Chapter 3

"I'm not satisfied"

"Me neither"

Akilah and Deniz (who now looked like an Architect, 'Cause man, the kid loved it when Akilah introduced them) weren't happy with the results.

They spent the whole week working on Subnautica, but they could only make a demo, which was, honestly, not ideal, but passable.

"We can use this week to slowly update the game" Akilah suggested "Or we can spend the entire week doing the whole thing and release it after the competition"

"I'd rather do the second"

Deniz has been moody ever since they noticed that they couldn't release the whole game in one go, especially since Amy's development has been going smoothly.

Making things overly detailed was hard, even more so when they are supposed to be big or have their own course of action like the Leviathans.

That might be easier with an A rank Seed or an S rank Seed, but Deniz was a F rank seed, so Akilah developed a new method.

Scale down the game.

Everything might look big, but it's just because he made Ryely small in comparison.

The Reaper was actually just as long as his arm.

Deniz had loved the idea, especially when they thought they might not make it because of the sheer scale of everything.

But then came the problem of making the creatures.

They were all extremely different from what Deniz was used to, so they have been having problems with it, and Akilah has been doing his best to help around too, but his mana was limited.

It was completely different from Slime Rancher.

Amy's game was much more simple, with no need for overly complex designs, nor extremely technologically advanced weapons.

Around 60% of her game was ready already, and that's because she kept stopping to hug the slimes and play around with them, or her game might have been finished before Deniz's, and she didn't even need Akilah to help around that much.

The only good thing Akilah and Deniz gained from all this was fast adaptation.

The more they made, the faster and more efficient they became on the production, so they might as well finish the game faster than predicted.

That still left Deniz mad, and Akilah could see that.

So, in the moment that a warm feeling crossed his heart, he smiled.

"Come on bud" He said "Seems like someone had started playing, let's go take a look"

This warm feeling that he felt was mana being injected into the game.

Their first player had arrived, and so was their time to see what others thought of Subnautica.

***

"This place is so beautiful!"

Jayleen could only admire the game as she moved her arms and legs underwater.

She had jumped in the water to start exploring, stopping to contemplate the world.

It was so beautiful…

She stayed like this for a moment longer, then started to move again, exploring this new world.

The first thing she did was to catch a fish, a violet pretty fish that looked much bigger now that she had it in her hand.

"Damn! Even the movements are realistic!"

The fish fought on her hand, although it wasn't that strong, it did have good pulling strength, and it didn't look like a stiff board, but moving like an actual fish.

Jay had traveled a lot because of work, she visited many planets and saw many creatures including fish. She herself was on a spaceship right now, coming back to the capital with her team.

As she gave her bars a quick look to see if she still had oxygen, Jay wondered if she could eat this and wished she had something to store this fish.

Just as she thought that, the fish in her hand disappeared into a light that flew to her PDA.

Surprised, she took out the PDA and looked around for a bit, finding the fish in her 'inventory'.

"I really wish I had one of these" She commented.

The comments were full of agreement and urgency for her to get some air.

With that resolved, she put the PDA aside, swam to restore her oxygen reserves and dived down again to explore.

She met with many strange creatures (mostly strange fish that she could pick up) and she also picked up pretty much everything that she could (this strange mushroom should be useful, right? 'Cause she got a lot of it, and no way she'll keep all that scrap and giant seeds she found when it occupied so much space), but its most used action was swimming back to the surface to get air.

"I want a bigger oxygen tank" She announced "Food and water are also on the list.

It was starting to get annoying to swim up all the time, she actually had some close calls and she couldn't explore deeper without worrying.

That without mentioning the water and food situation.

So she returned to the pod (still damaged) and tried to find anything that could help.

Jay, indeed, found something.

To protein bars and two water bottles, to which she consumed as her hunger and thirst was getting dangerously low.

She also discovered the usefulness of the Fabricador, where she learned that the fish she had first caught could be used to make water, and the rest of the fish could be turned into food.

She was also fascinated by the fact that she could create practically everything she wanted with this.

She explored her options, pinned what she decided was exencial (oxygen tank, her beloved!), processed what she already had, stored what wasn't needed and back to the water she went, more excited now.

This was a game of survival, but it was fun in its own way.

She wanted to see what more she could make, what else there was to see, how to access deeper waters and to visit Aurora.

'This so fun!'

One day, Jay would look at this video and shake her head with a helpless smile, contemplating how naive she was at the time.

***

"Ok guys, i give up"

On the same ship, someone else was recording a live stream.

It was Keith, a Vtuber known as Bow.

He liked live streaming, but was a tad too shy to show his actual face and too reserved to mix his personal life with his virtual life, so he got a model and a voice changer.

The model was simple, the classic elf since he was an archer, and the voice was just a little bit off from his own, similar enough to be confused, but different enough for people to see it as a mistake.

His team knew it was ok with it, especially Mia, his girlfriend (who became his channel's manager) and Jayleen, the local celebrity who taught him how to properly create a channel and sometimes made a collab with him.

It was fun whenever it happened.

Well, generally speaking, streaming was fun.

But right now?

He was annoyed.

He was looking for something new to play and checked out the page where new developers posted their creations for their last text before graduating, but God, how annoying.

The games, all priced around 80 or more, were basically a copy paste from one another to the point where the only difference was the color of the monsters.

He didn't dare buy anything other than the first one (to which he got a refund since there was a one hour deadline before he was unable to do so), since they all pretty much looked the same.

That is, until Mia, who was looking through the comments, told him about one in particular.

"One of the guys on the chat said that JJ found a new game that appeared on the list today" She said "They say it's $50 cheaper then the one you buyed and it's much better"

That got his attention.

He went to the last page, not finding the game, which confused him for a moment, then he manually searched for ir, finding the game in the 864th position on the 99th page.

The game didn't even have an hour since its debut and it already jumped 136 placements.

Well, it was dirt cheap, so people must have bought it because of the price, but that's quite the feat, he had to admit.

That and Jayleen wasn't one to keep playing with the game wasn't good.

Curious, he looked at the description, discovering it to be a survival game about the sea.

"Should I give it a try?" He asked.

Everyone was eager to agree and even Mia was invested.

On that day Keith passed out on his capsule and was dragged out by Mia, who was a step from passing out too, but from laughter.