Time passed steadily. One after another, Kamiyā Yuu received the finalized character illustrations for 'Warship Girls Collection' from Morishita Aoi.
In order to maintain diversity in the art styles of the warship girls, Morishita Aoi divided the more than two hundred character drafts into several batches. Some were handed to famous freelance illustrators without teams, while others were entrusted to well-known illustration studios within the industry. Aside from making it more troublesome for Morishita Aoi to collect the completed artwork, forcing her to travel around constantly, this method greatly increased the speed at which the illustrations were completed.
Besides the rather expensive commission fees totaling around four million yen, Kamiyā Yuu also bought a small sedan worth two million yen as a shared vehicle for Morishita Aoi to use for transportation.
The commission fees Kamiyā Yuu offered were fairly generous. On average, each illustration was paid around twenty thousand yen. In addition, because Kamiyā Yuu himself had already provided the character design drafts, an ordinary illustrator could complete at least one warship girl illustration per day based on his designs.
The illustrations Kamiyā Yuu requested were different from ordinary animation keyframes. Or rather, there were many categories of illustration work to begin with: animation keyframes, game illustrations, novel illustrations, and so on. Their prices varied greatly, and the required quality and artistic styles were entirely different. Usually, any illustrator with even a little reputation in the industry would hold several positions at once—today they might be a freelance animation keyframe artist, tomorrow a part-time game illustrator.
Inside the office of the 'Yosuganosora' Animation Studio, silence filled the room as Uehara Etsuki and the others buried themselves in their own work.
"The overall quality of the illustrations is pretty good. Next, I just need to upload them onto the computer and finish the game itself."
Kamiyā Yuu flipped through the warship girl illustrations one by one. Most of them met the standards in his mind.
Although Japanese illustrators had all kinds of strange habits—and missing deadlines was practically an industry norm—their attitude toward drawing was extremely serious. In many of the warship girl illustrations Kamiyā Yuu received, the artists had personally researched battleship details and completed background elements on their own initiative.
Out of more than two hundred illustrations, fewer than ten failed to meet Kamiyā Yuu's standards, and eight of those only required minor detail adjustments.
"Hmm~ Maybe it'd be better to spend a few more days uploading them into the computer and applying unified rendering effects before putting them into the game."
When illustrations with different art styles were placed together, the contrast could become extremely noticeable and create a sense of dissonance. To eliminate that dissonance, special effects rendering and style unification had to be applied. At the same time, the rendered warship girl illustrations would undergo stylistic changes because the rendering software he used far surpassed the technological limitations of this era. Naturally, the final style leaned more toward the artwork standards of his previous world, and the visual effects were significantly better than most illustrations of this era.
And so, using the professional-grade scanner he had recently purchased, Kamiyā Yuu uploaded all the artwork onto his computer and began the endless process of editing and modification.
A few days later, a newly approved legitimate card collection game quietly appeared on a large Japanese gaming forum: 'Warship Girls Collection.'
Strictly speaking, 'Warship Girls Collection' was not actually a card game, but card collection games were one of Japan's mainstream gaming genres. As a result, many construction, training, or collection-oriented games that were even remotely related were categorized under card collection games.
There was no complicated explanation, no real game production company listed, and no excessive game introduction. It was placed in the same section as small indie hobby games. Aside from the game images looking fairly decent, there was nothing eye-catching about it at all. It looked exactly like a game casually uploaded without any expectations attached to it.
This was exactly the effect Kamiyā Yuu wanted.
Since it was merely a hobby project, he had no interest in devising complicated development plans. Under that premise, he simply hoped someone would discover the game and uncover its charm.
Kamiyā Yuu had absolutely no doubts that the quality of 'Warship Girls Collection' would create waves in Japan's gaming industry.
······
Yokoyama Jirō was an extremely typical NEET.
On him, one could see every negative stereotype imaginable: shut-in otaku, freeloader living off parents, unaccomplished, gloomy appearance, overweight body, cowardly personality, and so on. His daily life consisted of endlessly repeating the cycle of gaming > eating > gaming > eating > gaming > sleeping > eating > gaming.
His parents' attitude had shifted from confusion and anger to helplessness, and finally, complete resignation. Thanks to the support of their eldest son Yokoyama Ichirō and their retirement pension, they could still afford to feed one useless parasite.
They provided him a place to sleep and food to eat, but beyond that, they refused to give him any additional financial support.
Yokoyama Jirō was not entirely without merits, however. He considered himself cheerful and optimistic. Because he played games constantly, he occasionally wrote strategy guides and earned small amounts of money from gaming forums to pay for his internet bills while saving a little for emergencies.
At the very least, he managed to maintain the minimum standard of living expected of a Japanese citizen without causing trouble for others. Therefore, rather than calling himself a NEET, he preferred to describe himself as a freelance worker unaffiliated with any company.
"Anything fun to play? There are still three days before the demo and preorder for 'Shadow Warrior.' It's Fantasy Company's first major title in three years, and the promotional video looked really good. I'm already tired of 'The Strongest.' I've uploaded all the strategy guides already, so there's no point continuing."
The fluorescent glow of the monitor reflected brightly in Yokoyama Jirō's eyes. He squinted closely at the screen just to make out the displayed text. Even though his nearsightedness had become severe, he still had no intention of going outside to get glasses.
"Guess I'll go gold digging to kill some boredom."
He clicked into the new releases section of the website.
Japan had always been fond of RPG games—not massive MMORPG productions, but rather old-school pixel-style RPGs like those from the 'Little Tyrant' console era. Even as technology advanced and large MMORPGs appeared, Japanese players still preferred controlling tiny pixel-style characters running around flat maps.
Because these pixel-style Japanese RPGs could easily be created with the proper map editors, many hobbyist creators or small companies would upload their games online first to test the market and player feedback. The quality of these uploaded games varied wildly, and players referred to the process of testing new releases as "gold digging."
In Kamiyā Yuu's previous world, there had been many classic Japanese RPGs of this type as well: 'Rance of Sengoku,' 'Battle Goddess,' 'Final Fantasy,' 'Dragon Quest,' 'Pokémon,' and so on.
Among them, the most globally recognized and the one that accompanied countless childhoods was probably the 'Pokémon' series. 'Pokémon Go' had even created an entirely new gaming craze, allowing players to catch little monsters in the real world through their phones and fulfilling countless childhood dreams.
As Yokoyama Jirō scrolled the mouse wheel, he quickly noticed a game icon that looked surprisingly refined compared to the rough-looking icons around it.
"'Warship Girls Collection'? A card collection game? And browser-based, too? This title has absolutely no style. At the very least, replacing 'Collection' with the English word collection would sound much better."
"Produced by the 'Yosuganosora' Company Production Department. Other than that, there's no information at all. If it's an indie game, just say so. Why pretend it's made by some company?"
Yokoyama Jirō curled his thick lips in disdain. Many independent creators fabricated nonexistent game companies to attract players. Didn't it look much more reliable than saying it was made by one person?
"Introduction: Card collection game. Alright then~ They literally wrote the genre as the introduction. Just how lazy is the developer? If they don't even want people to play the game, why upload it in the first place?"
"Game screenshots: None. Okay, I get it. You just wanted to reserve the name."
Player comments: 2
[Sword Saint Athos]: If the full score is ten, then I give this game one hundred points. An excellent and highly unique game. I'm still exploring the gameplay right now. (Perfect score review)
[Oda Nobunaga's Monkey]: The guy above really isn't exaggerating. I've been playing nonstop since last night. I even applied for paid leave in advance... (Perfect score review)