The department head told the afro-haired young man to get a good rest.
He needed to prepare for Mickford's upcoming product launch a few days later. At that event, the young man would appear publicly as a game producer to unveil Infinite World, their concept game. There simply wasn't time to waste on trivial games anymore.
After that, the afro-haired young man left the office building, leaving the department head alone in his office.
The department head stared at the computer that hadn't been shut down yet, lost in thought.
A big shot like Takayuki personally choosing to make an indie game and release it on the newly opened indie-game crowdfunding section—just to boost that section's visibility—
Did that mean Takayuki was planning to vigorously support the indie game industry?
But… indie games barely made money.
Why put in so much effort for something like that?
He was a development manager himself—an old hand in the game industry.
Yet he didn't have lofty ideals about game development.
To him, this industry was just a way to make a living.
And he worked at Mickford.
Mickford's boss, Myron Cass, had always insisted that profit came first.Everything else was secondary.
Over time, he too had absorbed this belief —profits above all—was the only rational principle.
Indie games?
A low-return sector like that had no reason to exist.
Let those bottom-tier people mess around with it if they wanted—there was no need to pour money or energy into it.
With that time and money, it made far more sense to poach a few experienced developers with high salaries and turn them into cogs in the machine for big-budget games.
The state of the indie game scene had nothing to do with him.
He believed that as long as the money was right, indie developers would never refuse such an opportunity.
In his view, people making indie games were just being pretentious.
Shaking his head, he walked over, closed The Binding of Isaac, shut down the computer, turned off the lights on the entire office floor, and prepared to go home.
Yet as he walked, the image of the afro-haired young man completely absorbed in the game lingered in his mind.
If a game could immerse someone that deeply, then it was, by definition, a successful game.
It was just a shame…
A real shame that it was only an indie game.
How much potential could indie games really have?
The afro-haired young man returned home.
By all rights, he should have followed his supervisor's instructions and gone straight to bed.
But he had no intention of sleeping.
His mind was filled with nothing but equipment combinations.
He had previously dabbled in games like Dead Cells, which also emphasized synergies between gear.
When certain pieces were paired correctly, they could completely dominate an entire stage.
But Dead Cells started off brutally difficult—far harder than The Binding of Isaac.
The Binding of Isaac took a different approach.
It first drew players in with relatively gentle difficulty, letting them understand the core mechanics and become familiar with item synergies—then suddenly ramped up the challenge.
This spike in difficulty didn't crush the player's confidence.
Because by that point, the player already knew that the right combinations of items could create explosive effects.
So instead of blaming their death on being "bad at the game," players blamed it on poor item choices.
If I just get the right build, I can steamroll everything.
Last time, he'd missed too many good opportunities to complete item sets, which was why he couldn't withstand the monsters in the late game.
"Cat set is strong… no, no, the Fly set is good too… the Mom set is also insane…"
All the way home, the afro-haired young man kept thinking about builds.
Even after he got home, his brain refused to stop.
At the same time, another voice in his subconscious kept warning him:
Go to sleep. Now.
The product launch was coming up.He would be stepping onto the stage as a game producer, presenting the world's greatest infinite sandbox game.
But he couldn't get The Binding of Isaac out of his head.
In this internal struggle, reason ultimately lost.
He sat down at his computer, powered it on, and downloaded The Binding of Isaac as fast as he could.
This time, he was going to try the item combinations he'd already planned out in his head.
He wouldn't stop until he cleared the game at least once.
About two hours later, the afro-haired young man finally showed a relaxed, satisfied expression.
He cleared it.Finally.
After all, The Binding of Isaac was still just a demo, and its total content wasn't that large.
If a player focused seriously, it could be cleared fairly quickly.
The full playtime was probably around five to six hours.
He had spent nearly ten hours before clearing it—already quite slow.
That was largely because he had very little prior experience with this genre.
Only now did he realize—
So roguelike dungeon games could be this fun.
He had underestimated the genre before.
If I add something like this to my own game… wouldn't that be interesting too?
Yeah. That actually had a lot of potential.
Unfortunately, the game was about to be announced, and there was no way to add such features in the short term.
According to their prior agreement, he had to announce the release date at the upcoming launch event.
And that release date absolutely couldn't be more than six months away.
Those six months were already fully booked for critical tasks like bug fixing and optimization.
As for the many features they had planned afterward, those would have to wait until after release to be gradually added.
He was confident that as the content expanded, the game would become richer and more fun.
At one in the morning, he finally fell asleep with a look of deep satisfaction.
A few days later, Mickford's latest product launch officially began.
Following their usual routine, Mickford first unveiled several less important product lines.
Then, in the middle segment, they announced a few newly developed games.
Finally came Mickford's core business: smartphones and the latest personal computers.
These products were Mickford's true foundation.
Without its smartphone and PC businesses, Mickford would immediately drop to a third-rate company.
As a competitor, Takayuki naturally didn't miss this launch event.
He watched Mickford's presentation together with several other executives.
A company's launch event represented its development strategy for the near future.
Know your enemy, know yourself—only then could you win every battle.
Even with all his experience from another world, Takayuki could never guarantee absolute success.
People in this world weren't fools.
Past experience only gave him an advantage—the rest depended entirely on his own effort.
"The presentation's starting. Quiet."
When Mickford's opening logo appeared on the big screen, Takayuki motioned for everyone to fall silent and carefully watch the event.