.

After all, he wasn't starting from scratch. He had all the knowledge and experience of countless veterans from his past life's ga industry backing him up.

Lucas Hart wasn't aiming for big AAA gas just yet—he lacked the skills, resources, and money for that.

But when it ca to small indie gas, he felt confident.

He rembered all kinds of amazing indie gas from his past life, down to the details.

Now that he understood how this world worked, recreating so of those gas would be well within his ability.

"Wait a second… what's this?"

While Lucas Hart was thinking about what to do next, he suddenly noticed sothing.

There was a translucent blue orb-shaped mark on the back of his hand, like a birthmark.

He rubbed his thumb over it, and a transparent UI window suddenly popped up.

"A system?"

The word flashed through Lucas Hart's mind imdiately.

Now that he thought about it, getting a system after being sent to another world… wasn't all that strange.

But the na of the system?

"Emotion Collection System"

Looking at the golden, flashy UI that looked just like the ones in low-budget browser gas from his old world, Lucas Hart went silent.

All those shiny effects… it didn't exactly scream "serious system."

(End of Chapter)