Jack was now sitting right in front of his computer and was reading a certain book about basic programming.
Seriously though, he already had tears at the corners of his eyes from all the reading and yawning that this activity brought with it.
"Haaaa~...Man, I will fall asleep at this rate. I forgot how boring studying was." Grumbling under his breath he looked over to the other books that he loaned from the local library.
Those books all were some sort of basic to advanced material for different classes like math, chemistry, and so on that he would very likely have in school soon.
And that he actually had to pay a membership fee didn't make it any better. His aunt was right about material costs. Not even trying to outsmart consumerism with the library worked. It was better than nothing though.
Sure, he still had most of the memories and knowledge that his old personality had and it also did start to bleed into his own but it still wasn't complete.
And since he did quiet school at 16, he needed to get back to a certain level to not make a fool out of himself.
All that aside, he also needed to start learning how to write his own programs on the computer.
There was just too much to do and so limited time.
At least his progress was not half bad for just a few hours of putting his head into books and using his computer to take theory into action slightly.
It even felt weirdly easy to understand all the material. Guess those genetic traits did have their advantages - being a supposed genius and all that.
[Coding - 4/50]
It made him feel kinda jealous of gifted people, though. Even if he was basically one now as well now.
Oh, and there were also some other things he noticed about his skills.
Things like accumulating knowledge did increase his intelligence stat. So reading how-to books and gaining skills about technical and mental stuff did give him a plus there.
When he tried to improve his drawing a little while thinking about a company logo for the future games he would release, he noticed that his agility increased.
Meaning anything that had to do with fine arts made a plus there.
To make sure he was right about most of it, he also practices his air guitar. You know, since he did not own a real one yet.
But surprisingly his movements were so precise while imagining the guitar being there in his head, he still gained the [Guitar] skill. And from all his experience washing over to this new body after a few minutes, it stood at a whopping 12/50 from the get-go.
Sure, somehow Jack felt a little bit concerned that it was not on a higher level but he knew his body was just not entirely used to it yet. Hopefully, that is. But then again, practice makes perfect.
The more important part is that he could now say that he was a musician with the corresponding skills.
All in all, it was a pleasant surprise how his system worked. It definitely rewarded effort. That is when you put aside all the other bonuses it gave...
---
Jack Frost - Male - 18 Years Old
Level 2 - Exp 5/20
- Attributes -
Strength: 8 (+5)
Agility: 13 (+2)
Endurance: 8 (+4)
Intelligence: 11 (+5)
Looks: 17 (+5)
Charisma: 14 (+2)
- Traits -
Herculean: +5 Strength, +2 Endurance, 2+ Agility
Beautiful: +5 Looks, +2 Charisma
Genius: +5 Intelligence
Fecund: +50% Fertility, +2 Endurance
- Main Skills -
Sculpting - 1/50
Drawing - 3/50
Singing - 6/50
Guitar - 12/50
Drums - 9/50
Bass - 11/50
Coding - 4/50
-Sub Skills-
English - 5/5
Spanish - 2/5
Italian - 1/5
Russian - 1/5
French - 1/5
Attribute Points: 1
Skill Points: 5
---
Apparently, linguistics did fall under its own category. He even got 15 exp for learning a few new languages.
That is, being specific, French, Italian, and Russian.
Spanish was already a thing the old body had from his former High School and since his grandparents were living in Spain, that was an obvious thing to have. Though, he didn't seem to be that good.
Hopefully one of those is a language that he has to take in school. The woman working in the library sadly couldn't help him by telling him what courses currently were offered to students at the local university.
So that is also why he took a bunch of language books for beginners. Not that it would actually help him in any way. That 1/5 is seriously the bare minimum to understand some basic stuff.
Maybe by now you also noticed his attribute points and skill points have changed but he was going to save those for later as KISS had suggested.
They could actually have gone to zero already if he didn't hold back at the last second.
And that definitely doesn't have anything to do with him being pissed about the voice rating he got from his system or anything.
'Singing 6/50 my ass. Damn program judging my skills...'
Yep, he was mad about it. But KISS stated it was because of this body's hoarse vocal cords that had never been used for such a thing as singing.
It even gave him a raspy voice that easily cracked under pressure. Not that it was bad. For Rock, it was a great voice. But for clear songs, it was useless until he trained it more.
Thinking about all that made him somewhat annoyed again and he closed the book for now and put it aside so that he could stretch himself again.
'Enough theory. I will use the last few hours to get myself some practice done.' It was already 6:13 pm and he should get some practice for his voice most and foremost.
That being said, he got stuck on something else entirely.
The logo of his future game company was already hanging on a post-it note on his screen and staring back at him.
It was basically a green neon-colored diamond outline with a chimpanzee inside it wearing 80's reflective sunglasses with a reversed cap on the head and some colorful leather vest.
While the primate was playing an arcade machine right in front of him, everyone that was looking straight at this logo would be basically stared back at by the chimpanzee.
So you only saw the controls and the smirking chimpanzee. Under that, there was the name -Primal Games- in stylized neon letters.
It was really rough and many notes around it described how it should look when someday finished.
Seriously, it barely resembled any of what it should be. So it had no aesthetics, but it was a start.
All these things said, he did end up focusing on this instead of his vocal training and also wound up registering an account on Vapor.
Filling out the forms for publishing a game, etc. took a nasty amount of paperwork. The indie-friendly platform was not yet a thing after all. Or better to say they were not aware of the money inflow from indie developers as of yet.
Luckily for him, you still could pre-register a title with a general description of it without it being too problematic.
Taking away the possibility of others stealing that exact same name.
Not that he does it himself...Well, what doesn't exist yet is just first come first serve.
So the two games that he was registering, for now, were some very basic ones he had confidence in programming over time. That is if they even really ended up being published. That was still up to the platform Vapor to decide.
At least if they wanted money, they would greenlight it.
The two games were respectfully called Minecraft and Five Nights At Freddy's. One is an open-world game and the other is a survival horror.
There was also a third one he was thinking about creating but he refrained from it for now and just put a sidenote to consider them for later. He would need to make research into that one since using SCP material was a tricky thing.
Especially since the SCP Website actually did exist here. He wouldn't want to end up like that Russian clown claiming stuff unrightfully.
Also, two horror games would somewhat give his company a stigma for only doing those sorts of games.
So Jack would definitely start with FNAF first and later push out Minecraft. Both had the potential to grow exponentially later in the years. After that, he would do some lighter titles in various genres.
That being said he started to get himself familiar with the software he downloaded. And obviously all legal and that. No weird assumptions here...
When hours passed and this continued on even to the next day, it was kinda scary to see him so focused on something.
He was nearly nonstop typing away at his keyboard like some maniac.
Jack had not even noticed that time was flowing away like water until it was already 3:45 pm of the next day, Sunday. Not much even remained of that last free day.
"Finally done." He tapped the last keystroke and saved all his progress on the hard drive and grinned happily. "This was easier than I thought." He scratched his chin lightly and looked at the coded mesh of commands that represented his game.
Some things still caught his notice while flying over it but with an easy fix he could later correct it.
"The rough construct is done. Now I need to polish the rough designs of the models and backgrounds, sweep the code a little...Record my voice lines for phone guy...Wait, what time is it?"
Only now did he notice the clock after turning to his phone. 'What the hell!? Did I work through the night on the code?' A migraine suddenly rose up to his head after he sighed.
Then when he glanced at his status he widened his eyes. He somehow reached level 3 and there was also something else glaring at him.
[Sculpting - 23/50]
[Drawing - 25/50]
[Coding - 36/50]
'Wait! KISS, what the fuck is this?' Jack was flabbergasted by the immense increase in skill.
[Host didn't notice, but you fell into a very high state of concentration. Most commonly referred to as -the zone-. In that state, your brain activity was overloading. So, congratulations to the Host for achieving a great task. I made sure to keep your body healthy and increased the recovery rate for the duration of your immersion. Though I didn't manage to block the small nosebleed.]
Jack wiped one finger under his nose and saw some old crusted blood on it.
'The zone? For real? But what about all the information containing the story? I don't remember all of it and would need to think about it even after having done my research in my old life.'
Yeah, call him a nerd, but he actually liked story-rich games with a mystery to them. Something that made you use your head even if it was just assuming things.
[It looks like you managed to remember most of it and saved it inside a note on your computer.]
Jack sighed. "It's your doing again, isn't it?"
[I'm enabling you to deep dive into your memories but it is only a passive trait you yourself need to actively use...]
Meaning he had a pseudo-photographic memory of his old life. Well, he did feel out of it but still, that was kinda weird.
When he started thinking about the story again and its details, he sure enough suddenly came up with the answers.
There were even massive amounts of drawings and sketches now lying all around on his desk and floor with various model designs.
At first, there were a lot of rough scatches. Like stick man and ripped stuff that was mostly lying in his bin.
But there were also a lot of actual good drawings in a neat stack on his desk beside him that clearly showed the iconic creepy animatronics on them in a very detailed definition.
Looking over to the scanner/printer he could still see a piece of paper in it that depicted the star of the game, Freddy, and even his friends standing side by side looking straight at him.
Somehow he got slight goosebumps from the way those eyes stared. Above them was the title of the game.
'I did all this in just one day? Damn...' What Jack meant by that was that the amount of stuff he saw was inhuman.
Granted, it was not really one of the most staggeringly high-quality triple-A games, but it was still something that should have taken him at least 2 to 3 months at the bare minimum.
Now though, he was sitting in front of a nearly finished game. Coded in what looked like its own thrown-together engine. And one may think you don't expect much from a simple game like that, but even that is a lot of coding when you seriously start from scratch.
It made him wonder why he didn't use the downloaded engine. A short moment later he nodded to himself that it was easier to make a custom-made small engine instead of implementing everything into an engine where he needed to figure everything out first.
Let's just say magic happened. Yeah, that should do it.
Looking around further there were even rough 3D models of the characters, designed backgrounds, promotional art, at least it looked like it, and the game itself all over the place on his desktop.
'Wait, what!!?' Jack got shocked by another program he found on his desktop as well that was labeled -recording software, beta state-
Not only did he work on the game code but he also made a damn recording software that literally was only there for making the voice cover for the antagonist and recording certain cutscenes as well as instrumentals.
Did he actually do that because he lacked those licenses? The books about programming and other computer-related material were obviously opened and read. There were even highlighted parts with a marker.
'Crap, I even fucked up the books. Let's hope no one notices.'
Though he had to note, his singing did not improve one bit. It was kinda frustrating. Somehow he felt like it would have been amazing if he managed to improve that in his previous state.
'It's not like I will ever enter it again so soon.'
[That is unlikely. But the Host should be happy nonetheless.]
'I got it already. No need to rub it in. Let's see.' he looked through the stuff on his computer and slowly took everything in that he did over the span of the last 24 hours.
'I can upload these to Vapor for sneak peeks. Just gotta add a watermark and work in progress...' He dragged a few pictures that were already done in the creative suite that would serve as presentations of the game.
'Update release date to this month...I think that is possible...' That he would ever have to do something like this was unbelievable. It made him even smirk lightly. 'Hmm, it could even end up going online just right in time for Halloween...'
'Now, update the better version of the company logo with color...' That one was kinda stupid. He wondered what the employees at Vapor would think about him sending in a shitty logo first and then updating it the next day.
And the last thing he did was register a company account on YouTube, thank god the platform had the same name, and uploaded the trailer under it.
Breathing in and out he pushed himself away from the computer and rubbed his eyes softly with his right hand.
At that moment his stomach grumbled.
'Figures.' He stood up and walked out of his room. When he was in the kitchen he looked inside the fridge and used some ingredients to make himself a small meal.
The best would be something with protein for his planned workout regime that he would do later. Well, he did plan it yesterday but guess what. Unexpected events kinda throw out your planning.
So after making himself some basic omelet with milk and gaining the [Cooking] skill he started devouring it rapidly. The huge portion soon went down his gullet.
While he ate his meal he noticed that his aunt was out. Guess she is a busy person even on free days.
She and Jack were really related in that matter.
Cheers.
And before anyone asks. I know, YouTube is called GooTube in this world but I said fuck it. Keep it normal.
It's actually annoying to always rethink how things were actually called there.
Though I did still keep in that line with Vapor. That one was all my idea. Not sure anymore if Steam was ever mentioned in the game anyway <.<