The real world almost felt wrong. There was pain and it was evening. Both Jasper and Celeste did their post-game routine, where they used the bathrooms and took a shower, just to ensure that they were slightly presentable. Cuddling up on the couch they talked a little, though neither of them brought up the game. They enjoyed talking about the little things. The small things that didn't really matter. It was refreshing when they had been forced to confront world-shaping events and trauma for an entire week.
They enjoyed not being divine, they enjoyed the comfort that each of them provided to the other and most of all they enjoyed that they could actually sleep.
By Monday, Jasper was almost knocked over by the number of emails that he had gotten. It seemed like Weird World Computing had been experiencing some success with their current game, which didn't surprise Jasper that much, since so many people had put their heart and soul into the game. The Nordic Branch was invited for some celebration event at the main offices next month, and the requests for talks and presentations by him had flooded in. Jasper had a hard time coping with the fact that four weeks were considered semi-short notice by the main branch since his perception of time had been almost doubled thanks to his weekend trips.
Furthermore, the main branch of Weird World Computing would love to see a highlight of the current world in production, which would allow them to start brainstorming much more on some potential quests and hand-crafted locations. Jasper had gotten quite a few requests for some media coaching before the celebration event since there would be a couple of journalists attending. The lanky programmer hated this part of his job. He wasn't good with people, something that had been highlighted again and again in the game. He had let Jasmine down, almost getting her killed because he hadn't been able to read the most suspicious person in the room. He hadn't even been able to talk things out with Erik before leaving. Jasper leaned back in his seat, feeling the turmoil in his stomach and chest. He had no idea what this feeling was, but if he had to guess it was a panic attack slowly rising through his body.
Jasper berated himself. This was pathetic. He was the god of logic and knowledge. He wasn't supposed to be getting a panic attack. He was supposed to be stoic and all-knowing, but he didn't know how to present what he knew to people. He felt useless and a piece of advice he had gotten years ago came to his mind: "You only know something if you can explain it to a fifth grader.", and it made things so much worse. The self-destructive spiral only deepened underneath him as he felt like a scam artist who had made his way into the game-developing scene and was just using AI to cheat his way through everything.
Martin found Jasper around 10 AM. Martin saw his friend balling his eyes out in the middle of the office. Martin had seen this before, he had experienced this, and the mountain of a man knew that there wasn't much he could say to bring his fellow programmer out of his 'imposter syndrome'-fuelled crisis. "Want to grab a drink?" Martin didn't know what else to say, and he felt stupid for even suggesting something like that. However, Martin knew that getting Jasper out of the room might help him recover a little.
Half an hour later Jasper and Martin were sitting on a bench at the pier. Jasper was drinking tea and Martin was sipping on coffee as they watched the ships slowly sail around. They had made a quick pitstop at the local café though Jasper hardly said anything. It had all hit him so fast and everything had spiralled out of control.
Martin looked over at him, and he managed to stop himself before throwing out a "Well...", instead the former farmer nodded slowly. "You know that we are all just doing the best that we can right?" He said, letting his gaze wander to a speedboat that was racing around on the water.
Jasper nodded but didn't say anything, which made Martin continue. "You are not alone, and I have seen the work you do. It is good... I know that you are going to rationalize what I am telling you in some way but start out by being accountable for your successes. They define you as much, if not more than any failure. You helped us ship our last world. Without you, they wouldn't be celebrating a 9.5 out of 10 score." Martin concluded.
Jasper nodded along, trying to get into the right space in his head so he could work a little on himself. He didn't find it, but he found the courage to talk about what had happened in the game.
Martin didn't talk much, simply nodding and listening. He did his best to ask questions but simply allowed Jasper to talk things through.
It was around 1 pm when they finally got back to the office, having talked things through they had agreed that Martin would have to join them in the game, even though the new deep dive equipment hadn't arrived. Martin made sure to keep an eye on Jasper as he worked, and by the time they finished for the day, Martin made his way to the local IT store to buy some Deep Dive equipment out of pocket, in case the version from the company wouldn't arrive on time.
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Celeste had found herself with a lot more confidence in her daily life. Being a goddess allowed her to express her confidence to simulated humans, and the same confidence now shone through in her teaching. While she wasn't hard-headed and stubborn, she often found that the students would try and push her boundaries, and she made sure to clearly tell them when they crossed a line.
Jasper and Celeste made sure to talk about the impact the game had on their life, and both made sure to try and find both positive and negative ways the game had impacted them. After talking things through they decided to continue with their current gameplan. If nothing else, it would ensure that Jasper had a better world he could show off for his demonstration in a month.
Two days later, Jasper had to spend almost a day figuring out where the AI had gotten the pop-culture reference from, but finally, he found it. "Martin? Did you upload a copy of The Gamers 2 to the AI server?" The lanky programmer asked his colleague.
Martin had half a bread roll in his mouth, while simultaneously trying to sip on a cup of coffee, even though he was trying to edit some code. "Wuff I duffen" He answered back. Having worked together for a couple of years, Jasper knew what Martin was saying. He was claiming that he didn't, which activated the trapcard that Jasper had set. Sending a quick screenshot of the file, Martin had the good grace to look guilty. "Wooofs." He said trying to shrug his shoulders. Apparently, Martin had uploaded the movie to the AI training server during one of their movie nights.
It was Friday afternoon and Celeste had arrived a bit early. Being a little bored she decided to disturb her hubby as he worked. "I am not sure I really understand how us playing the game actually fixes bugs." She said, knowing her husband couldn't resist the urge to explain something like that to her.
Jasper smiled, knowing what his wife was trying to do, but he didn't mind. "Well, there are generally two types of bugs. There are the programmatic bugs and then there are the generated bugs. The programmatic bugs are the problems in the initial code base which has been pulled from other projects. This is stuff like names, accents and the like where the component has been messed with in some way. You are correct that us playing around in the world doesn't help address those, but it does help us spot them." He explained taking a sip of his water bottle before returning his attention to his wife. "The second part is generated bugs. You know these as well, those massive buildings, the missing factions in the starting locations, the lake of flames from the opening, and all that jazz. Those are elements that the AI has created based on the world's rules and lore. To some degree the AI knows that these things it has created are wrong, so it guides us towards them, but since the world is a constant simulation it can't directly edit things without making it seem like things change from one day to the other, and that would have the NPCs ask some questions and make up their own lore, which we don't want. As such it has two options. Make the bug part of the world lore, and make it something interesting that future players can explore, or fix it with 'in-game' cause and effect. You know, a small thing that thanks to the butterfly effect has an impact that changes major world elements. However the more steps that need to go into this random chain of events the more processing power is needed to calculate the cause and the effect, not to mention the side-effects. We usually limit the AI to only thinking 30 steps ahead, though in the past we had to expand that limit to fix some problems. That is where we come in. We create all kinds of small and big events. You know those dragons I created in our last session? They are currently taking care of the infinite mountain in the dwarven lands. They needed a place to meet on a regular basis, so they cut the top off and incinerated it, making a plateau that can only be reached by magical creatures. We created a seed of chaos that the AI could work from, ensuring that it fixed something that it knew was a bug, but could not fix by simply making some bread stale, or breaking a brick." Jasper concluded.
Martin cleared his throat, and the couple turned their attention back to him. "I think I finally figured out what kinda god I am going to create." He said, making the other two smile.
"Oh, do tell, we are on the edge of our seats!" Celeste said, a little bit desperate to find a new topic of conversation that wouldn't have her husband rambling for twenty minutes straight.
Martin grinned. "I am going to be the God of Dungeons!" He proclaimed, and there was a beat of silence as everyone seemed to need a bit of time to compose themselves.
Jasper was the first to speak. "I am glad you feel like this is a safe place and all, but this game doesn't have any pain for the players. I am unsure if that kind of stuff will have any value and if it is even what the company wants." He said, trying not to laugh.
Martin gave his friend and colleague a small punch on the arm. "Idiot, not that kind of dungeon. I am talking raid dungeons and places filled with monsters." He explained.
Celeste nodded. "Monsters and leather. I can see the look right now." She teased and Martin groaned in frustration.
The couple burst out laughing, as Martin did his best to try and explain the idea of running dungeons. It took them far too long to stop making fun of him.
Before they readied themselves for another dive, Martin looked at them. "You don't mind if I jump on the whole: 'Armandos the First God'-wagon right? I feel like it would only create confusion about the real identity of the first god, which would help ensure that the lore is fairly hidden from players." Both Jasper and Celeste didn't have any complaints, and as such, they loaded into the game once more.