Levelgap's Story Site

Chapter 19: Dissatisfaction

"Finally, it's done!"

Three weeks. That's how much time it took before he perfected the script-reading AI in the game. He has been trying it on every game mode for hours and even played all of the sub-stories that have been implemented in the game. He has checked everything and found the results satisfactory.

Now, everything he puts in CGA will always have a voice!

He has also made sure to make the additional content in other game modes in his little spare time. It's possibl...

Chapter 18: Ignoring the Copycats

Idle Power's popularity has exploded since its official release. There have been more than ten million downloads since then, and hundreds of thousands of people are actively playing the game everyday. Fifty percent of them were even paying customers, with some of them being active donators when they felt unsatisfied at just supporting the game developer through the only in-app purchase in it.

This popularity hasn't slipped up the attention of other game companies. A few did some researc...

Chapter 17: Game Mode Suggestions

The next few days were surprisingly peaceful for Mike. The players were busy with the new content on both CGA and Idle Power. They kept praising Mike on the servers and in both the review sections on Woogle Play and the witch.io comment section, and because most of them thought he was busy with the update, they were trying not to bother him too much.

Mike preferred it this way. He might love the feedback he was getting from the fa...

Chapter 16: The Consequences of Popularity

The subdivision Mike lived in had a lot of unclaimed, undeveloped areas. Most of them were filled with four-foot stray grasses and trees, which showed how unattended they were. People would usually mistake them as part of a farmland, which was natural as there were always rice paddies in spots that ran from a few barangays. Though inquiring about them let him learn that the place he chose doesn't have any owners.

So, he goes to the relevant offices for it for the building permits and re...

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...

Chapter 14: Cute Girls Academy v0.2.1

Cute Girls Academy v0.2.1 was met with great praise. This version has finally put out what the players had been looking forward to.

Voices!

Every student now has a voice!

Not just that, there is now a language option in the game!

It only has English and Japanese for both subtitles and voices, but it's already enough. Everyone was excited to play the game again. The game was defaulted to english subtitles and japanese voices, which many preferred. Most gacha players usu...

Chapter 13: Voice Acting

Despite accepting the offer, Catherine wasn't expecting much. Mike was a dropout, and it was impossible for him to get any hidden lessons when he was so busy since he dropped out of school. Learning the Japanese language would take at least two to three years, and Mike only started making his games last year. Even if he had some spare time throughout that time, it still wasn't enough to be skilled at the language. This was also the case for the vocal training itself. Trying to be a vocal coac...

Chapter 12: Securing Voice Actresses

Early in February, the official Castro Games server was taken by surprise because of the new update.

Idle Power now has online features!

There are the leaderboards, friend lists, and then a new feature called "Visit World". According to the guide, "Visit World" is only possible for players with the same game progress. That means they cannot visit players that are stronger or weaker than them. This feature is different from invite, which is only possible through having the player o...

Chapter 11: Getting Servers

Mike's power had detected a huge increase in the quality of his game. Based on his power, the potential profit he could gain would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars if he just marketed his game right. All of that doesn't matter because, for some unknown reason, he suddenly gained tens of thousands of dollars.

"I'm a millionaire!"

What he said was the truth. Converting it into pesos would turn him into a millionaire. His worries about his other expenses were gone because so...

Chapter 10: Idle Power v1.0

The year had changed. The long break was finally over, and children were busy finishing their last year's homework that they hadn't done throughout their christmas break. Adults returned to the usual, and the bustle of the welcoming of the year gradually calmed down after a few days. On the fifth of January, Mike looked at his computer with a relaxed expression.

"Okay, I checked everything. Nothing seems to be out of place. Then, it's time to upload the updates!"

That's right, on ...

Chapter 9: Christmas House Visit

Out of every relative Mike had, he mostly preferred his relatives from his mother's side to his paternal one. The Barrios were scattered around Manila, though the ones he always visited on occasions like this were the Barrio family that was living in Quezon City. So it wasn't a surprise when he visited them first on Christmas.

After two rides, he reached a narrow neighborhood in QC. He didn't forget to bring something with him as he got to their gates. There was already a man in front o...

Chapter 8: Early Development of Cute Girls Academy II

All of their doubts were gone after seeing the new update on CGA. First was the exploration mode. In exploration mode, the gamedev said it would be a way for them to explore the academy grounds and every world that would be introduced in the game later. Its first version was utterly atrocious, and everyone thought the gamedev wasn't skilled at doing 3D games. That belief was turned upside down with this new update.

The new exploration mode still had a single place they could go, which w...

Chapter 7: Early Development of Cute Girls Academy I

After learning about a certain fact about his power, Mike took advantage of it and decided to stop focusing on idle animations for now.

"I have to make a full-body illustration of them first."

As to who he was referring to, they were the submitted characters from the members of his server. There were four submitted ones, and he quickly accepted them after reading their background for a bit.

Mino, Shirocc, Mr. Red, and Shork were the ones who submitted these characters. Their...

Chapter 6: Community-Driven Gacha Game

Mike was busy making some optimizations in his game. Why was he making optimizations when he was already thinking of making a new game?

That's because he couldn't start the development of Cute Girls Academy yet!

He was at the first step of his plan, which was warming up to the community of players he had gathered on his Accord server. They needed to become familiar with him first before he could start development of that game. So he made a schedule for himself.

"After one mo...

Chapter 5: Problematic Earnings

He hadn't experienced a repeat of that time he got a large donation after several days. After a week, the traffic on the Woogle Play page of his game calmed down. Even with such a carefully crafted game, being incomplete and lacking content doesn't retain them after a long time. The common problem was that, after playing for a few hours, the game basically ended. There was no replayable factor in the game. Despite that, the potential of his game, as detected by his power, was so much that it ...

Chapter 4: Idle Power v0.3.0

Idle games was a popular game genre within the mobile game industry. It was a type of casual game that any person could play anywhere they wanted. Most game companies also saw the potential profits they could gain from this kind of game because, in this day and age, people's lives revolved more around their phones and computers. Due to that, the market for this kind of game became oversaturated.

That doesn't mean it would make other new idle games obscure just because of it. This game w...

Chapter 3: Early Development of Idle Power II

 He took a two-day break from developing his game and took some time to relax and take care of himself. At his break, he goes to a barber shop for a haircut and chooses a common barber’s cut, and after that he binge-watches an entire anime season that has been on his backlog since a few months ago. After that, he treated himself to a meal at a local fast food chain near his residence and then spent some of his time playing games.

With those two days of relaxation, his tired mind ...

Chapter 2: Early Development of Idle Power I

A week has passed, and his progress has considerably increased since he uploaded his first game on the internet. This was enough time for him to upload the update on his game.

“Well, I can’t really call it an update…” He sighed.

Version 0.0.1b only got two new options for the [Activity] menu and then one other option for the [Knowledge] menu. Their effects were so plain that any person would even wonder why the developer took a week just t...

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 t...

Chapter 24: Burning Flesh Mountain

Napalm.

I don't know how to make it actually, nor do I know its exact origin, but I do know that it refers to a chemical mixture that can easily burn, and the fire it makes can stick to the person regardless of what the person does. Even if the person being burned by it pours water on them, rolls around on the ground, or takes off any clothes they are wearing, it will continue burning them until they turn to ashes.

I think the last part is just an exaggeration, but there are some ...

Chapter 23: Dream World

All thoughts of experimentation vanished from my mind when I learned about what could be the most useful aspect of my power. The power to go to an alternate dimension with a new additional object inside it. That's the best kind of power I can ask for right now!

It's been two months since then. My only diet since the apocalypse started has been cup ramen noodles, canned tuna, and recently canned peaches. I was actually planning to do a scavenge run once tomorrow, though I am not expectin...

Chapter 22: Another Test

I have decided to call these crystals monster cores. It felt thematic just calling them that in my current environment.

Anyway, these monster cores can be used as a mana battery. That is great news. I have been trying to look for a solution to my slow mana recovery. Now with these monster cores, I won't have to worry about my mana anymore!

I am not joking. By just jumping into an empty alternate world, I can essentially make duplicates of these mana stones for free. I don't need t...

Chapter 21: Monster Core

Since the apocalypse occurred, many things have changed. Additional laws have been added in the world, and conventional physics doesn't work the same as before the apocalypse. Billions of people have died, and hundreds of millions more continue to perish due to the great changes this new era has introduced to reality. The continuous aggressive mutations of many beings in the world, along with the emergence of new ones that could only be referred to as aliens, would normally curb the populatio...

Chapter 20: Mysterious Crystals

That took a week. I didn't plan for it to last for a week. At most, after three days of constantly pouring those car fuels on them, I'll be burning them to the ground. I didn't expect these plant monsters to be intelligent enough to understand that they were under attack, and they would be constantly doing a lot of weird things to prevent me from filling their entire ground with flammable gas.

I almost freaked out when the ground suddenly hollowed out below me or the time when some of t...

Chapter 19: Burning the Paradise

Sleeping on blankets bundled on top of another as a makeshift futon and a sleeping bag wasn't comfortable. When I woke up, I found myself lying sideways on the cold floor of the office. I don't feel that well-rested when I wake up. I'll have to consider making more copies of these blankets around the floor just to make my sleep more comfortable.

Anyway, after I woke up, I cleaned myself in the bathroom just beside this office and then wore a change of clothes, which was just a duplicate...

Chapter 18: Resolve

I pedaled my bike straight on the roads. When there were obstacles blocking my path, like abandoned cars or random debris from nowhere, I didn't stop and pedaled harder. My body, along with the bike I'm riding, passed through those obstacles like they were holograms as I continued on my way.

I ran away again...

Am I really that pathetic? Always running at the first sign of trouble in my life?

I know complaining like this is just stupid. I can't fight against that. Those tent...

Chapter 17: Still Alive

... I'm still alive.

I don't know how, but I'm still alive.

It's so sudden that even the sight of the lashing tentacles in front of me doesn't make me flail around in panic due to the shock of just what happened.

I fell five stories above, and I'm still alive!

How?

I don't know.

I just fell headfirst into the concrete, and instead of feeling the hard concrete, it feels like I just landed on some sort of cushion. I don't hear any sound of bones breaking, nor...

Chapter 16: Abrupt End

It's early in the morning, and here I am tying a makeshift rope made from bundled-up strings on the stairs and then attaching bells on them. After doing that, I step back and point my hand before uttering the words of my new technique.

"Rewrite."

The rope, along with the bell, loses its color after I push my intent on it, making it a part of the scenery of this colorless world.

This is an alarm system that I thought up after looking at all of the loot I got from this floor. ...

Chapter 15: Confirmation of Alternate Dimension Hopping

In the following days, I spent my time hunting monsters on the floor below and doing scavenge runs on the other rooms within the Faded World. Then, a week has already passed. I've scavenged anything I felt useful in this entire floor, and they were now within my room. With some of my haul, I've used them to improve the fortifications around my room, even using some of them to block the entrance to the porch connected to my bedroom.

The situation outside was turning worse. I've seen a fl...

Chapter 14: Rebuilding

The whole day, I spent fortifying my location by making blockades on the stairs and the hallways leading to my room. I learned from my mistake on my first defense.

Just having blockades in my entrance wouldn't necessarily help me. They would simply stall them. If it would just stall anyway, then I might as well put multiple blockades to alarm me of their arrival. I could also make traps while I'm at it!

I simply jumped into a dead alternate world instead of going to a Faded World,...