[Game] Chapter 392-394

### Chapter 392: The Binding of Isaac’s Rising Popularity, New Game Demo

September arrived, and Ichin returned to collage.

Falling back into study mode right after summer break didn’t bother him at all. After all, even during vacation, he often picked up books to read.

While The Binding of Isaac’s sales couldn’t compare to Persona due to its smaller scope, its live-streaming potential was far superior. Unlike Persona, where one playthrough was enough, Isaac offered endless variety—every run started randomly, often ending in brutal failure. That unpredictability made for fantastic live content.

Some streamers even got so hooked they played until two or three in the morning, still pulling large audiences with lively comment sections full of scrolling messages.

The popularity of Isaac made many indie developers realize the untapped potential of roguelike games.

Dungeon-crawling, top-down pixel design was just one approach. Action roguelikes, strategy roguelikes, RPG-style roguelikes—all were possible. Even deck-building games like Slay the Spire still had plenty of room for expansion.

This realization sparked brainstorming sessions among countless small studios, each thinking about how to make a roguelike of their own.

Ichin didn’t know this was happening behind the scenes, but if many new, interesting roguelikes appeared because of it, he’d be thrilled.

As long as a roguelike had its own unique hook, it could draw players in. The genre naturally encouraged word-of-mouth promotion. Development costs were relatively low, which meant prices could be affordable, making players more willing to give them a try.

Smaller devs might not sell millions, but by tapping into trending genres, giving their games distinct flavor, and sparking enough discussion in forums and communities, even selling tens of thousands of copies would bring profit.

This kind of healthy cycle let indie devs not only earn funds but also grow their player base and skills.

That evening after dinner, Ichin went to his room to review plans for Isaac’s future updates—only to see a lively discussion in one of his QQ groups.

It was a group of game streamers, big and small, all hardcore players. Through them, Ichin sometimes picked up industry news he wouldn’t have known otherwise.

What surprised him was seeing chatter about indie devs seriously considering roguelike projects.

“Well, that’s a good thing,” Ichin mused. “No need to overreach by going big at the start. Most don’t have the cost or the technical resources.”

Rubbing his chin, he tossed a few comments into the group chat, then went back to tinkering with Isaac.

Although the game already had plenty of content, Ichin had no intention of stopping. He wanted to keep expanding it, ensuring it stayed relevant.

He’d also enabled Steam Workshop mods, but since the base game itself was already overflowing with content, most players hadn’t even thought about making mods yet.

When Utaha returned from her shower, she found Ichin still busy at his desk. Peeking at the screen, she noticed he was designing an item icon.

“Ichin, is this for an update?”

“Yep, future updates.” Ichin nodded. “But no rush. I won’t release it until October. Steam stats say no one’s even unlocked all the achievements yet. Once more players clear it, I’ll slowly release new content.”

Utaha rolled her eyes.

Isaac had ninety achievements on Steam. Some required very specific conditions and weren’t easy to obtain.

“Just ninety achievements—it’s not that much,” Ichin countered. “Sure, some are tough, but most players can grab several in a single run. Over time, they’ll naturally unlock them. Besides, the game still isn’t the ‘complete version’ I have in mind. I’m planning at least two free updates. I’ll do the first myself, and then after BattleBlock Theater launches, I’ll hand the second update over to Hazuki and her team. That way, the two games alternate, filling the gap while we wait for our bigger titles to release.”

Even if they were small-scale, Ichin wasn’t worried about quality.

Their lower price points and modest sales wouldn’t be a loss, and thanks to Persona’s massive profits, the company had no financial concerns for the next year or two.

After watching Ichin work for a while, Utaha retreated to bed with her Switch, playing Isaac herself.

She wasn’t a fan of the dark aesthetic, but since it was her boyfriend’s game, of course she would support it. And honestly—it was surprisingly addictive.

After about an hour, with one death and one clear, she unlocked a new character. Tired, she put down the Switch, picked up her tablet, and opened Bilibili to watch an Isaac stream.

On September 12th, the demo for BattleBlock Theater launched simultaneously on Steam and Switch.

The game supported both single-player and two-player modes, local and online. The demo included ten stages, enough to keep players busy for over an hour if they aimed for perfect clears.

Downloads surged right away, surpassing fifty thousand on day one, with peak concurrent players reaching thirty thousand.

For a demo, those numbers were excellent.

With its cartoonish art, goofy character expressions, and clever stage designs, the game struck a balance between charm and challenge.

Single-player was fine, but in co-op the fun skyrocketed. Perfect teamwork could clear stages beautifully—but players could also sabotage each other mid-run, leading to hilarious “friendship-ending” moments.

> The level design is fantastic—even for a demo!

> The art style’s great too!

> Finally, a proper co-op game! Just a shame the full version isn’t out yet.

> Can’t wait for release!

The positive reception filled Hazuki and her team with even more confidence as they entered the final stretch of development.

***

### Chapter 393: Akane Kosaka’s Sigh, The Gap

Friday afternoon, after finishing his classes, Ichin came to the company together with Utaha.

Since it was Friday, high school also let out earlier in the day. Eriri had already arrived at the office, proudly showing off photos on her phone to the others of the little orange kitten she had recently brought home.

“Hehehe, cute, right? I even bought it several outfits!”

On her screen was the orange kitten, a bit bigger than when she first adopted it. With Eriri’s constant pampering—plenty of food, toys, and space to roam around—it was living a dream life. Its future was basically set in luxury.

Ichin walked over, glanced at the picture of the kitten playing with a teaser wand, and smiled. “Looks like the little guy is really enjoying himself.”

“Of course!”

Eriri proudly lifted her chin. “I’ve put a lot of my own savings into giving him the best care. Just the toys alone—I bought so many that he won’t run out of things to play with for months!”

Listening to her, Utaha poured a bit of cold water on the mood.

“It’s nice that you care, but don’t forget—it’s an orange cat. You need to control its diet, or else one day you won’t even be able to lift it.”

“I don’t need you telling me that, I already know!”

Eriri shot her a glare. “I even asked Yukino for advice about its meals. I won’t let it get fat!”

“Really? Then that’s fine.”

Utaha nodded. Even with strict dietary control, their own Peppa was still steadily growing heavier, inching closer to becoming a classic fat orange cat.

And since Eriri’s kitten was Peppa’s child, Utaha certainly didn’t believe it would grow into a slim feline.

After chatting about cats, Ichin headed over to the BattleBlock Theater team.

The playable characters were all finished, but nearly half the stages still remained unfinished. The further the design went, the more it tested the skill of the level designers—making sure the late-game didn’t feel repetitive or boring for players.

“How’s the stage design coming along, Hazuki?”

Holding a cup of coffee, Hazuki crossed her legs and replied, “It’s getting tougher, but still manageable. Just don’t go helping them, Ichin. They need to think things through themselves. This is just a small-scale project. On larger projects, the challenges will be even bigger. They have to learn to find solutions on their own.”

“I know.”

Ichin nodded, then walked over to see Sakura Nene.

By now, programming tasks needing her direct attention had decreased a lot, so she was tinkering with her own custom engine instead.

Standing behind her for a while, Ichin finally spoke. “Tweaking things again? What are you working on this time?”

“Ah!”

Startled by his sudden voice, Sakura Nene flinched and turned around. “Can’t you stop scaring people like that?”

“Alright, alright, I apologize.”

Pulling up a chair beside her, Ichin glanced at the computer screen. “Are you trying to upgrade your engine?”

Nene shook her head. “Not really an upgrade. While working on BattleBlock Theater, I noticed the engine doesn’t support action systems very well. So I want to make some changes—hopefully enough to allow development of more interesting action games.”

Ichin rubbed his chin as he looked at the code on her screen. “A side-scrolling action system, huh? If you want to change it that way, it’s doable. But I think you can be a bit bolder. For example—like this.”

He then gave her some suggestions for modifications.

Nene was a bona fide genius. She had majored in law at university, and now here she was—making games. With just a few pointers from Ichin, she immediately grasped the direction she needed to take and buried herself in her work.

After watching her for a while and confirming her approach was solid, Ichin left her to it and returned to his own office, resuming development on Dark Souls.

—Meanwhile, in another office building in Tokyo.

Akane Kosaka sat in her office, controller in hand, staring thoughtfully at the game running on her screen.

She was playing the newly released demo of BattleBlock Theater.

Even though it was only a demo, the game felt highly polished. Its action system, collection mechanics, and stage designs were all excellent. The cartoonish 2D art style gave it a unique charm that made it a joy to play.

“Just like The Binding of Isaac… even as a small-scale game, it hits excellence in every area of its scope, with nothing to criticize.”

For small games, cutting-edge AAA graphics weren’t the priority—gameplay was. As long as the gameplay was strong, players would naturally be drawn in.

“Slay the Spire, Hollow Knight, The Binding of Isaac, Battle Block Theater… and then Persona, which looks set to sell millions. No wonder so many veterans in the industry recognize Ichin-kun as a remarkable creator.”

Setting the controller down, Akane’s expression turned serious as she considered how to catch up to his level.

In terms of team size, excluding Ichin’s Shanghai studio, their Tokyo teams were roughly the same scale.

But in terms of talent, her side lagged significantly—especially when it came to top-tier developers.

From what Akane knew, the core team led by Hazuki and other key figures who had left Eagle Jump had all joined Ichin’s company. Each one of them was an invaluable talent.

Her own team had skilled people too, but many were still raw—brimming with potential yet lacking real experience.

“After experimenting with our first game, we’ll need to slow down now and focus on building up technical foundations. Otherwise, the gap between us will only keep widening.”

As she was deep in thought, a knock came at the office door.

“Come in.”

The head of the programming team entered.

“President, about BattleBlock Theater’s engine you asked me to investigate—it isn’t any known engine currently available on the market. I even checked with some contacts in the industry. Our conclusion is unanimous: it’s an internally developed, custom engine. It’s very well-suited for making small-scale side-scrollers. And The Binding of Isaac was built on the same engine.”

A custom-built engine?

After dismissing him with a wave of her hand, Akane leaned back in her chair.

“As expected… every step of the way, there’s something unexpected. At this point, there’s no comparing.”

With that, she pulled out her phone.

***

### Chapter 394: Akane Kosaka Wants to Poach Talent

Akane Kosaka’s phone call—and her intentions—caught Ichin completely off guard.

“You’re saying Akane Kosaka wants to rent Nene’s custom-built engine?”

In the office, Hazuki, whom Ichin had called over, looked at him in surprise. She hadn’t expected Akane to take interest in that engine.

Beside her, Sakura Nene herself was stunned, still not processing what was going on.

Ichin nodded. “That’s right. That’s what she means. I think she’s realized this engine has potential. Sure, it’s not suited for massive AAA-scale games, but for small-to-mid projects—especially side-scrollers—it’s very useful. Akane’s a quick learner. After running into problems with her own open-world project, she’s not stubbornly clinging to it. Clearly, she wants to learn from our approach. Not just chasing big games, but also dabbling in smaller, gameplay-driven ones. Nene, what do you think? Since you’re the one who developed it.”

“Eh? Me?”

Pointing at herself, Nene hesitated, then said nervously, “Um… I don’t really mind. I mean, I built the engine to make games anyway. Doesn’t matter who uses it. But… if we rent it out, how would we charge for it?”

Ichin explained: “Normally, engines like Unreal 4 are free to use. But once your revenue exceeds one million USD, you owe them a 5% royalty. For our engine, though, since it’s not for huge titles, we don’t need that million-dollar threshold. Let’s say: after $200,000 in revenue, a 3% royalty. And from that, Nene, you as the developer get half, and the other half goes to the company for updates, maintenance, and online support.”

Hazuki nodded approvingly. “That works. But if it’s just Akane, it’s not enough. Ichin, don’t you think we should also build a proper company website? Brand the engine as one of our products, aimed at indie developers?”

“Yeah, I was already thinking that too.”

Ichin snapped his fingers with a smile. “Let’s do it your way. We have people who can build a site, right?”

“Of course.” Hazuki nodded. “Tsubame knows how, and a few of the programmers we hired also do web dev. We’re not building a marketplace—just a corporate site with some game overviews, like Capcom’s. Easy stuff.”

With that, Ichin asked Hazuki to call over Narumi Tsubame and a few others from the programming team.

Looking at the four of them, he said: “This’ll be a side project. Right now, game dev tasks are lighter, so shift some focus to the website. Once it’s done, I’ll give you bonuses.”

“No problem!”

“Leave it to us, boss!”

Finishing tasks for the boss was already their job—getting bonuses on top was a great motivator. And with Ichin’s generosity, everyone knew the reward would be worth the effort.

Once they were dismissed, Ichin picked up his phone and called Akane.

“Miss Kosaka, we’ve discussed it internally. We can rent the engine to your company.”

“Oh? That’s wonderful.”

Akane’s voice carried a smile. “And the fees?”

Ichin explained about the free trial and the later 3% cut. For a specialized, already-functional engine, the conditions were cheap—very cheap, in fact.

“No problem. I agree to the terms. How do we sign the contract?”

“If you’re in a hurry, you can visit our office in the next few days to sign. We still need to add some online features to the engine and upload some free assets.”

“Fine, then I’ll come the day after tomorrow in the afternoon, and I’ll bring a few developers along.”

After agreeing on the time, Akane hung up and immediately called her own staff into a meeting.

With their last project finished, her devs had plenty of creative ideas but no real direction. Since she’d been focused only on big projects, she hadn’t given them an outlet. Now, with a suitable engine available, if it really worked well, they could branch out into multiple smaller games.

It was clear to her: they needed to slow down a bit.

—

Soon, the appointed day came. At two in the afternoon, Akane arrived with several team members.

“Long time no see, Miss Kosaka.”

Ichin, already waiting, shook her hand and led them to the conference room.

Not long after they sat down, Rin Toyama came in with a tray of drinks, and Hazuki arrived with Sakura Nene.

Smiling, Hazuki greeted her: “It’s been a while, Miss Kosaka. How’s your company doing? Ichin told me you’re also working on a new project.”

“Long time no see, Miss Hazuki.”

Akane returned the smile. “Things are going fairly smoothly. But as for the new project, I’ve decided to slow the pace. We’re still not at the level of a truly qualified development company. Just yesterday I had a meeting with our creative team—we agreed that blindly chasing large-scale games isn’t sustainable. We want to try shifting directions a little, and we’ve already got some ideas. Our team isn’t small, so splitting resources isn’t that difficult.”

Hazuki nodded, then connected her laptop to the projector. Together with Nene, she began explaining the engine.

When Akane learned the engine had been developed entirely by Nene—while still a first-year university student—she was shocked. Her eyes widened as she looked at the petite girl.

“Nene, right? How about coming to work at my company instead? I’ll make you head of the programming team and give you a top-tier salary.”

“Eh?”

Nene froze, dumbfounded. Why was she suddenly trying to poach her?

But she quickly composed herself and answered firmly: “Sorry, Miss Kosaka. I’m very happy working here, and I don’t plan on leaving.”

Rejected, Akane didn’t seem upset. Instead, she gave a regretful smile. “That’s really a shame. My apologies, Ichin-kun, Miss Hazuki. When I see talent this outstanding, I can’t help but want to recruit them.”

Both Ichin and Hazuki knew that was just her style. Ichin shook his head, unconcerned, and let Nene continue the presentation.

***