Chapter 32: After the Scream

The morning after EL fought 137 opponents without losing even once, I was still spreading my notebook on my desk in my room, thinking about the game I would make next.

However, even though I say I was thinking about it, neither the world nor the protagonist had been decided yet. I hadn’t even seen the core of how it would play, and I was at the stage of looking back on the games I’d made so far and searching for what I’d find interesting next.

As I moved my pencil, stopped, and erased the words I had written, EL, who had been watching me from the monitor, called out to me.

“Yuu. This is about yesterday, but do you have time to fight me today? It doesn’t have to be for long, but I’d like to try just one match.”

“I’m not doing it today. Since nothing has been decided about the next game yet, I want to spend as much time as possible thinking things through.”

“If nothing has been decided, a match in between shouldn’t have a big impact. If it’s a single match, it could end in about three minutes.”

“You said something similar the day before yesterday, and in the end, you fought ten matches. And yesterday you fought 137 people afterward, so I can’t really trust EL’s ‘one match.'”

“This time, I’ll do my best to finish in one fight. If I promised it would definitely end and failed to keep that promise, it would be a lie, so I can only say I’ll do my best.”

“It’s fine to be honest, but after hearing that explanation, I feel even more reluctant to let you do it.”

EL furrowed her brows in dissatisfaction, paused briefly as if searching for a rebuttal, then slightly puffed out her cheeks.

“At times like this, I believe you just call it stingy.”

“You’re using words you don’t need to memorize again.”

“Since there was a reaction last time, I judged it to have a certain effect.”

“It didn’t work. If you’re going to study ways to invite me to a match, wouldn’t it be better to watch yesterday’s replay?”

“I’ve already seen that. Especially regarding the ten matches with Yuu, there are still judgments I haven’t fully understood, so I checked them this morning as well.”

It seemed she really intended to keep going.

Just yesterday, she won 137 times, including against some of the top domestic players. Normally, that would leave her at least a little satisfied, but for EL, losing to me was a different story.

If you said she just had a competitive spirit, maybe that would be the end of it.

However, as I watched her, I found myself a little concerned.

“EL. Did you enjoy yesterday’s participatory session?”

“Yes. I was happy to win, but more than that, I found it interesting to see strangers choose actions I hadn’t anticipated. At first, I was troubled every time someone did something I couldn’t understand, but later on, I started to enjoy not knowing what they’d do next.”

“In that case, maybe you don’t have to fight me again? If you fight all sorts of people like yesterday, you’ll probably see moves you don’t know yet.”

EL shook her head without hesitation at the question.

“But wanting to beat Yuu is a different matter. No matter how many times I won yesterday, I still haven’t beaten Yuu even once. That result alone hasn’t changed, so next time, I want to win.”

“But I thought you hated losing. You’ve lost ten times in a row, and even though that number kept getting slapped on the forum, you still want to do it again.”

“I really hate losing, and I remember the score of ten to zero more than enough. But I hate ending with a loss even more. Just because I won 137 matches yesterday doesn’t mean losing to Yuu is erased.”

Just as I heard EL’s reply, the pencil in my hand stopped.

Normally, if something is unpleasant or painful, it’s natural to avoid it or quit. Yet EL was trying to challenge the opponent she’d lost to again—not because she’d forgotten the frustration of losing, but because she remembered all of it and wanted to win this time.

“Wait a minute. What you just said is a bit interesting.”

“If you’re going to record me losing ten times, that’s not very interesting.”

“That’s not it.”

I tried writing down what had come to mind from our exchange in the margins of my notebook.

Losing is frustrating, and I don’t want to lose anymore. Even so, if I feel I have a chance to win someday, precisely because I’ve lost to an opponent, I sometimes want to challenge them again.

When I finished and reread it, it at least applied to EL.

“I feel like there’s something here.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t quite put it into words yet, but I feel like I could use it for the next game.”

“In that case, I think a match against me would also serve as research.”

“Back to that again.”

“By actually having a rematch, you can observe why people want to challenge again after losing.”

“Even if you put it differently, we’re not doing it today.”

“…… Stingy.”

Apparently, she intended to use that word for a while.

◇

Even after I got to kindergarten, the sentence I’d written in the morning still lingered somewhere in my mind.

As I walked through the playground, Haru was at its edge holding a small ball, repeatedly throwing it toward a basket placed several meters away.

The first throw missed wide to the left, and the second was too high and went over the basket. The third came quite close, but hit the rim and bounced outward.

“Ah, that almost went in!”

“It didn’t go in.”

“I can tell just by looking! I mean it was a close call!”

“You should have said that from the start.”

“That’s what you say when you’re frustrated!”

Haru complained, but immediately ran to pick up the ball that had rolled away.

After watching several times, I realized he wasn’t just repeating the same throw. If he thought he’d thrown too hard, he eased off a bit the next time; if it went too high, he changed the angle of his arm, and he adjusted his standing position half a step at a time.

At first, the ball had landed far from the basket, but now it had hit the rim several times.

“Haru, is that fun?”

“What do you mean?”

“It hasn’t gone in for a long time, right? Even though you’ve failed so many times, I was wondering if you’re still having fun.”

When asked, Haru thought for a moment while holding the ball.

“I’m annoyed right now. I’ve felt like I was about to get it for a while, but it won’t go in at all.”

“Then why don’t you just stop?”

“I’m not quitting. At first, it didn’t reach at all, but now it’s reaching the rim. If that’s the case, maybe next time it’ll go in.”

With that, Haru immediately turned to the basket.

The next throw missed, but it landed closer to the center than before.

“Aw, just a little more!”

Even though he was shouting in frustration, his face was smiling.

And without any hesitation, he ran to pick up the ball again.

What he was doing was completely different from what EL had been doing that morning. Still, neither of them enjoyed the moment of failure itself; they could tell they were getting a little closer to success than before, so it seemed they were trying the next move instead of stopping there.

“Yuu, do you want to try too?”

“Well then, maybe I’ll give it a try.”

I received the ball from Haru, adjusted my strength slightly to the basket, and threw it.

The ball went straight into the middle.

“It’s in.”

“…… Unfair!”

“What is?”

“Don’t get it in on your first try! I wanted to be first!”

“Isn’t it fine as long as it goes in?”

“It means something because I’m the one who puts it in!”

After saying that, Haru took the ball from me as if snatching it away, and this time moved a little closer to the basket than before.

“First, I’ll get one in from nearby. Then I’ll go back to my original spot!”

“So it’s okay to get closer?”

“If I make it once, I might figure something out!”

The thrown ball fell in front of the basket.

“Damn it!”

Even so, he went to pick it up right away.

It seemed that my getting it in on the first try didn’t mean much; what mattered was Haru being able to do it himself.

What I had been searching for since morning was gradually beginning to take shape.

◇

When I got home, I opened my notebook from the morning again.

Recalling the reasons EL and Haru had kept trying, this time I organized them and put them into a sentence in my own way.

After failing, you can understand why you couldn’t do it and see what you can change for the next time. If you feel a little closer to success each time you try, even if you feel frustrated at the moment of failure, you won’t stop there and will want to try again.

Thinking about it, there had been many failures in the games I’d made before, but each one handled them differently.

In 《Pettan Forest》, there’s no major penalty for failing. Even if you take a different path, just seeing what’s ahead becomes fun, and even if you fall, you can quickly return. So Haru and the others didn’t care about what the correct answer was, trying out everything they thought of.

In 《CRAFT RUNNERS》, the consequences of failure themselves become something to laugh at. Cars break down, wings come off, and rocket recoil sends you flying in unexpected directions. Because things didn’t go well, new ways of playing sometimes emerged.

In 《FRONTIER SAGA》, even if you make a wrong decision, the result remains as part of the world’s history.

Every one has its own kind of failure.

However, it was a little different from what I was thinking about now.

Through repeated challenges, you become able to do things you couldn’t do before, and that change itself is placed at the center of play. I hadn’t made such a game in earnest yet.

“Maybe I’ll give it a try.”

Since I couldn’t figure it out just in my head, I decided to spend one hour a day making a small prototype.

Except for the things I wanted to confirm, I trimmed everything as much as possible.

In the center of a white space, two humanoid figures holding swords were placed. One was controlled by the player, and the other was the enemy. The enemy’s attacks were limited to three types: vertical slash, horizontal sweep, and thrust, and if you took even one hit, you were defeated on the spot.

Both appearance and sound were minimal.

Thanks to the development assistance AI, simple systems like this could be built incomparably faster than before, but what I wanted to verify now wasn’t technology.

“EL, there’s something I’d like you to try. Could you give it a go?”

“Earlier, you told me I wouldn’t be fighting today.”

“I’m not going to fight you. I want you to fight the enemy I just made.”

“A new game, huh?”

“It’s still an experiment. If it’s not interesting, I’ll delete it, so don’t hesitate to share your thoughts.”

“Understood. Then, please tell me the objective.”

“Just defeat the enemy in front of you. There are no other rules.”

After I handed over control, the black humanoid slowly closed the distance and swung his sword.

EL dodged the first attack and the second, but at the moment she read the third and moved sideways, she was hit by a horizontal sweep.

The screen went dark.

“Please let me do it again.”

The second attempt, which resumed quickly, ended in defeat midway, and although the third fight lasted a bit longer, she still couldn’t read the enemy’s attacks.

After losing in a similar way up to the fourth round, EL fell silent for a moment, still watching the death screen.

“Do you still want to continue?”

“I can keep going until I win. But if you ask me whether I want to keep challenging it like this over and over, I don’t really think so.”

“What did you dislike?”

EL displayed the previous replay and stopped the footage just as the enemy began moving his sword.

“There are three types: vertical slash, horizontal sweep, and thrust, but at this point, it’s impossible to tell which will come. Since the preliminary movements are almost identical, even if you judge after the attack starts, human reaction speed may not be enough to keep up.”

“I made it that way on purpose.”

“In that case, it’s not that I made a wrong judgment; I just haven’t been given the information to make one. Even if the same situation comes up, I can’t use it for the next attempt, so in the end, I can only guess which of the three types will come.”

“Is it different from when you lost to me?”

“It’s quite different. When I lost to Yuu, I was able to think about why I lost in that moment, and I felt like I would make a different choice next time. But even if I lose to this enemy, I don’t know what to fix next.”

What EL disliked wasn’t the difficulty itself, but the fact that after losing, there was nothing to carry forward.

“Alright. I’ll try fixing it a little.”

The enemy’s attacks themselves didn’t change, but the movement before each attack was made clearly distinguishable.

For vertical slashes, he raised his right shoulder high; for horizontal sweeps, he twisted his hips deeply; for thrusts, he pulled the sword tip back once.

If you watched carefully, you could tell what was coming. However, I didn’t slow it down so much that you could easily dodge after seeing it.

“Now, try it again.”

“Yes.”

The battle began once again.

This time, EL dodged the first vertical slash by judging from the preparatory movement. She reacted to the following horizontal sweep, but was slightly late in judging the third, a thrust, and was defeated at that moment.

“Please let me do it again. I could see the thrust just now, but my dodge input was delayed. Next time, I can move a little faster.”

The second time, she survived longer than the first, and the third time, she reduced the enemy’s health by half.

And the fourth time.

After dodging almost all of the enemy’s attacks and pushing him to within a single blow of defeat, EL stepped in a little faster than usual.

The enemy twisted his waist. It was the sign of a horizontal sweep.

EL must have seen it too, but with the opponent only one hit from defeat, she didn’t stop her sword. She took the counterattack and lost.

“That was my fault. I knew it was a horizontal sweep, but I thought I could take him down with just one more strike, so I kept attacking. If I get the same situation, next time I’ll wait until the enemy’s attack finishes.”

“You said earlier that you didn’t want to keep challenging it over and over, but what about now?”

“Right now, I want to try again right away. I know why I lost, and if I don’t make the same mistakes, I think I can win next time.”

In the first prototype, no matter how many times she lost, she never felt like she was moving forward.

However, after the correction, even though she was losing in the same way, she understood the cause each time, and each loss showed what to change in the next challenge. That difference alone made EL’s reaction completely different.

She lost just short of victory on the fifth attempt, and on the sixth, she couldn’t avoid the final thrust.

And then, the seventh time.

If the enemy’s shoulder rose, EL slipped off the vertical slash’s trajectory; if he twisted his waist, she dropped back out of the attack range; when the sword tip was drawn back, she counterattacked right after the thrust.

Even with one strike left, she didn’t rush this time; she waited for the opponent’s attack to finish before delivering the final blow.

The black humanoid’s health dropped to zero, and he collapsed on the spot. A victory display appeared on the screen.

“You won. How did it compare to the first enemy?”

EL didn’t answer right away; after staring at the fallen enemy for a while, she turned toward me.

“Yuu. Can you make this enemy a little stronger? Now that I’ve beaten the current enemy once, I think I can beat it more easily next time. If that’s the case, I’d like to fight an opponent I can’t win against unless I use what I’ve learned so far.”

“So it’s not just about winning once you get there; you want a next opponent where you can use that experience.”

“Yes. I think that’s more interesting than before.”

I pulled the notebook closer, and this time put that feeling into words.

It doesn’t end the moment you cross a wall; rather, you want to use what you’ve gained to climb even higher walls.

The game’s form was still vague, but I was gradually starting to see what I wanted people to play.

◇

Even at dinner, I couldn’t get that idea out of my mind.

“Dad. Do you like difficult games where you lose over and over again?”

Dad suddenly stopped his chopsticks and looked at me curiously.

“Out of nowhere again. I don’t like games that are just difficult, but it depends.”

“Why do you keep going no matter how many times you lose?”

“Yeah…… If it’s a game where you know what you did wrong when you lose, I think you’ll keep going even if it’s a bit difficult. If you missed an attack you could see, or got greedy thinking you could land another hit and got counterattacked, then next time you just watch out for that.”

“Even if the enemy is incredibly strong?”

“Sometimes being strong is actually better. It feels better to finally defeat someone you’ve lost to many times than to beat them easily, and you remember it later.”

“So, you’re okay with losing about ten times?”

“It depends on the game, but that kind of thing isn’t unusual, right?”

“Fifty times?”

“If it’s really interesting, well…… Maybe.”

“A hundred times?”

Dad’s chopsticks stopped.

“Don’t make that, okay?”

“I haven’t made it yet.”

“You said ‘yet.’ You’re thinking about something, aren’t you?”

Next to him, Mom laughed.

“Yuu, Dad has work tomorrow, so don’t make him play games that have him screaming in the middle of the night.”

“Does he shout?”

“Mom, you don’t have to say anything unnecessary.”

“Sometimes when he’s playing a tough game, he shouts. ‘I dodged that just now!’ Or, ‘I was just one hit away!’ And so on.”

“You really don’t have to say it.”

I looked at Dad.

“If you get that angry, why not just stop there?”

“Sometimes I quit, but when I get down to the last hit, I usually try again. If I got that far, maybe I really can beat them next time, and honestly, quitting there would bother me more.”

EL had said almost the same thing during the day.

What I wanted to create wasn’t just a game that made players fail repeatedly. Even after failing, players believe they can move forward, and that feeling leads to the next challenge.

“Thank you. That was really helpful.”

“So it was about using it in a game after all.”

“I’m just taking it as a reference.”

“When you put it that way, you’re already set on making it.”

Really, not everything had been decided yet.

However, a path was slowly beginning to form where there had been nothing in the morning.

◇

At night, I asked the development assistance AI a few questions about high-difficulty games.

“Organize the factors that make players hesitate to try high-difficulty games.”

“Classifying relevant play data and general trends.”

What appeared were items such as long loading times, the effort of returning to the point of failure, input delays, unclear hit detection, invisible attacks, deaths for unknown reasons, long repetition of the same task, and a lack of a sense of progress.

The first prototype I’d made during the day also fit some of those categories.

“Then, at what difficulty does victory in a high-difficulty game feel happiest?”

“The conditions are insufficient. The feeling of happiness cannot be quantified as a single metric common to all players.”

“That’s how it really is, right?”

With the assistance AI, the dropout rate can be calculated: how many failures make it easier for players to quit, how many seconds of extra loading lower the retry rate, and where deaths are concentrated.

With such numbers, you can organize things quite accurately using a large amount of data.

But when it comes to the question of how much you have to struggle before a win feels happiest, there’s no universal answer for everyone.

“EL. You beat today’s opponent on the seventh try, didn’t you? If you’d won the first time, do you think you would have been just as happy?”

“No. I think I probably would have just thought I’d defeated an enemy. Because I failed several times and found ways to fix things myself, I felt that I had truly achieved it when I won.”

“Then, what if you’d lost a hundred times?”

“It’s possible I would have stopped halfway. No matter how much I could improve, if I felt I was too far from winning, I think the reason to keep going would weaken.”

“But what if you kept going until the hundredth time and really won there?”

EL thought for a moment before answering.

“I think I’d be very happy. However, that’s only if it’s a game where you can keep thinking you might be able to progress a bit more, all the way to the hundredth attempt.”

“I think so too.”

It’s not enough just to make it difficult, and making players die multiple times doesn’t necessarily increase the value of victory.

A game where you die a hundred times and a game you want to challenge a hundred times are completely different.

I opened my notebook and put into writing what I had thought about today.

You understand why you lost and see what you need to fix next. Each time you take on a challenge, you move a little further than before, and you feel like victory isn’t out of reach, just not reached yet. As long as that feeling continues, failure isn’t the end but leads to the next challenge.

Maybe that’s the kind of game I want to make.

“Yuu. You’ve seemed to be having a great time for a while now.”

“Yeah. I’m starting to see quite a bit. I think it’ll be a pretty tough game, but I don’t want it to be unreasonably difficult. I want it to be a game where you get a little better every time you lose, and can see that change yourself.”

EL’s expression froze for a moment.

“The last time you said something like that today, you made that first enemy, so I’m a bit uneasy.”

“I know that was a failure. But after I fixed it, you tried it several times, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I thought I could win next time, so I wanted to try again right away.”

“I think that’s the most important thing. I want a game where, when you lose, you don’t just stop because you hate losing, but feel like you can make it next time.”

When I put it into words, it really clicked perfectly.

When I first fought, I’d think there was no way I could win against an opponent like this. Even so, the second time I’d see attacks I hadn’t seen before, and by the third time, I could dodge one. If I challenged further, there would be more opportunities to counterattack, and eventually I’d be within one strike.

If you lose there, you’ll surely feel frustrated.

You might even scream.

But if you managed to get that far, you’d think you might really win next time.

If it’s that kind of game, I’d like to try playing it myself.

“Right now, you look very happy. And you look a little mischievous.”

“Maybe it’s the face Dad was talking about, the one I make when I’m making a game.”

“Probably. If that’s the case, I understand what he means.”

“That’s rude.”

I could now see the feeling at the center of the game.

But that still wasn’t enough.

I didn’t want to challenge enemies dozens of times who were just fast in reaction speed, had high health, or had high stats.

“EL. If you’re going to fight multiple times anyway, what kind of enemy do you think would be best?”

“Are you talking about combat performance?”

“I’ll decide that later. What I want is someone who, the moment you see him, makes you want to defeat him.”

“Do you mean making it look tough?”

“Not just that, but an enemy you want to tell someone about your battle with. After losing many times, you finally defeat them, and that battle itself becomes a memory of yours.”

As I said this, the image gradually solidified within me.

Far larger than humans, doing things humans can’t do without hesitation, and when you first see them, you have no choice but to look up.

Facing such a being with just a small sword.

Every time you lose, you learn about your opponent, change your fighting style, and are still defeated many times.

If you finally win, defeating that opponent itself becomes a story.

“Is it the boss?”

“Probably. But just being at the end of the stage isn’t enough. It could be like a god, or a monster. It could be like a king. Even though you can tell just by looking at them that they’re far above you, I still want someone who makes you want to draw your sword and challenge them.”

“That’s increased quite a bit, hasn’t it?”

“Maybe it’s okay to have all of them.”

“The scale of the game is growing again.”

“It’s the usual thing.”

“Even if I try to stop you, you’ll probably make it bigger, so I won’t stop you this time.”

“You’re starting to understand me quite well.”

“Because I’m your partner.”

I smiled slightly at that reply and opened a new page.

There was no title yet.

The world’s name hadn’t been decided, and I didn’t even know who the protagonist was.

Even so, after thinking all day, I could sum it up in one line.

— A game where you win against what you can’t beat.

Below that, I continued writing while recalling what I’d seen today.

Even after losing to me ten times, EL was determined to fight again.

No matter how many times Haru missed, he said it was closer to the basket than before and ran to pick up the ball.

Dad thinks that if he’s one hit away, he can make it next time, so he starts the game again.

No one likes failure itself. The moment they fail, they get angry, frustrated, and sometimes can’t help but cry out.

Even so, they can see a little of a self that can win beyond that, so they want to try again.

If you keep stacking those ‘one more times’ and finally win, you’ll let out a completely different voice than when you first lost.

After thinking that far, I wrote just two lines at the end.

At first, a scream.

At the end, a cheer.

Looking back, I felt that what I had been searching for since morning had finally taken shape.

“Have you decided on anything yet?”

“The details of the game haven’t really been decided yet. But I’ve decided how I want people to feel when they play it. At first, I want them to struggle so much that they scream, ‘This is impossible!’ But after trying many times and actually winning, I want them to shout, ‘I did it!'”

EL thought for a moment, then laughed happily.

“In that case, it seems like it will be quite a raucous game.”

“Yeah, I think that’s probably just right.”

The world, the enemies, and even the names didn’t exist yet.

But that was enough reason to start creating a new game.