Sam had always wanted to develop his own game. I mean who didn’t? The concept of creating a world of your own which had its own rules and experiences for others to enjoy was an intoxicating idea. In practice as Sam had previously found out, designing your own games is extremely hard and exorbitantly expensive. Which made his current predicament of staring at a floating screen both exhilarating and confusing. Both hope and confusion practically oozed off his body as he stared at the text.
[The MCU gaming Development System is ready to begin, Start Y/N?]
The no feature was grayed out, and for the past hour his body could not move except for his left arm and hand. Presumably to interact with the strange text box.
“What is my life?” He muttered, dazed.
Well speaking works at least so that was something positive.
“Help?” He tried, only to fall on deaf ears.
“Might as well enjoy this hallucination while I can, and if it’s real? Well let’s cross that bridge when it comes to that.”
Sighing in a blend of bemusement and frustration Sam clicked yes after two hours of attempting to do anything else. Railroaded much? Well, what could possibly go wrong?
There was no fanfare or special effects as Sam’s surroundings changed. A large white room the size of an average house with a massive window. In the middle of the room was a fancy desk with a keyboard and mouse in front of three different large monitors. There was nothing else. Nothing connected to the monitors or the keyboard and mouse. Either wireless or some form of magic, either was looking like a very real possibility.
“This is one beautiful but strange drug trip. Doubly so knowing I don’t do drugs or drink.” He muttered while prowling around the desk like it would bite him at any moment. It took a couple of moments before he decided that taking a seat and figuring out his situation would probably not kill him. The screen was already on.
[Welcome to the MCU Game Developer System, would you like to run the Tutorial? Y/N]
“And of course, the option to not have a tutorial was grayed out, why even give me the choice in the first place.” Chuckling to himself before accepting the helpful tutorial.
[The MCU Game Developer System has chosen you to design games for the planet below. Each person you get to play one of the games you create will give you Cosmic Points which you can cash in for a large variety of things. The amount of money you make off your games will also earn you Cosmic Points.]
“So basically, I create games and I get money to spend on stuff? That is kind of awesome but what can I buy with these Cosmic Points?” Sam pondered while continuing to read.
[Cosmic Points, also referred to as CP, allows you to create more games, upgrade existing games and generally just improve them. You can also purchase upgrades to your living area and buy any luxury goods you might enjoy, like your crippling addiction to Fanta as a random example…]
“So, this system does have some kind of humor at least, even though I am NOT addicted to anything thank you very much.” Sam muttered as he kept reading the long list of options before something specific caught his eye.
[… You can also purchase innate abilities or items, these can be existing in the MCU already or from your own imagination, however the cost will vary due to many different factors.]
He kept reading for a long time until he finished this section of the tutorial.
“So, in a nutshell, I somehow develop games so that I can get powerful and enjoy life. Seems simple enough.” Sam said as he continued.
[Game Development is done in three stages. First is CP spending, in which you can select the limitations and abilities of your game. The second is actual creation, which is done via your desire on how the game should look and a complex wish fulfillment algorithm. The third part is publishing the game, you will need to select the devices that are able to handle your game. More complex games will require the creation of custom hardware, like a special gaming computer or console]
“I don’t even need to code anything?! That is a huge amount of skin off my back! This is a dream come true. I will be the best developer to ever walk this planet!” Sam shouted as he absentmindedly looked out the massive window while making his declaration. Only to see planet earth below.
“So, I’m in a floating room in space? Or is this a spaceship?” He muttered as he stared down at the beautiful awe-inspiring picture before him. As a child Sam always dreamed that he could go to space. Everything looked so very small from here. Oh, he was also having a mild panic attack.
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“This is fine.” He breathed out, taking in the scene before him. It took longer than he would willingly admit before Sam was able to drag himself back to the System monitor and began reading again.
[You can also summon companions; however, this feature is severely limited due to the user being limited to only the Marvel Cinematic Universe Realm. In the future you may be able to unlock other Realms, but it will be extremely costly.]
Oh yea. He was in the MCU wasn’t he. Shit.
“I suppose it could be worse, at least it’s not Worm.” He laughed to himself before sighing.
“I am not actually sure if that would even be better than the MCU. At least it’s not the comics otherwise I would speed run running away. The MCU should at least be easier to deal with.” He muttered.
There was a massive power gap between the MCU and the comics so that was a very good thing as far as he was concerned. Reading through more of the tutorial he figured out that it was currently years before the battle of New York and thus the formation of the avengers. Plenty of time to get set up before that fiasco unfolds.
[You can also reward your games players with anything you could buy or create with CP. However, to reward someone with an item will cost a small additional fee. This can range from special skills and abilities to items. In-game items can also be purchased and given with CP.]
“What on Earth?!” Well, that seems a way to get people interested in his games. It did feel mildly cheating but all is fair in love and gaming. Would probably have to think very carefully on what to give out. The mental image of giving a young child a plasma cannon and then proceeding to playfight with live Sci-fi weapons was not a particularly pleasant one.
[Please develop and publish a game to complete the tutorial and to receive your rewards]
“So, what type of game do I want to create then? An MMO perhaps.” Sam thought out loud.
An MMO would be a good idea and certainly a great way to get players and money. If it was good. With only a small amount of CP to his name a good MMO seemed like a pipe dream. And if his first game was a terrible MMO? Sam would never live it down or be able to publish anything ever again. In the future an MMO would be the goal, but for now Sam shot that idea down.
The world below was currently stuck on PlayStation two levels of technology and gaming lore so he could probably abuse his future knowledge of games to become successful, or straight up rip off any number of games. However, he is also limited to the same restrictions of normal game developers on the surface console wise.
“This is too complicated, and I haven’t slept yet. Sam muttered, clicking off the tutorial and deciding to see what he could spend his CP on. He will come back to actual game design in a moment.
As it turned out, luxury goods did not actually start at an exorbitant price. Sam had twenty thousand Cosmic Points at his disposal and summoning a bed some basic food and Fanta had only cost him 15 points. They appeared exactly where he imagined they would in the room so that was very
handy.
Browsing through the massive marketplace Sam figured out a great deal. Powers and skills could range anywhere from costing a few thousand CP to costing literal Billions. Powers like omnipotence did not appear, however. There were entire sections of the store and entire catalogs that were grayed out, he could only purchase things from this reality or his previous one. Which was a nice benefit all things considered as it was 2022 at home so more advanced in many areas then the planet beneath. The item store was much the same but a lower price floor of course.
What was in the store you might ask? Literally everything that has been shown in the MCU at some point was here. Even the Infinity Stones were there, sitting pretty at multi-million-point costs each. Items created here would not replace their counterparts so that had interesting implications he did not even want to consider.
One thing did catch his eye however in the store, in the companion’s section. He could summon copies of anyone from the MCU for their point value. Although you did not want to know how much some of those people cost. It would cost even more points however to change them, for example making sure they did not decide to object to summoning them, or well just his general existence.
“What a way to go, murdered by your summoned companion.” Sam shivered.
[System Reminder, your living space will remain undetectable to all forms of identification for six months. After which you will need to hide or defend yourself under your own power]
“Of course, it could not be that easy, could it? Not only do I have the long-term time limit for my goals, but I also must deal with becoming visible soon! I am sure that situation will go swimmingly. Asgard or S.H.I.E.L.D will certainly not come and aggressively detain me no sir.”
Well, that stepped up his timetable drastically.
Sipping his Fanta while sitting in his comfortable chair, Sam looked out the window and continued to admire the planet's beauty while assessing his situation. The possibilities are virtually limitless to this situation. The power was different from a normal gamer system that he has read about previously
“It’s been one hell of a day.” He whispered.
“I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore.” Sam whispered as he dragged his body out of bed and downed a large amount of Fanta before dragging his body over to the console. It was time to begin development. If he wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating after all he might as well put his plans to work. First thing was first though. What type of game could he make? Looking at the features in the store was quite illuminating. He figured out what he wanted quite easily all things considered.
[Basic RPG Package: 10,000 CP]
This basic package simply allowed him to create a basic RPG which was one tier up from a simple package. It included all the basics and allowed him to make a singleplayer roleplaying game. Can always purchase a multiplayer package later.
[Game Hardware Compression 2,500 CP]
The second option picked was super important for Sam in this situation. Although he was in MCU which had vastly superior technology then normal Earth, it was currently 2008 and the generally available hardware was vastly inferior to the home scene. This Package would allow his RPG to run even on the worst hardware with decent enough graphics for now.
[Global Leaderboards 100 CP]
Global Leaderboards was also a very good pick up. Due to limited points Sam had to settle for a single player game so spiking the fires of competition in people could be done with leaderboards. This kept track of completion times and stats like most enemies killed.
[Basic Player Join Reward 1000CP x5]
This was how the word was going to spread. Getting one game item of their choice into the real world? That was going to make a game of whispers turn into a wildfire. True enough it would only give the first five people one item of their choice but who wouldn’t be motivated to advertise something when faced with this improbability turned into reality?
[Simple Cosmetics Package 1,000 CP]
Cosmetics turned games like League of Legends into multi billion dollar empires. Unfortunately the Simple package only allowed the user to purchase basic item cosmetics but it’s a good start for Sam.
That was unfortunately all Sam wanted from the store right now. He was down to a crippling low amount of points and obviously not having any points left would mean he couldn’t buy food, or Fanta.
“I’d rather die than give up my Fanta!” Sam whispered, horrified at the mere thought of sacrificing his favourite drink.
Next up was actually creating the game. Sam locked in his choices and then was instantly prompted by the system.
[Game design has been calculated from your intent. Game is ready to be published. Please input a name and price for your game before publishing.]
Rubbing his grubby hands together Sam quickly selected the game name
[SKYRIM publishing…]
AN: Discord link https://discord.gg/uuAgmuKAjU