Chapter 1: Profit Loss = Skill Improvement

The constant clicks on the cheap keyboard resounded in the small room as the guy stared at the screen with intense focus. On his screen were countless strings of code columned neatly into lines with sentences that wouldn't make sense except for robots. Then he stopped, before leaning on the table with relief washing over his entire body.

"Finally, it's done..."

With a single click, he closed the tab that showed the script for his program and opened it through an emulator app. In the windowed screen of the new app, it showed a plain gray background with short, simple words in the middle of it.

Idle Power.

It was a title screen, and below that title were blinking texts that said, "Press Anywhere to Continue."

He moved his cursor and clicked somewhere on the screen. The title vanished, and the scene transitioned into something. Now, in the middle of this gray background, there was a small white diamond-shaped dot. On the top corner of the screen, it displayed numbers and a word.

[Points: 0/100]

[Points per second (Pps): 1]

The point counter increased by one just after he was done glancing at it. It increased by another after he turned his attention somewhere. When the point counter got to the tenth, a new option appeared on the bottom corner of the screen. It was a simple option called [Activity]. He clicked that option and saw a new tab appear, covering the majority of the screen. He could choose a single option there called [Daydreaming], which cost ten points. It had a simple description of increasing point generation by one. He clicked that, and a simple 16-bit sound occurred on his speaker after he did that.

The cost for [Daydreaming] increased by ten points, and at the same time his point income became two. He nodded at that, confirming that there were no errors on that part before he continued with his test.

He checked the other features of the game, like [Knowledge], which was a secondary option that would appear after [Activity] when the player achieved the maximum point they could reach. In this option, the player could choose upgrades that could extend the maximum amount of points they could accumulate on their point counter. He saw that there was nothing wrong with this part too after a while.

... And that was it. Those were all the features of this game.

[Activity] only has choices within it, while [Knowledge] has two. Other than that, there was nothing else. For a game, it was severely lacking in any content. Despite that, the guy testing this game, the programmer himself, nodded in relief and smiled after seeing that everything was working as intended.

"Alright. I can upload this then!"

He quickly closed the game and then navigated through a browser expertly until he was on a page where he could upload his game. The name of the site he was going to upload the game to was witch.io, a site where any indie creators could post their games, regardless of whether they were for PC or mobile. He was already done setting up a page for his game. The only thing left was uploading the file needed before showing it to the public.

"I'll name this version the version 0.0.1a," he muttered to himself, typing that in the appropriate description box, which would show what features he had added to this particular version. With this version being the very first, he had written anything in it.

It was a wonder why he was smiling despite uploading an incomplete game. Well, there was a reason for that.

We have to backtrack a few weeks ago...

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Michael Barrio Castro, or Mike to his friends, was a normal filipino guy living in Bulacan, San Jose Del Monte City. He has had a lot of aspirations since childhood and wanted to do a lot of things. Being exposed to technology like game consoles and the internet since he was young, his dream was slowly molded into something that would follow what he was exposed to.

Having played games, he wanted to make his own. He liked anime-styled games and later games that had gacha mechanics on them, RPG elements, humongous amounts of numbers, and also cute anime girls. He grew up in the early days when otaku culture was still in its infancy in his country, and being one of those rare people who liked such things, he became a loner because very few could understand him.

There were a lot of things he wanted to do other than game development, but making games was the dream he sought. So he studied diligently even with his parents not really on board with his dream. Even when he couldn't understand advanced concepts and his intelligence was only average, he tried his best just so he could graduate and then attend college. When he got to college, he picked the course for computer science because it taught him some basic knowledge of computers and programming, and at the same time it was a compromise, as there were high-paying jobs that would be open to him when he finished that course.

Everything was all set for him, but everything came crashing down when both of his parents died in the same year. His mother died due to a sickness that grew worse after being confined in the nearest public hospital, and then his father died a few months later due to a car accident. His only support for his life was gone, and because he was considered an adult, he was forced to quit college and look for a job on his own.

Depression ate at him, and his dream of making games was put on the back burner as he did everything just to stay afloat. He became a construction worker, a pump attendee at a gas station, and then a service crew member at some fast food restaurant over the years. Years passed, and he was now 26 years old. He always thought that he would continue living like this, not being able to achieve his dream at all because he couldn't find any spare time.

Then, a few weeks ago, he suddenly got it. A supernatural event that was supposed to be impossible in reality!

It just suddenly happened. When he suddenly became aware within his dream that night. A faceless entity talked to him within that dream where he could sense his own body vividly as if he were awake, and that entity asked him some questions. The entity questioned who he was, his species, and what planet he originated from. After answering all of that, the entity then asked him what he wished for.

"I want to have the skills to make games!"

There were many things he wanted to do. He wanted to be a great writer, a great illustrator, and a great composer, but his desire to make a game of his own won out of all of it. Despite not vocally saying all of that, the entity seemed to have discerned his inner desires other than the one he wanted the most as it spoke to him. It asked him what he would sacrifice in exchange for that.

"I will exchange all of my wealth if it means I can have the skills I desire!"

It was one thing he always wanted to do. He hated that he needed money to even do anything in his life. Money was needed for everything. His house, his bills, his food, and even the clothes he wore—all of it needed money. As time passed, prices of every product inflated while their salary remained unchanged. It became harder and harder to spend his money in any meaningful way. All of it would just go to his basic necessities, and barely anything to his hobbies.

He wanted to continue studying, but that needed money. He couldn't just quit his job because that would destroy his life. Even if he finds the time, his skills don't improve because the free time available for him in a week was insufficient for him to learn anything valuable. He couldn't focus on it at all because he was always plagued with his own depression and worries for his immediate future.

Lately, he was accumulating enough money that he could survive for months if he quit his job, though it wasn't enough for retirement. He still has to continue working if he wants to gain more benefits. Quitting a job wasn't simple either because he would need to find a new job, and finding a new job would cost him money once more. It was quite essentially impossible for him, someone who doesn't find his job fulfilling, that he only stayed at the bottom rung of the hierarchy at any place he applied. The salary he got wasn't enough for him to live comfortably in his home.

He wished that he could exchange what he earned for immediate improvements to himself so he could get better. At least if that happened, then all his work wouldn't feel like it was a waste.

That wish came true when he woke up. In an instant, an ability was bestowed on him by the entity. It was an ability that depended on what he could earn from anything he could potentially profit from and the actions he did to make it happen. It was an ability where, the more potential profit he lost, the more he could acquire both knowledge and skills for the specific talents he used to make whatever product he made to make a profit.

The ability was quite comprehensive. He could improve his skills from any potential profits he lost. Every action he did to make a product that could potentially generate profit would improve depending on how much he potentially lost from not maximizing what he could gain from it.

For example, if he made a food stall, his power would immediately lock on to what an average food stall owner could earn from around the world and then apply it to him. If his income from that day was lower than that average income, then in exchange he would gain improvement in his cooking skills, managerial skills, accounting, service skills, and other things he had to do as a lone owner of a stall. If he gained above the expected income for a food stall owner on that day, then he wouldn't gain any improvements from it.

So essentially, if he wanted to improve certain skills, then he needed to use those skills while making some profits. The skills he used would improve so long as those skills were part of the process when he was making a profit. The rules of his power were that he only needed something that could potentially profit, and then everyday, the loss of potential profits from that product would be transferred to his skills.

With this power, he felt like he could achieve his dream. He knew that indie game developers were one of those who could burn a lot of money during their development alone, and it doesn't even include the launch time and promotions for their game. So even if he was losing money on that day, it doesn't matter, because the loss he got from game development would greatly improve his skills for it.

This is why he immediately quits his job and then spends most of his time learning everything he can do to program a game. After that, he started developing his first-ever game a week ago.

That's how he started as a game developer!

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He was unused to not having a job after a long time just doing it in his life. He always had some doubts within his mind about whether he did the right thing or not.

'Good thing I chose to do idle games first.'

There was a reason why he chose idle incremental games out of every genre in the game industry. Incremental idle games were surprisingly easy to make. He just needed a day or two to make a code where a counter would passively increase values, then add more conditions as he added more features to the program. Out of every game genre, it was the one that was easy to finish as soon as possible and was easy for even a beginner like him.

Because he doesn't have to worry about his job anymore, he could spend his entire day just sitting on his plastic chair and typing on his keyboard all day, stringing codes to his program for an entire week without any interruptions. In fact, he could have finished this all two days earlier if not for one factor.

He's terrible at digital graphic designs!

He dabbled at drawings, though his skills weren't that good at all. His hand wasn't that dexterous, more so when using a mouse. He wasn't skilled at using any digital art tool, which further made it hard for him to enact what he visualized within his mind. He had a lot of games he wanted to make, and all of them had high-quality, anime-style 2D graphics. Despite that, he couldn't find the time to hone his skills more, as his interest lay more in programming codes for a game than in illustration.

It was why, when it came to making the background and the user interface of the game, it took him a long time. He wanted to make it as original as possible and doesn't want to use presets for it. He drew the pixelated diamond-shaped dot painstakingly and the UI with his simple paint tools just to make it possible. He drew each icon of the actions a player could do on each section of that game, and after that, he spent additional time just to implement all of those illustrations to the game, correcting their placements whenever he saw one until he was satisfied. This was why he took a week to finish this bare-bones game.

He did all of this because, just like his programming skill, he wanted to improve his digital art skills. It was also just right because, unlike other genres, idle incremental games could be made with simple UI and graphics. He doesn't have to think about how he had to make it more attractive to someone. An idle game could be left as just a number generator if he wanted to. That's just how low the requirement is for a game of this genre.

The sole purpose of an incremental idle game was simple. They just needed to increase the number to a ridiculous degree. Sometimes, they even had to go beyond countable digits just to achieve that. It's that kind of game where numbers just go up indefinitely. It's a very simple game concept that became popular recently on the market, mostly on mobile games.

That was also what he was making. He made an incremental idle game for mobile phones. Mobile games were quite popular today, and lately, he also preferred playing mobile games to PC games or console games. It might be because, due to a lack of free time, he transitioned to enjoying hypercasual games like this one, so his preference was a factor as to why he chose this game genre and the platform for it.

There was another reason why he chose idle games. It's because he has wanted to make one for a long time.

Since the day he played an idle game, he got intrigued and always wanted to make one of his own. The concept was simple, and the design could be left plain without issue. He already planned how he would make it. The development stages of it and the updates. He had it all planned out within his mind, though with the lack of time, depression, and lack of confidence with his own skills, he abandoned thinking about it. Despite that, he still held onto this thought until today.

Now that he had the power to improve his skills instantly, he was pushing through, betting on this power so he could achieve his dream. It was the right decision because the next day after he uploaded his game on the internet, he felt it. He immediately felt an improvement to his skills.

"This is amazing..." He couldn't help but sigh in amazement.

His awkward finger placement on his finger became proper, and his typing speed considerably increased as if he had been doing this for months now instead of just a week. His understanding of programming increased for a bit, and he suddenly felt a bit more dexterous when using his mouse. He certainly felt that his usually twitchy wrist movement became stable when holding his mouse, and he could find some parts of his game that he could improve.

And all of it because he didn't follow the normal way of making an incremental idle game for mobile phones. Usually, most idle games on mobile have tremendous amounts of ad placements. There were those that asked for the player to click an ad to boost their progress, another to double their income, and then another type that just obnoxiously covered an entire screen or forced an advertisement to play, and the player had to deal with it if they hadn't bought a pack that would disable ads for their game.

This was a common tactic for most mobile game developers, mostly prominent in the idle game genre. It was a way for the developer to earn more money from other players who still clung to the idea of playing for free. There are a lot of ways to earn in an idle game other than online advertisements, and all of it was dependent on the type of idle game it was.

Those were all potential profits that he ignored. Why would he do that when he could gain something more than that!

In the end, without promotion, lack of features, no microtransactions, and no one having even looked at its page, he accumulated enough potential loss of profits, which turned into improvements to his game development skills. His game was low quality, but idle games, even with this kind of quality, had a higher potential profit in their design regardless of how they were made. So the improvement he got, despite looking minor in his eyes, was huge.

"This is great. Now I can add more features to my dream game. I don't want my first game to be a low-quality slop."

As he always dreamt, he wanted to make high-quality games that he enjoyed. Even with this low-quality game right now, he wouldn't abandon it like this. He swore to himself that if he did try to make a game, he would go all the way and do his best. He knew the pains of the players who came to like a game and ended up disappointed due to the game developer barely improving the quality of the game and instead putting more of their focus on what they could earn or simply quitting altogether because of their real-life obligations.

Now that he started making this game, he would make sure it became a success. He just had to bear it for a few months, and hopefully when the time came, profits would come later before he lost all of his savings.

"Let's do this!" After pumping himself up, Mike started another day of improving his game once more.