The next morning at 10 a.m., inside an office building in Magic City—
Lucas had just finished signing a lease with the agent and landlord. He was now sitting on the couch chatting with Anna and Rachel.
"Lucas, this office must cost quite a bit each month, huh?" Anna asked casually, looking around at the layout.
"Yeah, I signed for three months for now. The rent's manageable—it's the development PCs and other equipment that cost a lot."
"The rent was about $0.70 per square meter per day. He rented two connected rooms, totaling 160 square meters.
Just the rent alone came to around $3,300 per month, not including the $2.80 per square meter monthly property fee."
Sure, in a smaller city, that might only cost one-tenth of that.
But that wasn't realistic. The talent pool in small cities couldn't compare to big ones.
"No worries, my company just shut down anyway. I've got dev kits and machines lying around unused. Lucas, you can take whatever you need—just give me a little something for them." Anna said generously from the side.
"But seriously, is it just the two of us doing all the development in this company?" Anna asked Lucas.
Right now, the company had a total of four people, including himself.
He and Anna were in charge of game development. The other two were from Anna's old company.
One handled finance and admin, the other took care of operations.
After testing their skills, Lucas decided to bring both of them onboard.
"Yeah, right now it's just the two of us. What we're really missing is a lead artist," Lucas sighed, glancing over at Rachel, who was holding an ice cream.
In Lucas's plan, besides himself, he needed someone with solid art skills.
And Rachel was exactly the person he had in mind.
As for the small team of only three people, Lucas wasn't worried at all.
The game industry in this world was different from his past life. A three-person core team was enough for what he had in mind.
He could handle the numbers, level design, and core gameplay systems himself.
As for most of the heavy art tasks, like modeling, those could be outsourced.
Those jobs didn't require too much technical skill—just lots of time.
And while outsourcing would cost more money, Lucas would rather spend cash than waste time.
The only question left was whether he could "reel" Rachel into the team.
After seeing her art skills during the development of Mirror, Lucas had his eyes set on her.
"That's right, Rachel, join us... Wait, Boss Chen, what's our company called again?" Anna suddenly asked.
"Nebula Games," Lucas replied, a bit helplessly.
"Actually, senpai, I don't think there's much difference between manga and games," Lucas said seriously, looking at Rachel. "Both are just ways to bring the stories in your heart to life—for readers or players."
"And in the future, Nebula Games will also work on manga. We'll release manga volumes based on some of our games. If you're interested, you can totally take charge of that too."
Game-to-manga spin-offs, or manga-based games—it was all pretty normal.
And unlike his previous world, where manga-based games were mostly made just to milk fans, in this parallel world, Lucas found that manga-based games actually stood out in a good way, even if other parts of the industry lagged behind.
Rachel looked tempted by what he said. After thinking for a bit, she nodded and said, "Then I guess I'll have to start calling you Boss Lucas, huh?"
"Call me whatever feels natural, senpai," Lucas said with a smile, happy that she agreed to join.
"Rachel, why'd you say yes so quickly? I've tried to pitch you the same kind of dream before!" Anna said, totally speechless.
Even though Rachel joining made her happy, the truth was she had tried to talk her into this so many times and failed—yet Lucas convinced her just like that?
"Anna, you were just selling dreams. Even if you had one successful game, I still wouldn't jump in without thinking." Rachel rolled her eyes.
Lucas at least had Mirror as a foundation, plus he had a clear vision for where the company was headed. Meanwhile, your company kept shrinking the more games you made.
"Alright, to celebrate senpai joining us, let's talk about what's coming next," Lucas said, looking at both of them.
Even though they had just joined and didn't even have equipment yet, both Anna and Rachel were paying full attention, clearly excited.
After all, they didn't come here just to coast—they came to achieve something.
"Our next project is a new game—a metagame," Lucas said.
Both Anna and Rachel looked confused.
Metagame?
"A metagame? We're not making another R18 game?" Rachel was surprised.
"Of course not. The R18 game was just our way to get started," Lucas shook his head.
He had no plans to turn the company into something like Illusion.
"But Boss Lucas, what exactly is a metagame?" Anna looked totally lost. She had made three games before and even held a game designer title.
But she had never even heard of something called a "metagame."
Rachel didn't even try to hide her confusion.
"To put it simply, a metagame is when a game breaks out of its own world and interacts directly with the player," Lucas explained.
"It's like Don Quixote, where the author steps into the story and comments on the plot now and then."
"Breaking the fourth wall?" Anna still looked unsure, but Rachel seemed to get the idea.
"That's right." Lucas nodded with a smile.
When it came to meta games, Lucas had looked into it a bit in this parallel world. Some types already existed, but they hadn't formed a clear category yet.
Even in novels and comics, similar ideas could be found, but they also hadn't become their own genre.
"Our next project is a meta game called Undertale. I'll explain more details when we officially start working on it."
"Of course, besides Undertale, we'll also be making a DLC character pack for Magic Mirror, to take advantage of the current hype and sell a bit more."
(End of this chapter)