Chapter 5

Within a few days, Ethan had found himself experiencing all 5 Stages of Grief.

At first, the teen refused to even acknowledge the systems existence. As if denying there was even a problem to begin with would solve anything. He just decided 'Fine, I'll just get on my computer and wait until this is all over.' Yeah, no. The system had even cut him off from just using his laptop.

Quickly anger surged but this time, right when he was turning red in the face, the system responded by noting how dependent Ethan was on his computer to just function. How he had made it his entire world. What made the entire thing worse was how right it was, striking home just how alone Ethan truly was. Which only made his anger worse

He had been extremely angry with the system for locking him out of its functions, but now it boiled Ethan to his core. Several hours had been spent ranting and raving over what he could have been doing along with what projects will need to be finished soon. How much time is being wasted because this stupid thing wouldn't let him use the very tools it had given to him.

When every complaint, insult, and whine had failed to get another response from the system Ethan eventually got on his knees and started pleading to his ceiling. Looking in, anyone would have thought he was losing his mind as he pleaded to the sky that he could use his computer. He was even weeping! Rivers of tears streaming down his face that he couldn't even get on the internet.

As the aches and pains of kneeling on the hardwood floor of his room, crying out to the formless authority that had been governing his new existence, reached a painfully uncomfortable high, Ethan just soundlessly dragged himself to his bed. Depressingly curling himself into a ball, wrapped in his blanket and went to sleep knowing that he likely wouldn't be able to do anything to change what is happening. But he was going to hope anyways.

As the sun rose, peaking through his blinds, Ethan rubbed his awake to a new day. Rushing over to his desk, he turned it on with a hopeful light in his eyes. Nothing had changed.

Ethan could still do nothing on his computer. He is still locked out of the system. He can only do what the system wants for his situation to change or go on and live an ordinary life. For a moment he considered, out of sheer spite, doing that. To go on and find a normal job and live as anyone else, but no. Why would he? This is a fantastical world, so why would he ever actually want to be at the bottom of the social hierarchy?

The only consolation that he could bring himself was remembering that he had paid the points to schedule the release for the 2 new additions to his companies portfolio as well as a software update across the board that allowed his games to work on the latest WayneTech phone model. Ethan could only accept his situation and move on at this point. Not like he will be losing points until another month or so with how fast his company's popularity has been rising and rising.

And so for the next week Ethan had been doing anything to 'socialize' with the local Gothamites. But how could someone as anti-social as him do anything in a city that he doesn't know? For all the time he had been living in Gotham, Ethan had never once gone anywhere other than the local grocery store to buy his food and basic utilities. He would walk there and walk back. That was it.

Ethan did whatever he could think of to interact with people, but nothing worked. He always felt either left out or like he was bringing the mood down and left. When he went to a nightclub, he just kind of stood in the corner with his drink. Did he try to talk to people? Sure, but the way he carried himself reminded everyone of a lost puppy who had no idea what to do or where to go. The laughs and stares that he received just made him want to crawl into a hole the rest of the night.

It wasn't until now that he realized that he had no idea how to carry a conversation, how to meet people, how to be human that he was willing to admit he had a problem. Spending so much time huddled over his computer, typing out code had left him a shell of a person. The kind young man who did everything to brighten up his sisters day regardless of how much pain he was in was nowhere to be seen when he looked himself into the mirror.

Sighing to himself, Ethan walked over to the local pizzeria for some lunch. He was hoping that a good New York slice would be able to brighten his day up, even if just a little.

Ordering the lunch special of 2 large slices or pepperoni and a drink, he just sat there are a table against the wall. Memories of times when his parents brought him and his sister to places like this and played at the arcade in the back led a small smile surface on his face. How competitive he and Darla were over the silliest of things. He sat there reminiscing until his food came.

Still dwelling on those good times, Ethan let his eyes wander. He was hoping to see something similar here, an arcade in the back that would grab the attention of the children and let the adults mingle about without a need to constantly watch their charges. All pizza places seem to have those to attract more customers or keep hold of those regulars. And this place was no different.

Really, with how much of his life in this world has revolved around games and the like, he hadn't really played anything. He hasn't had allowed himself to just enjoy what they were supposed to bring to a persons day.

Using an ATM in the corner, he got a nice amount of quarters and took a minute to walk the area. He observed what kind of options were available to him and found that only half were familiar. There were the standard racing games, air hockey, and even a football table that you paid to unlock the ball. Sadly, those were the kinds that would require another to get the full experience out of as there is just no enjoyment in easy wins.

Looking around some more he saw many examples of how much superheroes have engrained themselves into this worlds culture. There was a WWII game where the player was a soldier being led by Wonder Woman through the battlefields, blasting Nazi's as you progressed. There was a 'flight simulator' except you were Superman flying around the city of Metropolis and had to dodge obstacles along your path. It was interesting and intrigued the young developer.

He soon lost himself in the flow of slamming joysticks to the sides to dodge something or furiously clicking buttons to get your shot in. It was what he had been missing. For what felt like hours, Ethan spent his time exploring the worlds of these new examples of his craft. Sure he could find problems and had run into not a few deaths thanks to janky controls, but that was part of the fun of it.

But when things came to an end he went back to old faithful. That arcade game that everyone knows the tune of. "Mortal Kombat!" He couldn't help himself from singing the theme song to himself under his breath as he played a blast from his past, the first Mortal Kombat.

As he was getting back into the swing of things, relearning the combos with the joystick he heard two voices entering the arcade.

"-lly I'm telling you that you are going down today."

"Yeah right, like you could beat me."

Entering in were two kids rushing over, knocking against one another hoping to be the first in. The two ground to a halt when they saw that the source of their competition was being occupied and just stood there like a pair of deer in headlights.

Smirking to himself, he went slower on the controls. Hearing the excitement in both boys' voices only to realize someone was already there made Ethan decide to take a dive. When that deep voice echoed out 'You Lose' Ethan was already moving towards a bench in the back where his cup was.

"Sweet, it's open!" The taller red head blew past his friend and got on the player 1 side, shooting the other a giant smirk.

Ethan could have sworn he caught sight of the smaller boy with black hair give a grateful smile. It was like he knew that Ethan purposefully lost so they could have their fun. Though it didn't last long as the kid got over to the other side and chose his character.

Sitting down, Ethan took out a small notebook from his a pocket inside his jacket. Within were a bunch of notes to himself that he needs to update his games on, brainstorming ideas, or reminders that has steadily increased over this last week. He found that after the first from coming to terms that he can't do anything productive, Ethan has been thinking about what he could do more than ever.

Perhaps this is why the system forced him out?

He just shook his head. Thinking about all of that would just put him back into a depression spiral again and he didn't want to ruin the kids' fun.

As both friends got louder with each win/loss, Ethan just continued to write more in his little journal. He had been trying to figure out for the last month when he should start going into the mainstream market, but hadn't really seen the right timing as he couldn't even begin until he had amassed a sizable amount of points.

See the thing about making all the 'big' games is that Ethan couldn't just program it all himself off the top of his head. At least with mobile games, he either had played them so much on his phone back in his other life that he knew them like the back of his hand or were so minimal in their design/functionality that he could do it himself just by going off of the general theme.

It was how he was able to get something like DragonVale up and going even though most of what he knew was because Darla liked it when she was younger. By the time he actually got a phone and played himself it had been one of many examples that made it big then faded into obscurity. Everything that he made in this new life was based on what his sister explained to him about how it worked along with the various dragon characters.

There wasn't really much to it. Build and upgrade habitats to house dragons that makes the player gold. Build and upgrade farms to feed then level up the dragons. Hatch dragons then breed two together to try and get the rarer species. See simple.

Things like guilds and the like were interesting mechanics in theory, but really just decreased the upgrade time and let the player show off their base. Ethan had added a bit more on top of the original design by allowing players to text their coordinates to others instead of just the guild.

Something else that Ethan had added that provided a massive draw in popularity was the 'Tourist' feature. By clicking on the button, when visiting another players island you could only walk along the pathways that were set up. The camera angle was designed to be as if the dragons in their habitats towered over the ordinary humans and encouraged more artistic decorations as there was a leaderboard on how many upvotes an island had each week.

All his games had a leaderboard added to them after Ethan saw how many loved it. The were divided into the categories of Local, National, and Global; all his games showed where a players score was placed in their city, country and around the world. In the case of DragonVale, players could see the top 100 islands and their coordinates were automatically shown which encouraged more to play/tour their islands. To get in the Top 100 players had posted their cords in social media which again brought in more players. The never ending cycle will continue until eventually people lose interest, but at least it will prolong how many will be playing which will give Ethan even more points.

Still, for something beyond a mobile game the Game Shop provides templates. These are a massive collection of data ranging from characters, maps, weapons, magic, and lore. Everything that Ethan would need to set up these huge projects. The only problem is that there is just so many that he has no idea what to start with.

See the first big game he plans to release needs to be special. It will be the defining piece of information for most of the world and will be his cornerstone into mainstream development. He just can't squander this opportunity!

Which is why Ethan had been steadily making a list on possible options that has only grown over the last three days. He had put as many titles as he could think of down and has only now started crossing off names to at least narrow down his choi-

"Hey." A voice broke his train of thought.

Snapping his head up, Ethan realized it was the loud ginger. Raising an eyebrow at the boy, he silently asked what he wanted.

Rubbing his hand through his hair, the boy asked Ethan. "You want to play? I mean you were already here and I don't really want to be the reason for anyone to not have fun. And I mean, I am pretty good so I don't think you could win or anything. But-" The other kid elbowed him in the ribs.

"What blabber mouth means is that we noticed you took a dive when we walked in and wanted to know if you wanted to do a tournament?" Though as he said that the younger boy with black hair was taking subtle, curious glances into his hands.

Ethan was taken aback. "Um, sure. Why not."