The following month quickly caught up to the young teen. It had taken him 2 weeks of constant trial and error to properly code his first game, Flappy Bird. One of the simplest games to have ever been invented.
He was incredibly proud of himself.
Having had zero prior experience with anything related to coding and programming, Ethan danced around his room in indescribable joy for having succeeded in completing the first step to his new life. When deciding on what was going to be his start, the stepping stone, Ethan had looked first towards the technological standard that is made available.
The average citizen of the first world countries has either flip phones or what was an equivalent to the Ipod. Was there touch screen technology? Yes, but the level it is currently publicly sold is laughable to someone like Ethan. Sadly that has drastically diminished the number of viable mobile games from the previous world which is how he had landed his attention on Flappy Bird.
In regards to a complete novice into this industry, Flappy Bird has zero changes in scenery and a simple randomizer. Programming the pillars had taken about the same time to manually draw out and color code all the pixels for everything. Really about a weeks work total.
Making the background soundtrack had been the part that took the longest because how the System had not given him any assisting skill like it had for coding [Programming]. Ethan had no idea that writing and producing music was so hard. With how many musicians there seems to be across the world he had initially thought it would be a piece of cake. That alone had taken 6 days to complete even considering that it hadn’t been particularly complex. And his headache didn’t stop there.
Turns out the System had been a jerk. Was Ethan surprised? No.
There is, in fact, an option to forego manually creating the soundtrack at the cost of the precious few points he has on him. Of course, Ethan had not been made aware of any of this until he had decided to publish Flappy Bird to the app stores for all mobile devices. Of the remaining 500 points: 50 had been used for the price of releasing the game to the public and 200 points to make the software available to both the WayneTech and Luther Corp phones. Of that 200, 50 points were used for the publication rights for each of the companies while another 100 had been used to adapt the controls for flip phones to use a button.
Ethan had been amused that WayneTech had seemingly replaced Apple with their focus on their special software. In contrast, Luther Corp had done the same as Microsoft in its widespread usage of its hardware among the government officials and public school systems.
After the long hours of researching on what games are even available for him to recreate, Ethan discovered that most of the creators from his previous world were not in DC. Instead, he discovered that many of the editors, composers, and programmers actually did exist but were hired by either of the large conglomerates.
The primary gaming media had been hyper-focused on superheroes, for obvious reasons, so there was little need to worry. Sadly, thankfully for Ethan, most of the examples of DC’s global entertainment industry has been quite stale.
Only a few of the popular games that Ethan knew of had become just so in DC. GabeN had just released Minecraft 1.0 three days after Flappy Bird's release. Mass Effect had gotten traction within the last year due to increased awareness of aliens on Earth. Aside from that there is a vast ocean of possibilities on what could be achieved.
Seeing how he was left with only 150 points left, Ethan chose to focus on more mobile games for a good while. Anything more significant would require a far larger budget and time, neither of which are readily available.
Thankfully, he has at least been able to get some back with a release. He had set Flappy Bird as a free game so it would be far more appealing. Fewer people would be willing to pay for something from a new gaming studio that only has one game. But, at least now, he could slowly build his company's reputation. He remembered how huge its following had been back in his world, so Ethan decided to add a few aesthetic customization options that would hopefully draw even more in.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Although not surprised, it had been an exciting ordeal for Ethan to try brainstorming an exciting and unique name. He now had a newfound respect for those big companies that seemed to have a name that just rolled off the tongue. Eventually, he landed on the name Aurora Twilight Studios.
The young man had tried just Twilight Studios, but it happened to have been used already. Can't have any copyright issues down the road. Aurora was just added due to its mysterious beauty that is known throughout the globe. Twilight is the point where there is both light and dark, beginning and end. The turning point to a new day.
Ethan had been pleasantly surprised that the System saw fit to reward him for releasing his first game. These Milestone Achievements had a set reward when specific actions are performed. Sadly, the new designer did not have any indication on what these rewards were.
Immediately after, Ethan returned to his computer. Since the System was not helping tell him what it was that he had gotten the Lambert wasn't going to worry about it. After all the times the thing had screwed him over, he just didn't care. He was just mentally done with the System and decided to follow up with something similar.
Geometry Dash had hundreds of thousands playing it for years. It was just one of those games that many would have and occasionally play for a little bit every now and then. The problem Ethan was having was that the biggest draw for the game was the upbeat, catchy soundtrack. Ethan is complete garbage at making music. He will openly admit that. Naturally this means he will have to rely on the System to do that part.
Ethan groaned just thinking about it. "How much will this thing drain my wallet?!"
Putting his arms up, he stretched to get out all the stiffness in his back from sitting in his chair all day. Deciding to call it a night, Ethan started his daily routine. After doing 13-16 hours a day of coding, he was practically braindead from exhaustion.
While brushing his teeth, he was casually looking over towards his computer, just reflecting on everything going on these past weeks that he has been in DC. Eyes drifting to the small apartment left to him, he caught something that made him do a double-take. Then, walking over to his dresser, Ethan read his alarm clock.
6:07pm
Confusion ran rampant through Ethan's mind. He was trying to comprehend how so little time had passed since he started this morning. Even though the young man had called it earlier than usual, he was convinced it would be at least 8:30.
All sorts of thoughts rushed through his head, but ultimately he decided that it was nothing. He had been running on fumes for a while now; he probably had lost track of time. So, yeah, that was it.
Turns out it wasn't his imagination. Let’s just go with that.
The following day he did his morning ritual of cereal and milk at 8:00 AM, took a shower, brushed his teeth, and got started on his new game at 9:00 AM. He rushed headfirst into finishing the basic building blocks for what he intended to add as an optional purchase for the game.
Ethan is adding a workshop to Geometry Dash. For a $4.99 USD purchase, anyone can get the tools for customers to create their maps. That was what the draw was going to be. Will he be pulling a Nintendo? Yes and it will allow his customers to make his maps for him all the while raking in all the profits.
A lightbulb went off. Quickly making a note to remind himself, Ethan will add an additional option for someone to upload their own music. Then, writing out the premises on what kind of attention this will draw, Ethan could not stop the wide grin forming on his lips.
Upcoming artists will get a chance to promote their music while at the same time bringing in a profit with little effort on his part. Only problem it would bring could be the copyright issues, but the System gives him advice when it scans over his product before release. It was, again, something he only was made aware of doing the process. Regardless, that is future Ethan’s problems.
Satisfied with himself, Ethan looked to his right and was shocked. He knows that he has been working for at least 7 hours. So why does the clock say 12:53 PM! A rub of his eyes later, Ethan faced reality in front of him.
Remembering what had occurred the night prior, Lambert demanded the System tell him what happened. Surprisingly, there was a reply.
"Host can be put at ease. What the Host is experiencing is the effects of the first Milestone Achievement. Now System possesses the ability to dilate time at a 2:1 rate while utilized."
Ethan just sat there stunned. Temporal Manipulation! That is what happened to him yesterday. After the release, he didn't get done early. He was working twice as fast! Wait…
“System! Is there an option where I get updates on these Milestone rewards?”
“Affirmative Host. Among the selection of Functions available for purchase within the Game Shop.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. Of course it would make him spell it out. “How much is it?”
“250.”
“Ugh, fine. Buy it. At least then I can be kept in the loop.” Cracking his knuckles Alex declared, "Time to get to work.”