Chapter 15: CGA Getting Recognized

Mike was a bit curious where these new players emerged. There were at least a hundred new members who joined the CGA server.

'They might have come from Idle Power.'

Thinking like that, he simply shrugged and then returned to what he was doing.

Since the day CGA got into the red, his skills and knowledge relevant for its development had increased greatly. Game development became so much easier that, even when he spared some time improving Idle Power, it only took him an hour before he finished what he planned on that game for that day. Idle Power became increasingly simpler in his eyes, while the development of CGA became easier. In his eyes, CGA was more complicated than Idle Power.

In the middle of March, his development speed increased drastically. What should have taken him weeks could be finished in an hour due to knowing what codes to copy and paste, being able to memorise what he wanted to put vividly, and making presets in advance so he could use them repeatedly in the future, and many more. Art, music, coding, and every aspect he needed to develop to progress were extremely shortened into hours. Optimisation of every system implemented became less relevant as he doesn't even need to do so, having perfect knowledge and talent for making a near-perfect application.

This was why, even without making an effort for it, he managed to finish the update for Idle Power. Then the implementation of the other accepted OCs from the server was already underway.

"Twelve new students are being added. That will be twenty-four students in total." He muttered to himself.

Now, the only problem he had was the voices. His four female friends already had their hands full with their characters. He couldn't let them voice another character. Catherine definitely cannot do so, as she voiced Phantasmic, a character that would always appear in almost every part of the game. A single prologue already took them an entire week, and that's the fastest he could do that just for it to meet his standards. Even if he continues coaching them, it wouldn't decrease the time needed to meet his requirement for the voice quality of his game.

"If only my power could also improve my friends..." He sighed in disappointment.

His power might have given him a boost in his voice coaching talent, but it couldn't boost his friend's talent. He simply managed to maximise what they already had. Their characters complemented their actual traits and usual speech patterns, so it became easier to implement their voices and correct their pronunciation for a single month. He couldn't expect them to improve that fast with just a month of training. That needed more dedicated coaching and guidance that he definitely couldn't do with how busy his schedule was.

'... Tsk, no, I have to be satisfied with this!'

He was hoping to find other women interested in voicing anime-styled games in this country. He only had four female friends to do those parts. He couldn't expect them to do everything for him.

'Usually, voice actors only voice one character from a game. What I did was out of the norm, but it can't be helped. They are the only ones that can help me...' He felt ashamed at that.

As he was continuously typing on his keyboard and moving his mouse with machine-like precision, his thoughts were interrupted by the sudden ringing of his phone. He paused, frowning as he wondered who was calling him this morning. When he checked his phone, he raised an eyebrow seeing it was from Catherine.

"Why is she calling me?" Curious, he accepted the call.

["Hey Mike, it's me, Cath. I'm just calling to tell you about the studio."]

"... About the studio?" He raised an eyebrow at that.

["Yeah, we found a suitable area to expand your studio. We've already secured the spot. Don't worry about it; it's on us!"]

"... What!?"

That bombshell stopped whatever he was planning for that day.

____________________

"Okay, Cath, what is this?"

"It's your studio, silly."

Mike looked at the large three-story building with a helpless expression. This was more than what he was expecting when Catherine called him to QC.

"... All of this?"

"Yes." She said it with a casual nod of her head.

Mike's feelings were complicated as he stared at the large building that would soon be his studio. He doesn't know what to say and wonders how he could reject this. In the end, he could only sigh.

"Right... thank you for the help..."

"... You sound like you're unwilling. Is there a problem?"

Seeing her pouting, he immediately tried to explain himself.

"No, it's nothing. I really appreciate your help..."

Catherine stared at him for a moment before she shook her head with a chuckle.

"Relax. I know you want to do everything yourself, but even if you expand your studio at Bulacan, travel time will still be an issue. There are only a few people who liked anime in that place, right?"

"... You're right..." Mike couldn't really respond to that.

There were people who liked anime in his place, but most of them were men, and they weren't really that much of a hardcore fan like him. At most, they could be considered casual anime fans. Their knowledge was mostly limited to what was mainstream in their country. Women who liked anime were also a rarity, and in a place like Bulacan, which was still at the early acceptance phase of otaku stuff, it was practically impossible to find one by just walking around. They either had to be lucky to find one, and most of the time, these women would only be casual fans who don't have any deep knowledge behind the anime, like how voice acting was an actual professional career.

"You also don't have to worry about the VAs. Elly's taking care of that." Catherine added. "So just accept it and think of how you will set up your new studio."

Mike nodded after thinking about it for awhile. "Right. Thank you, Cath." He said, a complex feeling whirling within his heart.

He wanted to do everything on his own and spend money so he could gain some boost on his skills, but he realised that Catherine was right. He didn't have the connections and time to find more voice actors. Leaving it up to them was the right choice.

'Should I start making my own company?' He wondered to himself, before shaking his head. 'No, not yet. After I'm done implementing all the necessary system for CGA, I'll think about making that game.'

He has plans to make a proper game with a proper monetization plan. He couldn't just maintain a company if he had no money, after all. What he got from Idle Power should be enough for a small firm, but he doesn't want to settle on just that.

'If I'm going to make a company, it has to be big!'

He has many plans, and he was reaching the limit of doing everything by himself. A large company would let him have more breathing room, and he could delegate minor issues to his workers while he does the necessary ones. That would shorten the time he needed to develop games and pump out more updates so his players stayed happy.

As for the game he was going to make, it was already set in stone. He still wasn't starting yet. He planned to test the waters first by making a prototype on CGA.

'As I said, CGA will be the graveyard of my game ideas. It's been so long since then. No one has suggested any new game modes in the game. I think it's up to me to implement my idea in the game.'

Others would find it absurd to add another workload for their game, but Mike doesn't really care. He wanted it.

After talking for a bit with Catherine, they go somewhere to eat before going on their own way. He would be a lot busier on the following days due to the new building that would be his new voice-over studio, his plans for his game, and the plan to establish his own company, but he was looking forward to reaching his goal. Already making a schedule within his mind as he returned to his home.

____________________

His plans for CGA weren't limited to two game modes only. He wanted the game to at least have five game modes before he started making the main story. He already has a plan for how the main story will go. He had kept reviewing everything the members posted on the CGA server. Lore, character docs, settings, and other miscellaneous facts were archived in a channel, and with his improved memory due to the boost on his power, he has no problem recalling anything he read once and then implementing it in the future updates.

Once again, while the members were eager to submit their characters, new worlds, enemy suggestions, and the like, they haven't submitted any game mode ideas yet. He has been asking them for a while now, though they seemed to have misunderstood him when he asked for any suggestions for content. They kept adding more lore and special places that were still limited by either the exploration mode or the mockup challenges.

"I need to make my move now!"

He realised he couldn't wait for the next batch of voice actresses. He had to postpone adding more characters until he had enough voice actresses. But he couldn't stop developing the game. His self-imposed schedule will be broken if he makes delays in his updates. No, he would make sure to always give new content every month. He couldn't let his players down.

So that's why he would implement one of his game concept ideas. It's an idea that he has been playing around with in his mind for a long time. The idea was the typical JRPG theme, the one where players take turns to make their actions. It's the so-called turn-based RPG. That's basically what he wanted to do, but with a twist.

He wanted to make what he dubbed the Macro Turn-Based Role-Playing Game.

How this worked was that, each turn, depending on a character's status, characters could plan what would be their entire action in that turn. They could use an entire set of actions to use in a single turn, and the enemies could do the same. Every character has various types of actions ranging from attacks, counters, and defences to being further separated into categories, which would enrich their gameplay.

This type of game concept would disgust casual players. It's a type of gameplay that catered to the patient and hardcore RPG players. That's actually his target audience for this game concept.

This system would be like the most complicated game of rock, paper, and scissors. Players could check the entire action set that their foes would be using and then plan ahead with their own actions. The number of their action slots depends on their agility status. The more agility score they had, the more actions they could set. This action set would be called a macro.

He called it macro because the entire action set wasn't just limited to a linear set of actions they would enact like an idiot. It's called a macro because, so long as they have enough action slots, they could move those action slots so it could react to other actions from the opposing enemy. To give an example, if an enemy made an attack and the player set their character to also attack an enemy, if the player felt unsure what kind of attack the enemy would be doing, they could move one of their action slots into that attack action they did and use a counteraction so, if an enemy did make an attack and the player's counteraction specifically countered that kind of attack, the player's character would instead do that instead of the original attack action. It's basically sacrificing two or more of the player's action slots in case an enemy does something outside their initial expectation of their moves.

It's basically like macros in computer work. A set of instructions that the computer would do if the conditions were met. That's how the action sequence also worked in this system.

This idea came to his mind as he played New Fantasy games. He always thought, what if the characters could be managed in advance and watch the results of those sets of commands in a single turn? He always imagined an epic fight between the enemy and his character whenever he thought of that.

Of course, there was a glaring flaw with this kind of design. One of those flaws was that each turn would take incredibly long as more action slots were added on each character. Only the most meticulous and patient would ever find the game interesting, as it literally needed a lot of inspecting before the player could confidently go ahead on their decisions in that turn. Casual players would normally use auto or default to what they thought was their strongest move in a single turn, as they couldn't be bothered to think so much in a single battle. RPG games usually have tonnes of enemy encounters, and spending an hour on one of those encounters would be too obnoxious even to the most hardcore gamer.

So he had thought of some quality-of-life improvements in the game, like implementing presetting, a function that lets players set a series of actions they like in advance outside of combat so they could just pick that and wouldn't need to set it individually during combat. Then there was another one, which was AI Assist, which would simply let the game itself decide what their actions would be in that turn. It doesn't really solve the entire problem of this kind of system, but at least it made the hassle of each battle easier for both casual and hardcore players if they ever played this game mode.

This game concept was actually the core gameplay from the next game he was planning to make. He wanted to gauge the reaction of the players by implementing this system on CGA first.

"Hmm... should I go 3D or 2D in this mode?" He wondered to himself.

After thinking about it, he decided to use 2D on them.

"It's an anime game. I like the aesthetics of the retro NF games, so I'll try and follow that kind of artstyle too."

With his mind made up, he quickly made a prototype within the game. This only took him a day before he had a working prototype.

"... This is surprisingly easy..."

He was a bit surprised about it. The improvements he got made it quite a bit easier for him. His experience in implementing the AI in the Idle Power's combat mode was also a factor as to why he managed to finish this system after twelve hours of coding. It was just converting the real-time response of the AI into just following a strict set of instructions made by the players themselves.

He tested the system himself using sprites from the mockup challenges of CGA. He made some test actions that he could use to test the macros and then played a few rounds in the test combat of the game. After confirming that the system was working without any errors, he started making the 2D sprites for this mode. Unlike the mockup challenge, which followed Princess Saga's chibi style, this one he would be turning them into very animated 2D pixels. Their animation needed to be very expressive, as he planned to put an entire combat moveset for each character. These movesets would vary a lot, and each action specialised in many things. Range, hitboxes, and even the amount of frames on these actions were important to make the battle more immersive and force the players to constantly think on their feet when fighting in this mode.

It's basically like how combat on Idle Power functions, but this one was more controlled.

Now he was just adding different abilities, damage outputs, effects, and anything he could think of. He also had a guide in the form of the character documents from the owners of these characters. He simply had to convert their status from mockup challenges into RPG terms, and then everything was done.

This took him five days, as he also had to add mobs, loot, and the like. Then another two days were spent as he also realised that this game mode cannot be just an RPG combat. There has to be something that would complete it. He chose to make it a top-down, pixelated, dungeon-crawling style, the likes of which were usually done in RPG Creator games. Good thing he had an idea how he could explain this kind of game mode in the game.

"I'll call this Group Activity!"

Group Activity. In-lore, this would be the mysterious cracks in the Imaginary Wonderland that the Principal and Phantasmic subjugated and then controlled so the students could explore it to their heart's content. Different from Mockup Challenges, where Phantasmic made a simulated world so students could train themselves in a team, this one was them studying how to explore different types of environments and then testing them against more intelligent enemies. Of course, even if these enemies could hurt them, there was no chance for them to get killed.

He made the setting so that, regardless of how lethally they tried to fight, every student was incapable of being fatally injured due to them being in the presence of the Principal. The Principal, and the entire Imaginary Wonderland, negates every injury that could cripple their students. So, even if students fight each other while hurling powers that could destroy worlds, they would at most have their clothes ripped to shreds, and the worst injury they could sustain would be a bump on their head and some dirt on their skin.

It's why he could implement whatever game mode he wanted without diving deeper into grimdark territory. He wanted it to be lighthearted so players could enjoy their waifu collection game.

'Well... I said it will be mostly lighthearted, but I have some plans in the main story that will delve into darker territories...'

He had plans to put some heavier topics in the story mode of the game, though he wouldn't be the only one who would contribute to that. Most lore contributors of the CGA server were rather enthusiastic at putting whatever they wanted in the world, and some of the accepted lores were a bit hardcore in the lighthearted atmosphere of the game.

'When we get to that part, I'll show them my ultimate plan for the game! I'm sure they will be shocked when I introduce them to this game's version of boss raid!'

He couldn't wait to show it to them.

For now, he finished the entire Group Activity game mode in an entire week before immediately uploading it on both the witch.io page and the CGA server.

"Next is Idle Power. Well, I've been working on it every night, so I'm almost done with its update. Time to finish it today."

As he said that to himself, he was already moving his mouse, opening the tab for Idle Power's system, and then quickly adding anything he had missed adding in the game.

Before the day ended, he had also finished the update for Idle Power. It was just adding the fourth stage and then adding ten unlockable powers with the corresponding hundreds of animations with them.

____________________

"Hello everyone. In today's stream, I'm going to play Cute Girls Academy! If you don't know, today it got a new update. I don't know what it is yet, as I haven't asked the dev, but reading the update log says it's a new game mode called Group Activity? Well, I'm sure it will be amazing. Come on, let's try it out!"

Since she started streaming Cute Girls Academy, Laika's concurrent viewers steadily increased until it was close to 100. Her subscriber count had reached a thousand, which was a miracle for her. She has been streaming for a year now, and this was the first time she reached this amount of subscribers.

'It's one of my milestones too!'

She doesn't really expect to be popular with the game. She had long since given up on becoming popular. She was simply doing her Vtubing stuff thrice a week out of obligation and because it became routine to her. She only spent an hour or two whenever she streamed, and most of the time she goes outside to look for any new homemade game consoles in Manila.

Streaming Cute Girls Academy was a big break for her. There was the factor of it being a new gacha game, its graphics being high, and also her being one of the voice actors of this game. A Vtuber who voiced not just one but four characters and then streamed that same anime-styled game attracted many otakus and gacha-addicted people to her stream.

Allypop: I can't wait!

Bakubaku: What's the new update about?

Olmecsize: I'm going to watch Dreamy play first before I play it myself

Surrenderer: Let's gooooo

996-Worker: Where can I play this game?

YDOU: I tried it myself, and it looks like a dungeon crawling game. I'll update you later after learning more

Shizu: No spoilers, everyone

Jiji: Weeeeeee

Ganker-Star: I can't wait!

She briefly checked the other stuff in the game before moving on to the new game mode. There were now three game modes being listed when tapping the Portal option. There were the usual two, and then the new one called Group Activity.

After picking the newest game mode, it showed a tutorial, which was sadly not voiced yet. Based on what Phantasmic said, it seemed like there were some cracks forming within the Imaginary Wonderland. They took care of it but haven't closed them yet, as Phantasmic thought it would be a great idea to let the students experience what it was like to explore within what she called an Abnormal Imaginary Space (AIS). AIS was basically a phenomenon where some unknown space formed due to various reasons, like some outside entity trying to breach through the Imaginary Wonderland or a very strong wave of chaotic energy exploding and creating some sort of dissonance that punched through the veil between reality and this wonderland, causing cracks in this world to appear.

With most of the threat taken care of, students can enter these cracks without worrying about danger. Even if they get wiped out, the Principal's presence would negate most harm on their way, and the worst they could experience would be being knocked out.

After that small talk between the Principal and Phantasmic, the tutorial actually began. It was just Phantasmic explaining what they could do. To summarise what she said, it was a dungeon dive, and encountering enemies would trigger the combat mode, which was just a typical turn-based RPG battle but with a twist. The number of actions they could do in a single turn depends on their AGI score.

Beneath the Vtuber avatar, who was gazing at the screen in a daze, Laika herself was frowning. A bit disappointed with the new game mode. She doesn't play RPG games, as she prefers games that need high mechanical skills, like FPS or MOBA games. It didn't deter her from playing the game mode, though her enthusiasm had lowered for a bit.

After the tutorial, she could finally start setting up her team and entering a dungeon. There is only a single dungeon available right now called the "Imaginary Dungeon". She could only set up to five students in a single party. She chose four students that she personally voice acted, and then Rose as her support. Unlike the Mockup Challenges, this game mode only had two positions, which were front row and then back row. After choosing that, she finally started playing the game mode.

"... Well, it looked decent, at least..."

After a while of playing, she muttered to herself.

____________________

Dreamy's audience watched her play the game. They saw the slightly different pixel art style of this game mode and the quality and length of the dungeon. It looked like a high-quality rendition of a common dungeon preset from a typical RPG Creator game. Unlike those, though, this dungeon was truly labyrinthine in its structure. If not for the minimal just at the top right corner of the screen, Dreamy might have gotten lost.

The buttons for moving the character were intuitive and pretty easy to get used to. There was a button above where they could activate the sprint mechanic, which would let their character move twice as fast as their normal speed. Tapping that button again would return them to their walk pace. The joystick was a bit large but wasn't cumbersome, as it accurately detected where they were pushing it, and the character could move three-dimensionally. After that joystick at the bottom right side, there were two small buttons on the bottom left side, which were, respectively, buttons used for confirming stuff or cancelling/opening the menu. There was also a button on the topmost left corner of the screen that guided them to the setting menu, along with an option to exit the dungeon as soon as possible.

Then the combat encounter. It somewhat resembled most retro JRPGs like New Fantasy, but the gameplay itself was a bit complex. Each student's equipment was in sync with what they actually equipped in the Mockup Challenges. They could change their equipment through the menu, though after a dungeon dive, their equipment would return to how it was arranged before they entered the dungeon, and any equippable loot that they equipped during their dive would return to their loot and go straight to their inventory.

This new twist in the turn-based RPG style was the main highlight for this update. Even though Dreamy was playing suboptimally, it still showcased the depth of this game mode, which grabbed the interest of the viewers.

The status of the students was in sync with their status in their Mockup Challenges self. That meant there was no independent progression between each game mode. Everything was shared. A few players were also waiting for the exploration mode to have a combat mode too, as it had been so long.

Dreamy's account was still a newbie. She was still at level 30, even though the max level had been raised to level 120. Entering a dungeon uses another type of item. This item was called Dungeon Tickets (DT). They could use one to enter the dungeon. There was no time limit at staying within the dungeon, though if they leave, they'll have to use another ticket to either enter at the start or continue on where they left off. DT would replenish on its own every day. They always had three free DT every day, and others could be obtained in the shop or as some special loot from other game modes like mockup challenges or the group activity itself.

This new mode has attracted a few more people who were lurking around MeTube and checking out new games or other stuff. Dreamy's view count had exceeded a hundred before she ended her stream. Even with that, due to how suboptimally she played, other viewers were unsatisfied. They decided to announce it to their friends, while a few played it by themselves after joining the server.

____________________

--In a certain forum for gacha game recommendations--

[GAME RECOMMENDATION] Cute Girls Academy

Hey, I saw one unknown Vtuber playing this neat game. It looks cool. Graphics decent, girls are cute, and its not a cash grab.

Yes, you heard it right. There's a new gacha game out there that's not a cash grab. Who would have thought, right?

I recommend you try it. It's only available on witch.io and their accord server, but I assure you its worth it.

Witch.io link: www.witch.io/CGA

(Likes 891) (Share) (Reply)

(Replies)

"Cool game"

-"Nice game"

--"Great game"

---"Awesome game"

----"Amazing game"

-----"Are we really going to do this stupid chain again?"

------"Fuck, you ruined the chain!"

------"Fuck you"

------";sad; ;sad;"

------"I'm going to fucking kill you!"

------"GTFO"

-"Nice Game"

-"Good Game"

--"GG"

---";rofl;"

"Finally, I have been looking for someone to talk about this game!

It's a great game, I promise. You should play it. Dev is really amazing!"

-"Hey... wait a minute, aren't you Shirocc!?"

--"Busted ;sticking out tongue; ;sticking out tongue;"

---"You absolute madlad! You're the one who inserted a Kuroko expy lmao!"

----"Heh, not as crazy as Bambambakudan. Now that is an expy!"

--"Fuck... that's Shirocc!?"

--"Holy, is that the Sensei who turned into Kochou!?"

--"I didn't recognize at all... why is their username different lmao"

---"Hey, this is my Greendit account. I use different usernames xD"

-"Wow, really?

Is it free?"

--"Yeah, its free. Try it. You won't regret playing it!"

"That unknown Vtuber you're talking about is one of the voice actors of that game.

Put respect on Dreamy's name, peasant!"

-"She's a voice actress!?"

--"Yeah, she is. If you play the game, just look at Anubis profile on the student list and you will see her VA on the bottom left corner of that profile."

---"... Wait, she is!

Now I have someone I'd like to follow too!"

----"Your welcome!"

-"That Vtuber's a voice actress!?"

-"Wow. Now I have someone to follow again."

-"I think I found my oshi"

"Oh, I think I might try this out and stream it~♪"

____________________

While the forum side for gacha players is slowly becoming aware of the game's presence, the first group of viewers Dreamy managed to lure into the server have been convinced after playing for a week now. Dreamy doesn't know this, but most of her viewers were actual gacha game addicts.

They weren't just addicts; they were what people would call whales!

"What kind of gacha game doesn't have any in-app purchases?"

"It cannot be... I won't accept this!"

"This game is too amazing. I have to support the developer... wait, how can I support him!?"

"What not donating? I am going to donate!"

"There's a donation link for this? Where can I find it.... oh, it's on the witch.io. Why is it so hidden!?"

"That sign can't stop me because I can't read!"

"The only thing I know is that I am dropping my money to Castro Games!"

"I will shove my money, and you will like it!"

These whales, having seen such a unique and conscientious gamedev, wanted to support the developer. Unlike the people who got pulled from the Idle Power, these people were actual gacha game addicts. They knew the climate around the gacha game, and not once did they see this kind of game concept.

They became a fan, and they didn't want this game to vanish into obscurity.

Unlike idle games, gacha games had a shorter lifespan. It depended on their revenue. No company could maintain a gacha game forever. That's just impossible. It's simply a game to generate money for the company, after all.

So a gacha game that doesn't garner enough money wouldn't last for months. At least, that's what these people believed as they looked at the game.

And so, they scraped through the net and then discovered where they could find Castro Games' donation link.

Then, without hesitation, these whales dropped whatever they could as a way to support the developer.

The money they dropped was more than what the others usually donated.

____________________

"... Where did these come from!?"

Mike screamed in horror the next day as he felt the boost that he should have gotten on his talent was gone. The constant display within his mind for CGA suddenly vanished, indicating that it had been paid in full and more.

He quickly looked at his account and felt his jaw dropping as he saw six digits meeting his eyes. It's not in pesos, but rather in dollars!

"300,000 dollars... how, why!?"

Every donation was directed at CGA. He couldn't do anything but lament the loss of the multiplier for his improvement.

"Why!?"

His wail echoed in the neighbourhood.

____________________

After some time, Mike calmed down enough. His eyes were now looking determined as he looked forward.

"If this is how its going to be, then I'll be moving my timeline in advanced." He chuckled for a bit. "Just right on time. I'm having trouble with the lack of personnel anyway..."

He finally decided to do it.

"I'm going to make my company!"