The Game Plan II

As much of an innovative move it was to find something to do for an otherwise dispensable group of people, there's no denying that it is a bit esoteric and wild.

Even Milla found something weird with it even though most of what has been said was technical and Alex-advanced from her perspective.

She did understand some of it and interjected. "This is all great, Alex. But didn't you say that game development is more on the computer stuff?"

"I did say that."

"Why do things in pen, paper, and color then?"

Well, her inquiry did have point and all that Alexander could say is. "It's a stopgap plan."

"Stopgap?"

"A temporary fix until a true solution comes around." Alexander directly admitted that the whole workforce recycling thing is but a means to an end.

It is not exactly something that one should say whilst the "stopgaps" are nearby but there's no denying that he's utilitarian.

There's also no denying that he's become greedy.

As a matter of fact, the whole idea to use the excess comic-making teams as game-developing temps had stemmed from the fact that Alexander wanted to greedily carve gaming giants out.

He even had slotted game titles, character names, and the whole nine yards of gaming franchises he could remember.

Too bad that copyrighting games isn't that straightforward and I.P. hoarding needs more substance than just titles, characters, and a brief description of the gameplay mechanics.

Alexander may have gotten the title and characters for the "Peter Pan" guy... but that doesn't necessarily mean that it would stop a man named Miyamoto from being inspired by his maze-like house or his cave-adventuring youth to make a legendary game out of it.

Alexander may have the classic names for a platforming run-and-gunners against aliens and a weird jellyfish but that doesn't stop a Yokoi or a Konami from making their own.

In fact, they might be planning it out or developing it right now.

Well, to make a long story short. Alexander just wanted a piece of mind against the creativity of the original makers via early drawing and game plans.

This made the expedient option to go with un-busy comic bookers all the more understandable in his opinion.

Anyways, that's the whole jumbly reasoning behind things. All the while, Milla was still confused as to what a stopgap is. "What does temporary have to do with it?"

"Don't read much into that." He just dismissed her curiosity with another thing. "Just take this stopgap pen and paper stuff as the planning and preparation stage for the real deal."

That helped Milla a bit but she had her attention on a certain detail. She still hadn't seen people working on any computer on this floor.

Unlike the video game planning that hid in her plain sight the whole time, those bulky TV-like boxes are hard to miss. "If the computer stuff is the real serious business in making games, then why isn't there any computer here yet?"

"That is in the works." As Alexander said that... he got into thinking about the other problematic side when it comes to video game development.

Just like how ideas and creativity for video game making are hard to quell... the computer and techy side of game development is an entirely different difficulty in itself.

Computer procurement is easy but manning the procured computers isn't.

Eventually, Alexander had to step up from comic bookers to true blue game development specialists.

However, as relatively easy as it is to recruit and reorient artsy artists, techy geeks are fewer and much harder to sift through... especially in the 80s.

With hardwares and softwares at their relatively primitive states, every dabbler of programming is at stages of discovery and development.

Segregating between the skilled and unskilled is hard when the people to choose from are all novices.

Even more so when you factor in the fact that Creed Games had to hire game developers.

Tried and tested game makers have pretty much settled in truly established companies and these companies are in Japan since gaming hasn't really halted over there.

As for local video game wizards... well, they are mostly few in between and a representative cesspool of experienced and wannabes.

After all, the video game market crash is still fresh and even the plentiful of the so-called game developers that contributed to that crash didn't want to be game developers anymore.

Alexander wouldn't want to hire these kinds of willy-nilly programmers.

Then again, the only way he could move on is through haphazardly recruiting everyone with game-making experiences, whether it was on a bad game or not.

He could just build things from scratch like he always has... but that is going to take a while.

Even if Alexander considers himself to be one of the best programmers of this current age due to his previous life's occupation and re-life advantage, this was still a tedious task to do.

Micro-managing complex programs and teaching codes is marginally more complex than having people draw out plotted storylines from a plundered story.

Then again, Alexander got around this obstacle at some point and he's quite looking forward to the effect that his solution would achieve.

After all, this was no longer a stopgap strategy. This was something that would serve as the ace to his entire game plan.

Well, that was a somewhat convoluted thought altogether and Alexander just gave the simple "computer" stuff to the interested Milla.

"As for the computers you're interested in... it is quite in line with the Chaos units I've requested to be worked on."

"If anything, it's the much-needed and complementary machines that will work in tandem with the Chaos-oriented gaming ecology that I have in mind." Alexander was genuinely quite enthused with this.

He even reached out to the 3D-loving Graphics Group to work on all of these for uniformity.

"When the prototype's hardware specs are right and my tests find optimal results on both Chaos unit and supplementary apparatus, I'll finally be able to approve the mass production and quantification of it."

"..." There was so much to unpack from that and Milla's thoughts stalled a bit

She just asked about computers, how come it became something like advanced maths?

Quantification? That sounds a lot like something that will come after addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

After a while, this was all that Milla could voice out. "What's all that about? Chaos units and whatnot?"

Oh, right. Alexander hadn't really clued a lot of people on all of it yet. Well, this is good a time as any. "It's my take on another important aspect of video games. Unlike computers or arcades, it's much streamlined, economic, and homely in a way."

"Streamlined, economic, homely." Little Milica may not know much about 'Chaos units' or 'streamlined' but she did know a bit about chaos. "That doesn't seem to have anything to do with chaos at all."

"Well, chaos is kind of the theme I'm going with for Creed Games, so Chaos it is." Alexander explained and he seemed much more enthused than he had been. "Of course, the Chaos naming has a lot to do with the central code that will empower all of the games I'm trying to develop."

Indisputably, this "Chaos" is what provided the solution to the problem he had with recruiting techy and computer-adept Creed Games' employees. "It also has something to do with helping out the people that will be in charge of digital-y constructing the games for me."

As covered, procuring computers is easy but manning it takes effort.

Alexander may already have the physical components via the request he's made with the Graphics Group, however, they are just chips and circuit boards by themselves.

A special program is needed to run them and he has that covered already.

Something is needed to power these game-making machines and that something is not far from an engine.

It is a game engine to be exact.

Creed Games' exclusive and very own... Chaos Game Engine.

If everything is as theoretically expected, the solution to game development problems has been found and it may even exceed it.

This was no "innovative" stopgap at all but the truly impressive innovation that will leave every competition behind in the dust.

Alexander's re-life and Chaos Butterfly isn't the only reward he got from the so-called Greater System, after all.

If something like that wasn't enough to be an invincible foundation for a game plan, then Alexander couldn't identify anything else that can.