2 02 - Games?

"I was right! Neo Parker was actually studying in the library by himself to look smart during class!" a girl proudly told her friend next to her.

They had just entered the library to study in advance for their next class and saw Neo in a corner alone with a pile of books in front of him as he eagerly read the books as if they were the most interesting things in the world. This just proved to them that Neo had studied the Levitation spell before class to learn it before the other students.

But that in itself wasn't a bad thing for these girls. Boys who studied and worried about the future were really admirable. After all, most boys only thought about doing explosion spells and playing with fireballs. Looking at Neo focused on the books in front of him, these two girls felt that he even looked more handsome.

Neo obviously didn't know what these girls were thinking. He had come to the library right after class to understand this world. As tempting as learning new spells could be, Neo knew that understanding the general context was much more important. After all, he could be in a Nazi-esque country and not even know it.

Fortunately, in this world there didn't even exist Nazism. Apparently, humanity had discovered that it could cultivate a strange energy within its own body millions of years ago. Little by little, they discovered different ways to develop this energy, and so several combat classes were created: Warrior, Assassin, Archer, and many others. Among these classes, there were numerous variations, such as Berserker, Fighter, and Knight.

But apparently, among the existing classes, there were some classes that weren't developed by humans. Primitive peoples came into contact with spirits who taught them to command nature through basic commands; thus emerged the first Shamans.

Over the years, these Shamans developed these basic commands for increasingly elaborate commands, which made learning this Class very difficult. That was, until a young man who didn't believe in spirits decided to change these codes of pre-built commands and insert his own inner energy, thus becoming the first mage: Merlin.

Neo found it ironic that even in this world, Merlin was revered as the first wizard. From Merlin onwards, other wizards emerged, and the magical language, which Neo understood to be C++, developed far into its current state. Perhaps because in this world there was no internet, the development of this magical language was much slower than in Neo's world. After all, the information age did not earn that name for nothing.

As there was no internet and online information exchange, the only way to develop this magic was through studies of great research magicians or development groups in magic schools around the world. These people with different thoughts could never communicate as easily as in online forums, which greatly delayed the development of their research. Mage was the newest class, the most difficult and tedious class to learn, but still, it was getting its own space in this world where monsters existed.

Neo was hooked on this world's history. Without him noticing, he was already imagining developing a game with a theme like it, even a movie or anime about the setting could be a great success. Making the player follow Merlin and develop magic on their own, even learning C++ while playing, turning it into an educational game, receiving large investments from the government to make the game even more perfect.

Unfortunately that was impossible for Neo these days, or… At that moment Neo freaked out. The magic in this world worked using the C++ language - the programming language he is most familiar with. Didn't that mean he could make games in this world too?

'Can I truly go back to fulfilling my dream of making games?' Neo wondered excitedly.

He quickly got up from where he was sitting and went to the library's entertainment area. As there was no computer in this world, which Neo found very ironic since millions of people knew C++, Neo had to try to understand the level of entertainment in this world through the library. Unfortunately, Neo had only found books on Fantasy and Romance, some on Horror, but nothing very innovative.

Something that surprised him was an old and dirty book. Curious, Neo took that book and read its cover.

'Light Ball: A How to.'

'What is this?' Neo wondered as he opened the book that apparently hadn't been opened in years. Fortunately the contents were still readable, but even reading all this, Neo didn't feel the least bit satisfied about it.

Even looking through the entire entertainment section of the school library, this was the only book he had found of programming magic that could potentially become a game. And after reading all 137 lines of code, Neo was even more disappointed. Apparently this book was written by a bored student who enjoyed playing a game similar to soccer.

Tired of whenever the ball got stuck and they had to stop the game, this student developed a spell that created a hollow ball of light, which worked exactly like a soccer ball. But because the spell had 137 lines, it required a Magic Card and a constant supply of a lot of mana, to the point that players would have to take turns between who would be injecting mana into the card until its durability ran out. Because of the complication this had, the students just found it easier to bring two or three balls when they went to play, causing this spell to be forgotten for years, maybe decades.

After reading those 137 lines of code just to make a hollow ball of light, Neo knew it was done by a complete newbie. In just a few seconds he reduced the total number of lines necessary to just 9.

That was the difference between a novice app developer and a veteran. While a novice didn't know shortcuts and methods to shorten the code, always detailing every little thing for fear the code wouldn't work, veterans were already so used to doing things easier than their minds always thought about how to optimize the code just by looking at it. Using a single variable to do 10x more stuff than a novice, that was the difference between the two.

After compressing the code to 9 lines, Neo decided to test this spell. Soon after, a soccer ball-sized sphere of light appeared in Neo's hands. The weight was very light, and the light produced was dim enough not to attract the attention of other people in the library.

This was a bug Neo had noticed in the code. The Mana consumption was previously too high, not only because the code was poorly optimized, but because just keeping such a shiny ball summoned was too taxing. They didn't need a ball to light a room; it was just to kick it, which made it a complete waste of mana.

Neo knew that if people found out about this 9-line Light Ball spell, probably in just a few weeks no one would ever use a real ball anymore.

Unfortunately, this disappointed Neo even more. He was excited to imagine what games existed in this world of magic, what games he could try out to expand his own horizons and learn from other experts. But sadly, there were apparently no such game development experts. If people hadn't even improved physical games like soccer yet, then there was little hope that anyone had developed virtual games.

Neo was sad that he couldn't try out games from other DMs, but it gave him some inspiration. 'If I can't try other people's games, then that's fine. I'll just be the first one, and in the future I'll develop games for this world - games these people will never forget and that will last for generations!' Neo thought with determination.