Subnautica's development was going rather well in the last two days.
The game was getting a lot of attention and more Players started playing, checking in the forum, it seems using the knife does help with training, swimming in the game helps getting used to underwater environments and the bars of food, water, oxygen and life were a good way to make Players more aware of their surroundings, also making it easier for Players to get hooked up.
Even E rank Players started playing even though it didn't give that much benefits for them.
With the sudden influx of players, he now had more mana available to make the game faster, probably at Friday or at the end of the exam on Saturday if things keep this pace, and with Amy's game close to finishing, he can actually make it available tomorrow along with the other little project that he had been tinkering, which Deniz themself urged him to do.
"She's so excited I'm afraid she might explode" Was their argument.
He pretended not to see the way their whole body seemed to radiate as much happiness as Amy.
After knowing the approximate date they could release the whole game, Deniz was very eager to finish it, and even more eager to have the chance to get Amy to share a similar joy with them.
So he would publish a trailer for Slime Rancher later on the day.
Everything seemed to be going well.
That is, apart from two things.
Carnage was still there, lurking around, poking everything that it deemed interesting (although it did like the slimes a bit for how soft they were, it prefered the Tar, and it fell in love with the Reaper Leviathan) and to pester Akilah into absorbing all the mana income he had to raise his rank faster, the few times they got to relax was when it had to go back and interact with its Game Developers, who got worried after noticing that their Seed conscience start wondering around.
That's actually how he got Heric's Game Station's contact info.
They apologized for their Seed's behavior, but also asked what it had been doing.
After a lot of chitchat, he was offered to sign a special one-time contract with them, putting his agreement with Carnage in a written form.
That brings us to the other situation.
"Come in"
Akilah was now in the principal's office, where the principal and a representative of Heric's Game Station was waiting for him.
Since he still wasn't an official Game Developer, he couldn't sign contracts without the presence of a professional Game Developer, in this case, the principal, who was more than willing to help students with intermediation and negotiation.
Well, not like it was needed this time.
"Are you sure it's ok?"
He looked at the representative with apprehension.
They came offering a 30% share of the profits of the game, 50% share in the name for it, and helped with the development of the game so the project could get started.
And since he would be moving back to the capital and they would start the game as he still had a long time before becoming a S Rank Game Developer, he would write down his techniques and ideas (that the principal helped register under his name to prevent theft) and give them instructions on how to proceed.
It sounded too much for him, like, why so many benefits?
The man smiled shyly and explained.
"This Seed, Carnage, as you call it, have been a bit difficult to deal with ever since we bought it, although our games managed to satisfy it at the start, it started ignoring new ideas after some time, so we were very relieved to discover it actually found something it liked since it'll be able to properly get more mana and produce more Seeds"
Akilah nodded in understanding.
The more mana a S rank Seed absorbs, bigger are the chances of its growing Roots, and the more a Rooted Seed absorbs mana, the more Seeds and with higher ranks it'll produce.
With that resolved, the man left, leaving Akilah and the principal to speak privately.
"So, about this games of yours-"
"Slime Rancher will be out tomorrow"
By the irony of fate, the principal, a A rank Game Developer that started playing Subnautica after the sudden jump in popularity, ended up as one of Akilah's Beta testers.
The elderly burly man ended up liking it a lot more than he expected a guy like him would.
Apparently the old principal wanted some calm hobby after years of dealing with hyper Players.
Akilah had to hold back a laugh as he saw the face of the old principal light up with a childish joy, but the man quickly composed himself.
"Is there a limit of what Players will be able to extract from your games?"
Now that's a good question.
Game Developers can restrict what Players could take out of their games, but not many have the same reason to.
"Yes" He responded firmly "Some things might be too dangerous, like Tars and the Reaper Leviathan"
Or the 'Kharaa Bacterium' from Subnautica, but he didn't say it out loud.
No spoilers!
He had a lot to think with Deniz about what should or shouldn't be allowed to extract, that was the other reason the game took so long.
It was ok to take a fish or some plants, even some eggs, but taking Aurora?
That's out of the question.
Even though he knew it was way too expensive to extract Aurora, requiring way too many mana stones then it was worth it, he knew that some crazy billionaire would try to do so.
So to the ban list it goes.
But slime Rancher didn't have this type of problem, only a few things were out of limits, like Tars and a few species of slimes, like Quantum Slimes and Boom Slimes.
Just to prevent chaos you know?
They discussed a few more things and soon Akilah was back to his place.
He stopped to eat after Thea reminded him of doing so, then returned to his room.
The two trailers he had prepared were ready, all he had to do was publish them, and so he did.
After doing so, he called for Thea and soon they both went for a walk, unaware of the chaos that would unfold on the internet.
***
"It's been pretty noisy huh?"
Jacob looked down on his cellphone, which just tried to jump from the table with how much it was vibrating.
He unlocked the device, finding many messages from his daughter.
He scrolled down on the messages, reading carefully to understand the situation.
Apparently White Canvas, the company that made a newly made game that has gotten some traffic, was going to release their new game, Slime Rancher.
His daughter had started playing their first game, Subnautica, and was quite sad when she didn't manage to get a spot on the closed Beta testing section, but the game just announced the release date and she's very excited.
Curious, he clicked on the link she sent him and watched the trailer.
It was simple and very colorful in a way that screamed childish, a far cry from the realism of Subnautica and its creatures, but the game had some charm.
Must be why his daughter became hysterical over it.
He did find it interesting that the slimes in this game don't divide after eating, but expelled these jewelish things, and that many of them were available for extraction.
He can already see his daughter saving mana stones for one, probably the gray one.
A pity he wasn't a Player, he'd love to help her with that.
But, alas, he was but a normal person so all he could do was make sure she at least had the money to buy the game she wanted.
Good thing White Canvas' games were considerably cheaper, Subnautica was $30 and the new game was announced to be $20.
He could do a little surprise for her and buy a few mana stones to help out a little in his own way as he didn't know how much one of these Slimes was worth in mana stones.
"That sounds like a plan" He said.
He responded to his daughter's messages and then opened the market, ready to make some preparations when he saw that the page also had a second post.
Curious, he clicked it.
A few moments later he was making many calls, and sending emails.
***
"Mom!"
Heather stopped the knife that was chopping vegetables to look at her fithteen years old son, who appeared in the kitchen with a speed that would have brought him to the ground if he didn't hold on to the door frame.
"What happened dear?" She asked as she pug down the knife "It's not like you to be this agitated.
"Remember that game we tested two days ago? The one with slimes?"
She now paid full attention to the conversation, only turning to wash her hands as she pretended to be nonchalant.
Heather was lucky that her son had won a spot on the closed Beta testing section of a new game, and she was also lucky when the Devs allowed her to go with her son.
She went with him to prevent what happened in the stream of one of the influencers she followed from happening to him.
Although it was promised to be completely different from Subnautica she could only trust her own judgment, passing out in a capsule didn't seem ideal even if her kid was quite brave.
She did not expect the game to be so cute!
The moment they entered, they were met with cute jumping blorbs and gained weapons that worked like vacuum cleaners, they spent a long time running around fetching Slimes and discovering what they eat, and it was fun.
Heather still played games, always curious to see what was new even though she only participated in small hunts despite being an A rank Player, as she had an retired due to an injury and started working as an instructor for young Players.
She was actually her own son's instructor in school.
Her son hates it because she is stricter with him.
The thing is, most games are boring, like, really boring, to the point of making her sleepy.
But that's not the case for White Canvas' games.
Subnautica gave her the chance of experiencing adventure again, and Slime Rancher let her have the times of relaxation she never got to have in a game.
And they were cheap.
That was a big factor.
She had spent her fair share in games to know how good was the opportunity to buy a cheap and good game.
"What about it?" She asked while drying her hands.
"It'll be released tomorrow!" Her son said "And it'll be even cheaper than Subnautica!"
Oh, now wasn't that a pleasant surprise?
***
The Internet had been in chaos a few minutes after the trailer of Slime Rancher was released, much to the surprise of many since it was so sudden.
White Canvas just dropped it on Jest, just that, no major announcement, no suspense, just dropped it and didn't say a thing later.
Everyone was curious since Subnautica had become a big hit, even having climbed up in the ranks on the original Academy page, now only one page away from the top 100 and still rising.
Everyone thought the game would be similar to Subnautica, but big was the surprise when everyone discovered the new genre of the game.
'Casual game'.
Not a game for fights or survival like many expected, but a game about being a rancher that raised slimes.
It was never heard before, so many were skeptical, after all, who buy a game to be a rancher.
But who knew the hit came to some people.
Since the loss of Earth, many things were lost too, one of them was pets.
To this day humans like having pets, but it's hard to do so with the Intergalactical Union's management of species, who see anything humans keep as dangerous or that humans are a danger to anything they keep.
Humans literally had to invent artificial meat because aliens wouldn't let them keep the alien animals that they were planning on using as livestock.
So the moment some people saw the slimes, the first thing they thought was to keep them as pets.
They are clearly harmless, it was explained in the video's description that they don't divide themselves like normal slimes and that they don't spit acid like normal slimes.
It was just a jumping cutie that ate and giggled, nothing to worry about.
But that wasn't the only thing that caught the attention of everyone.
There was a second post.
It was the announcement of a 'Lobby'.
A Dead Seed turned into chat room, it was connected to White Canvas' games and it was mainly used for conversations.
But, more importantly, it was the main channel for extraction of products of games.
One couldn't extract them directly from the game, but in the Lobby one could see what one would be able to extract from each game and their cost in mana stones, along with customized products, like a customized corral for indoor raising, or a pet carried, or (as many Players begged the company for) a PDA.
Usually a person would have to manually use some of their mana to discover what they could extract and the extraction price and they also had to directly contact the Devs to get a personalized item, wasting mana that could be used to play and time that could be used raiding, but the Lobby already had that price, so all you need was the mana stones, and you could use the tools on the Lobby to customize the items yourself, get a price for it and even save or post your model for later use.
It was so practical that it sounded ridiculous, and, best of all, it was free.
But it was this practicality that made people go crazy.
No more wasting time and mana, just browse and pay.
Devs were going crazy trying to replicate it, companies were going crazy trying to buy the idea, and Players were going crazy with the possibility of an easy time getting items.
But the culprit of all this chaos was in a stire, negotiating the price of a perfectly fine Android that was about to be thrown away.