Three days had passed since I got my computer.
I could only use it for one hour a day, so the total time I’d been able to touch this computer was only three hours. In my previous life, I could have created a simple prototype in just three hours, but now things were completely different.
“…As expected, my hands are small.”
I tried placing both hands on the keyboard. A five-year-old’s fingers were inefficient at even a single keystroke, and I had to spread my fingers considerably to use shortcuts. The mouse was also a bit large, and I had to move my wrist a lot to reach the edge.
And it wasn’t just the body. The used laptop in front of me was also surprisingly slow by my previous life’s standards.
When I executed the process, the fan started spinning vigorously. I stared at the screen and waited, but the results didn’t come back right away.
“Do your best. There’s only a little time left.”
I couldn’t help but encourage my computer.
After waiting a few more seconds, the process finally completed.
“Okay…”
I let out a small breath.
In my previous life, the moment I passed an instruction to a computing machine, the result was returned to me. Of course, it would be strange to compare it with that. This was a used laptop I got as a present for my fifth birthday, and it wasn’t meant to be used as a planet-sized computer.
Still, I couldn’t help but wish it was just a little faster.
As I was thinking about this, my mother’s voice came from across the hallway.
“Yuuu, it’s almost an hour.”
When I looked at the clock, there was very little time left.
“Three more minutes! I haven’t saved it!”
“Yesterday you said three minutes, but you took five, didn’t you?”
“Today it’ll really be over in three minutes!”
“Then just one minute.”
“Isn’t it too much to go from three minutes to one minute?”
“That negotiation took up a minute.”
“That’s unfair after all!”
“Okay, fifty seconds left.”
“It’s already started!?”
The negotiations were a complete failure.
I hurriedly saved the last data, made sure all the necessary files were there, and then closed the program. Just as I turned off the power, my mother looked into the room.
“Did you finish properly today?”
“Just barely. But even yesterday, it was only five minutes over.”
“If you go over by even five minutes, you haven’t kept your promise. Today you kept it, so that’s great.”
“That’s a big difference from yesterday…”
Mother smiled with satisfaction and left the room.
I stared at the darkened screen for a while.
Over the three days, I’d only been able to actually work for three hours. I’d cut out most of the things I wanted to do, and the list of compromises was endless.
Still, it had taken shape.
“…Complete, I guess.”
The first game I made in my second life was finally finished to the point where it could be played.
◇
The setting was a village and the forest surrounding it.
A river flows a little further away, and beyond that there are mountains. There are only 20 villagers, and the player lives in the village as a hunter.
If you go into the forest, you can hunt deer, wild boars, rabbits, and so on, and sometimes you’ll encounter dangerous animals like wolves. If you bring the prey back to the village, the meat is used as food, and the hide and horns are used as materials.
You can sell them to improve your own equipment, or you can provide them to the village as materials. If you collect enough wood and stone, fences and houses can be built, and if there are more places to live, new residents may eventually arrive.
On the other hand, prey isn’t the only thing outside the village. Dangerous creatures sometimes emerge from the forest, and if left unchecked, they can cause damage to livestock and fields. If you’re unlucky, villagers may even lose their lives.
That’s why you hunt. Protect the village. As a result, the small village gradually changes.
The title is 《LITTLE FRONTIER》.
A small settlement.
There’s no twist, but I think it’s an easy-to-understand name for a first game.
To be honest, I’d wanted the world to be wider.
Several villages, each with a different industry and culture. Another cultural area beyond the mountains, with people and goods moving along trade routes. Weather calculated from atmospheric pressure, temperature, and moisture content, and plants and animals infused with genetic information, allowing them to change their properties in response to changes in the environment.
If you hunt too much, the prey decreases, and the creatures that feed on it move as well. When a forest is cleared, the flow of water changes, and over many years, people’s culture and power structures change too.
I thought that if I could take it that far, it would be more interesting.
However, it was simply impossible with this computer’s performance.
I had no choice but to simplify the animal behavior calculations and minimize the plant growth calculations. The NPCs’ long-term memory had a capacity limit, and the accuracy of the physics calculations had been reduced.
The graphics were also quite compromised. The scattering calculation for sunlight filtering through the trees was rough, and reflections on the water surface only worked at short distances. The distant view wasn’t very satisfactory by the standards of my previous life either.
I was very dissatisfied with it, but there was no point in trying to make something perfect from the start.
First, have someone play it.
I can think about whether it’s interesting or not afterward.
◇
After dinner, my father was watching TV on the sofa in the living room.
After hesitating a little, I walked in front of him.
“Dad. The game I was talking about the other day is ready, so I want you to try it out.”
Dad glanced at the TV once, then looked at me.
“It’s done already? It’s only been three days since we bought the computer.”
“I was limited to one hour a day, so I actually only worked for about three hours.”
“Hearing that makes it feel even faster.”
Dad put down the remote control with a wry smile.
“Well, since Yuu went to the trouble of making it, I’ll be your first customer.”
“I guess you’re more of a tester than a customer.”
“When a five-year-old suddenly starts using technical terms, dads get a little nervous.”
“Just play it and tell me whether you enjoyed it or not. That’s all.”
“Then leave it to me.”
The moment I heard that reply, my heart felt a little warm.
In my previous life, the people I showed my prototypes to were researchers or soldiers. Performance, output, durability, productivity. It was always the numbers that were evaluated.
It was different this time.
Just having someone play it.
Even though it was just that, I was strangely happy.
I carried the computer to the table in the living room, turned it on, and handed the mouse to my father.
“Click this icon to start.”
“This one?”
When my father clicked, the screen went black, and a few seconds later a forest appeared.
The morning sun was shining through the gaps in the trees, and the morning dew left on the leaves glittered finely. When the wind passed, the grass swayed, and then, a little later, the branches and leaves rustled.
Birds could be heard in the distance, and in the narrow river, broken light swayed along the current. Beyond that, past the forest, a small village could be seen.
Dad went silent.
“What’s wrong?”
“No… wait a minute.”
Dad pointed at me without taking his eyes off the screen.
“Yuu, you really made this, right?”
“That’s right. It took me three days.”
“Not just the background?”
“The whole game.”
“This forest too?”
“Of course.”
“The sound too?”
“I prepared it.”
“In three hours?”
“I cut it down quite a bit.”
The smile from earlier had disappeared from my father’s expression.
Rather than doubting, his face looked like he was thinking about how to make sense of it.
“This isn’t a video that only plays at the beginning, right?”
“It’s not a movie. You can actually control it, so try it.”
“…Got it.”
Dad carefully placed his hand on the mouse.
After I briefly explained how to move, run, crouch, and use a bow, Dad slowly began to make the character walk.
When the character entered the grass, the grass it stepped on bent down, and after a while it slowly rose back up.
“…It’s actually a game.”
“It is a game.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Dad thought it’d be more like… a rectangle moving around inside the screen.”
“Then it wouldn’t need three hours.”
“Isn’t that a pretty strange thing to say?”
Although my father was taken aback, he laughed a little with amusement.
After walking around the village for a while, an old man with a white beard caught his eye.
“Can I talk to this person?”
“I think you can talk to him if you get closer.”
When my father walked up to the old man, the old man turned toward him.
“Good morning. Are you going to the eastern forest today?”
Father’s hand stopped.
“East?”
“I think it’s because there was talk in the village that someone saw a deer there yesterday.”
“Wait… isn’t that a line Yuu wrote?”
“I’ve prepared conversation material, but he chooses what to say based on the situation at the time. He also remembers what’s happened up until yesterday to some extent.”
“Who is this old man?”
“That’s just how he is.”
Dad looked at the old man.
The old man, having nothing more to say, seemed to lose interest in us and sat down in a nearby chair.
Dad spoke to him again.
“Stay away from the west. The number of wolf tracks is increasing. If you really have to go, come back early.”
Dad’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“Is this also decided on the spot?”
“Wolves really are increasing in the west, so if there are villagers who know about it, there’s a chance they’ll talk about it.”
“…I see.”
I didn’t know if he was convinced or if he’d just stopped thinking about it.
Dad looked at the old man for a while, then shook his head slightly.
“I’ll just try playing it for now.”
“I think that’s the easier way to understand it.”
Dad left the village and headed for the eastern forest.
As he walked through the trees, something moved at the edge of the screen.
“Oh, it’s a deer.”
Dad’s voice rose a little.
He kept approaching it, but after a few steps, the deer looked up. Its ears moved and the tip of its nose lifted a little.
The next moment, the deer ran away deep into the forest.
“Ah.”
Dad looked at the screen in shock.
“I was still pretty far away, wasn’t I?”
“It noticed you.”
“Did I make a noise?”
“I think it’s more about the direction of the wind.”
“Wind direction?”
When I pointed at the screen, the leaves and grass were swaying in the same direction.
The wind was blowing from our side toward where the deer had been.
“Does that mean the smell went over there?”
“Deer have good noses. If you’re going to approach them head-on, you should consider that as well.”
“It’s a game about hunting, so why go that far…”
Dad thought about it for a while, and then his face became strangely serious.
“Let’s look for another one.”
He walked around the forest again and found another deer.
This time he didn’t approach it right away. After checking the swaying of the leaves on the trees, he took a long detour, moved downwind and hid in the bushes.
“How about this?”
“I think it’s much better than before.”
The deer was still eating grass.
Dad readied his bow, aimed for a while, and then released an arrow.
It missed.
“…I definitely hit it just now.”
“It was a little low.”
“No, it was right on target.”
“If it had hit, the deer would’ve fallen.”
“Is there a chance the game’s hit detection is wrong?”
“I won’t say it’s impossible, but what I just saw was an ordinary miss.”
“One more time.”
Dad became completely serious.
After that, he spent about five minutes looking for another deer, and this time he checked the direction of the wind as he followed it.
And then.
“Okay!”
The arrow he shot hit the deer.
The moment the deer fell, my father clenched his fist.
“I got it!”
“Your first successful hunt. Congratulations.”
“I’m happier about this than I expected.”
When he butchered the deer he’d killed, he obtained deer meat, hide, and antlers as materials.
“Should I sell all the meat?”
“You can do whatever you want.”
“Then I’ll make money.”
Dad returned to the village and headed to the butcher’s shop.
When he entered the shop, the butcher looked at him and laughed.
“Oh, you caught something nice today. That’s a good deer.”
Dad looked a little surprised.
“Does this guy even know the size of the deer?”
“He’ll understand when he sees it.”
“If he were human, maybe.”
After checking the deer meat for a while, the butcher spoke.
“I can buy seven pieces. I don’t need anything more than that today.”
Father’s hand stopped.
“Only seven?”
“I guess he doesn’t need any more today.”
“Why doesn’t he buy them all?”
“There are only twenty villagers, and he still has stock from yesterday. Even if he bought everything, they wouldn’t be able to use it all.”
“It’s a game, so he could just buy everything.”
“The butcher would lose money too.”
“Does a butcher think about profit and loss?”
“He’s running a business, so of course he thinks about it.”
Dad looked at me. I looked at my father too.
After a few seconds, Dad turned back to the screen, as if he’d given up on something.
“…I’ll sell seven for now.”
When he went around the village with the leftover meat, the innkeeper bought two pieces. He put one in his pantry, but there was still some left over.
“What do I do with the rest?”
“You can either dry it to preserve it, give it to someone else, or eat it yourself.”
“What if I just keep it like this?”
“It’ll rot.”
“Really?”
“It’s meat.”
“This game is tough on meat.”
“It’s the same with real meat.”
“It’d be nice if the game went a little easier on me.”
“Thinking about how to preserve it is the fun part.”
“Is that how you think…”
After thinking for a while, my father processed the leftover meat into dried meat.
After finishing that task, he let out a small laugh.
“This is interesting.”
I couldn’t help but look at my father.
However, my father remained focused on the screen and didn’t notice my reaction.
That’s why I was so happy to hear those words.
“What should I do next?”
“You can go wherever you like.”
After a moment of hesitation, Father pointed the camera toward the west side of the village.
“The old man said there were wolves to the west.”
“He did say that.”
“Then let’s go.”
“I think it’s dangerous.”
“That’s why I’m going.”
Dad left the village, laughing a little happily.
The trees in the west forest were denser than on the east side, and the deeper he went into the forest, the fewer birds could be heard.
Eventually, a low growl was heard.
Dad’s attitude changed.
“…They’re really here.”
Three wolves appeared from between the trees.
“Three!?”
Dad hurriedly raised his bow and fired the first shot.
One hit.
However, the remaining two started running all at once.
“Whoa! Wait a minute!”
Although he killed one with the second shot, the last one got inside his guard. His character was attacked with claws and his health dropped sharply.
“This is going to kill me!”
“I think you should run away.”
“Say that sooner!”
“The old man said so.”
“I’m talking about now!”
Dad ran toward the village as fast as he could.
The wolf followed right behind.
“It’s fast! Isn’t it faster than the deer from earlier!?”
“Because it’s a wolf.”
“I know, but it’s scary!”
Eventually, the village came into view beyond the trees.
“I’m saved!”
The moment my father dashed through the village entrance, the bell rang.
The scene in the village changed completely as the bell rang loudly.
An adult ran up to the children who were playing in the square and took them inside a house. Women in the fields left their baskets behind and ran, and the elderly also evacuated into buildings.
Meanwhile, hunters were picking up bows, and woodcutters were gathering at the village entrance with axes in hand.
“Wait. What’s going on?”
“Probably because the wolf came to the village.”
“Because I brought it here?”
“I guess so.”
A wolf jumped out of the forest.
Arrows immediately flew, and the woodcutter swung his axe down at it from the front.
The wolf collapsed.
After a while, the bell stopped ringing, and the evacuated villagers gradually came out of their homes.
From among them, the old man from earlier walked toward us.
“That was dangerous.”
When the old man came in front of the hunter controlled by my father, he continued, looking exasperated.
“That’s why I told you to stay away from the west. Next time, listen to what people tell you.”
Dad slowly looked at me.
“Is this an event?”
“It’s the result of what happened.”
“You didn’t plan an event where a wolf gets brought in, right?”
“I haven’t prepared anything as rigid as that. If a dangerous creature comes to the village, they ring the bell and evacuate.”
“The people who could fight gathered with weapons.”
“If they don’t protect the village, they’ll be in trouble.”
“The children ran away first.”
“Because they can’t fight.”
“The old man came to complain to me.”
“Probably because he warned you earlier.”
Dad stared at the screen for a while, then looked at me.
I turned my attention back to the screen.
“Yuu.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You really made this in three days, right?”
“Three hours of computer time.”
“Did someone help you?”
“Who would I ask?”
“Did you download the game itself from the internet?”
“I only used basic data for the materials, but I made the game itself.”
“Did you modify an existing game?”
“I didn’t.”
“…I see.”
Dad crossed his arms and thought for a while, then suddenly stood up.
“I’ll call Mom.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know how to handle this all by myself.”
I don’t think it’s a very difficult game.
◇
“Did Yuu really make this?”
As soon as my mother sat down next to my father, she looked at the screen and said that.
“I checked several times too.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
“I couldn’t believe it either, so I guess it can’t be helped.”
Dad resumed the game.
It was evening in the game.
The sun was setting behind the mountains, and the entire village was starting to turn orange.
The butcher turned over the sign at the front of the shop, and the woodcutter carried his axe over his shoulder and headed home. The villagers in the fields had finished their work and were heading home with their baskets.
Some parents came to pick up their children who were playing in the square.
Soon, lights began to come on in the windows of the houses one by one.
“…It’s beautiful.”
Mother whispered.
“I worked really hard on the evening light.”
“Making this in three hours is already more than enough…”
Mother laughed as if she was taken aback.
“But isn’t it really amazing? Until yesterday, I was wondering what you were doing with your little hands stretched out in front of your computer, but you were making something like this.”
“Thank you.”
I was praised.
Just that, and yet I felt a warmth in my chest.
I had been praised many times in my previous life.
When a new weapon was completed.
When the performance of the computing system was upgraded.
When I analyzed the enemy’s attacks.
When I shot down enemy craft on the battlefield.
I was even called a genius, a hero, and the hope of humanity. But now it was different.
When my mother saw the sunset I made, she simply said it was beautiful.
That alone made me much happier than back then.
“…Huh?”
Dad brought his face closer to the screen.
“Has something changed on the outskirts of the village?”
I looked at the screen too.
Wood and stone were piled up in a place where there had been nothing until yesterday, and several villagers were gathered there.
One person was setting up pillars, and another was carrying wood.
The foundation of a house was beginning to form on the ground.
“Ah. Looks like they’ve started building a house.”
“Aren’t you the one making them build it, Yuu?”
“I set the amount of materials and the construction conditions needed, but I didn’t decide when to build.”
“Then why now?”
“I think it’s because they now have enough wood and stone. There aren’t many empty houses either.”
“Did the villagers see that and decide for themselves?”
“That’s how it works.”
Dad turned his attention to the screen again.
One of the villagers who was working saw the sun go down and finished his work. After putting away his tools, he returned home, and the remaining two also stopped working a little later.
“Are they going to continue tomorrow?”
“Probably. Unless something else takes priority.”
“What if the wolf comes again?”
“They might prioritize that.”
“What if they run out of food?”
“There’s a chance people will be sent out to hunt and gather.”
Dad fell silent.
Personally, I hadn’t intended to do anything that special.
If people are living there, they look at the situation.
They figure out what’s missing. They act if necessary.
That’s all.
However, my father was staring at the screen as if he were seeing something outrageous.
Eventually, he let out a small breath.
“Yuu. This will sell.”
He suddenly said that, and this time it was my turn to look at my father.
“Sell it?”
“That’s not what I mean. If it were released as a product, there’d be people who’d pay money to play it. At least I’d buy it.”
“But it’s still not quite complete.”
“This?”
“I’ve cut quite a lot out.”
“For example?”
Since I was asked, I answered honestly.
“I’ve simplified the animal behavior calculations. Plant growth is also pretty rough, and the villagers’ long-term memory has a capacity limit. The accuracy of the physics calculations has also dropped, and the forest is narrow. There’s only one river.”
“Wait, wait.”
“Actually, I should increase the number of villages and add trade…”
“That’s enough.”
“I haven’t even told you half of it yet.”
“It’s fine. I feel like hearing more will just scare me more.”
That’s rude.
My mother laughed out loud beside me.
“Dad, you’re so surprised you look exhausted. But Yuu looks like he’s having fun.”
Being told that made me conscious of my own face.
It definitely was fun.
There were many things I wanted to improve.
I wanted it to be wider. I wanted to increase the number of people. I wanted to make the world more complex.
However, apart from that.
I enjoyed watching my father chase deer.
Seeing him struggle to sell all his meat, ignore the old man’s advice and get chased by a wolf, and be surprised by what happened on screen was a different kind of fun from making the game.
Someone other than me was playing something I made.
That alone made me happier than I’d expected.
The night finally gave way to dawn.
The morning sun shone over the mountains, and the village bell rang to signal the start of the day.
The doors of the houses opened, the butcher opened his shop, and the woodcutter carried his axe and headed into the forest.
Villagers were starting to gather again at yesterday’s construction site.
Dad watched this for a while, then placed his hand on the mouse again.
“Hey, Yuu. Can I play a little longer?”
“If Dad uses it, it doesn’t count toward my hour, right?”
I looked at my mother too.
My mother looked at my father’s face and laughed in exasperation.
“You just want to play, don’t you?”
“No, it’s just to check. You won’t know what kind of game it is unless you look a little closer.”
“Didn’t you just say you’d be done after hunting one deer?”
“The situation has changed.”
“In the game?”
“Inside me.”
My mother burst out laughing.
“Then, until that house is built.”
“Understood.”
Dad immediately turned to the screen.
No matter how you looked at his profile, he looked like he was having fun.
I brought a chair next to my father and watched the screen with him for a while.
Eventually, I really wanted to ask.
“Dad. You said earlier that it would sell… is it really that interesting?”
Dad didn’t answer right away, but thought for a while as he watched the villager carrying a pillar on the screen.
“It’s interesting. At first I thought I’d just hunt one deer and be done with it, but now I want to see that house completed, and I’m also curious about who’ll live there once it’s done. And after seeing that, I’ll probably get curious about something else.”
Dad laughed happily.
“Isn’t this what you’d call a game you don’t know when to stop playing?”
“…I see.”
I wasn’t called a genius.
Not a hero either.
I didn’t even save humanity.
However, my father played the game I made and wanted to see what happened next.
That’s all, so why am I this happy?
On the screen, villagers were assembling the pillars of a new house one by one.
A small clearing, only slightly larger than yesterday.
I stayed next to him, watching my father play.
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