Chapter 134: Disaster Test

"Save the game."

Sid's eyebrows shot up in anger as he immediately created a backup save. Then, his eyes drifted toward the "Disasters" tab in the menu bar at the top.

"You ungrateful crybabies ... I've been curious about this thing for a long time. Today, I'll use you as the guinea pigs!"

Without even bothering to read the descriptions, he simply enabled every disaster available.

Fire, flood, tornado, plane crash, earthquake, he selected every single one.

"Huh? There's even a 'Monster' option? What the heck is this?"

Whatever it was, these troublesome citizens deserved it.

[! Monster Attack!]

[A gigantic unidentified lifeform has been spotted in the water.]

[It is attracted to highly polluted areas and will destroy everything in its path.]

As the notification popped up, a giant monster that looked remarkably similar to Godzilla emerged from the river running through the city and headed straight toward the industrial district.

By the time Bill walked over, the first thing he saw was utter devastation on the screen.

Burning ruins were everywhere, collapsed buildings littered the landscape, and a Godzilla-like monster was rampaging wildly through the city.

"?"

Bill had never expected to see such a scene.

"This is... the new game you were talking about? SimCity?"

Just moments earlier, while listening to Sid mutter endlessly about budget bills and urban planning, he had assumed it was an extremely serious strategy game.

"Uh... it's not really like that."

Only then did Sid come back to his senses. He coughed awkwardly to hide his embarrassment. Reloading the previous save, he opened the city overview map and showed it to Bill.

"This is... how should I explain it? It's kind of like playing the role of a mayor managing a city."

He tried to find the perfect way to describe the game. Before he knew it, he had already spent two full hours playing it without realizing.

In fact, Sid had the feeling that even if he were given another twenty hours... or even two hundred hours... he still wouldn't finish this game.

He looked at the world map. The city he had painstakingly built looked magnificent, yet on the entire map, it occupied only a tiny corner.

His initial impression had been correct. This game truly had no clear objective for him to accomplish.

There were no stages to conquer, yet somehow, he always felt there was more to do. Literally endless things to do.

"It's hard to explain. At first, I just wanted to make the city run properly."

Sid's gaze fell on the three-colored bar graphs in the lower-left corner.

Whether it was obsessive-compulsive tendencies or some indescribable force driving him… the harder he tried to keep those three values balanced, the more things demanded his attention.

It was endless. Yet he simply couldn't stop, because it was fun in its purest form.

Sid frowned slightly. He felt as though something was about to surface in his mind, but he just couldn't grasp it.

This tale has been pilfered from NovelPhoenix. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Bill, I think I have an idea for a new game."

"That pirate game?"

"No. At least, not entirely."

He shook his head.

"I can't give you a definite answer yet. It's about a completely new project."

SimCity had touched a certain chord deep within his mind. But he still needed one final catalyst before that idea could truly take shape.

Bill nodded, half understanding. Game development wasn't really his specialty. Most of the time, he simply helped Sid manage the company's miscellaneous affairs and accounting.

But Sid, whom Bill had met back at Texas Instruments, had an uncanny talent for game design. If he spoke that highly of a game, it had to be something special.

"Let me give it a try."

"Mmm..."

Bill deliberately dragged out the sound. After playing for a short while, he seemed to understand what Sid meant. This was truly a game that was incredibly difficult to describe with words.

"You have to really settle down and immerse yourself in it for a while before you'll understand."

Sid could tell that Bill hadn't truly gotten invested yet, so he offered a reminder.

He knew his old friend well. Ever since they first met, Bill had never been the most patient person. Perhaps because of his time in the Air Force, Bill especially loved flight shooters. Slow-paced games simply didn't capture his attention the same way.

"All right. I'll play it when I have time. It is pretty interesting."

Bill replied perfunctorily, shaking his wrist.

"Speaking of which, though... aren't the controls way too cumbersome? I've only been playing for a little while, and my hand is already getting sore."

"Hmm... you're right. I was so absorbed while playing that I didn't notice. Now that I've snapped out of it, it really is pretty tiring."

Sid nodded.

Every time he wanted to build something, he first had to move over to the construction panel on the left, select the building, switch back to the map, and then painstakingly move it into position. So, in terms of controls, the game definitely wasn't very user-friendly.

"This is GAMENOVA's first PC game, so it's understandable that they're not familiar with PC control conventions…"

His words suddenly stopped, then he looked at Bill. The two of them met each other's eyes, and at the exact same moment, they thought of the same thing.

A mouse!

Not long ago, when that device had appeared on the shelves of GAMENOVA's partner retailers, they had both found it rather puzzling.

After all, it simply didn't pair very well with the NovaBox.

Although Minesweeper and Solitaire had officially launched on the NovaBox… Among the existing game lineup, aside from a handful of titles like Wolfenstein that supported it, most games actually felt better with a controller.

At the time, everyone had treated it like an elite peripheral similar to the Hitbox. They had bought two of them, but they had been sitting unused ever since.

After all, Sid was a professional game developer, so for his work, a mouse actually reduced his efficiency.

Fortunately, the interface was universal, and after a bit of tinkering, Sid entered the game once again.

"... It feels like this is the way the game was actually meant to be played."

Actions that had previously taken over ten seconds could now be completed almost instantly.

He could drag to the left-side menu to make a selection, then simply hold the left mouse button and drag across the map to effortlessly lay down an entire road.

Thinking back to Minesweeper and Solitaire, the two of them suddenly arrived at an absurd idea.

Could it be that GAMENOVA had released these three games primarily to promote mouse adoption?

"Minesweeper and Solitaire definitely were. SimCity just happened to fit that need perfectly."

After thinking it over carefully, Bill gave his opinion.

Ding-dong.

Just then, the company's doorbell suddenly rang. Bill had been looking for an excuse to get away anyway, so he immediately stood up and went to answer the door.

"Hello, this is MicroProse. Are you here to buy games, or are you looking to commission development work?"

"Hello. May I ask if Mr. Meier is here?"

Ethan greeted him, then pulled a business card from his jacket.

This future giant of the video game industry, destined to stand alongside Will Wright as one of its two legendary pioneers, was someone he absolutely had to recruit.

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A.N: Hey everyone is this font size ok for y'all, or do you want me to choose bigger font size like in previous chapters. Which font size do you prefer the smaller standard one or slightly larger font size that was used in old chapters.

And I think PC and mobile readers might have different opinion, cause in this small font every paragraph just looks like a single sentence in desktop version, but maybe it will fit for mobile readers. So, tell me your preference on font size.

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If you want some extra chapters, be sure to check out my Pa-tron page, it's 90 chapters ahead and the chapters are also long so you can check it out.

p at re on . co m / NovaScribe

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