(Chapter 1 - The Beginning)
Once upon a time, there was a game developer living in his mom's basement.
Although it was years after he graduated from a liberal arts college, he still could not manage to find his first job. As a result, he had no choice but follow his childhood dream - that is, making video games for a living.
From now on, we will simply refer to him as "GameDev", for his name is not important for the story.
Months after months, and years after years, he spent all of his time trying to come up with the best video game in the world as a solo developer. He drew his own concept arts, wrote his own backstories, and coded his own scripts for gameplay.
Yet such a prolonged period of solitude was mostly in vain, and he faced constant disillusionment and sheer frustration. His own talent, as well as his feeble struggle to illuminate it, resulted in hardly anything other than a series of howls in empty, heartless space.
It was one sunny day during which he finally discharged his last remaining vestige of masculine indignation.
"This is meaningless!" Exclaimed GameDev, in the midst of his personal Unity license renewal.
He punched a side of his plastic desk. A pair of pennies, an outdated key, and a Papa John's coupon flung themselves across the air and violently hit the floor. He cried.
"This is utterly meaningless! I woke up in the morning just like any other morning. I have, once again, yet another handful of ideas for another indie game. Then what? What is the meaning of this?"
He stood up and wandered in desperation.
"If I devise yet another game and publish it, what difference will it make? There are millions of games being produced by countless experts all over the world, and mine will probably be overlooked anyways. What is the point of such an endeavor, then?
"There are so many talented folks out there - those extroverted 'influencers' who always socialize with ease, work with teams of passionate minds, and never fail to win the heart of the audience. They fill the world of entertainment with the utmost understanding of what everybody wants to see, hear, and feel. Who am I, then, in this Colosseum of bread and circuses?"
He lied down on the cold concrete floor, and gazed at the ceiling. The whole room as dead silent, which enabled him to hear his own resonance of exhaustion in a painfully clear manner.
"Maybe I have been dreaming in my own fantasy, while the real world was something completely different."
Suddenly, a loud thud broke out and interrupted his existential speculation.
GameDev hurriedly rose up, thinking that somebody sneaked into the basement. He looked around to find a nearby stick, just in case of an unwelcome intruder.
"Be not afraid," said a strange voice out of nowhere.
He turned toward the direction of the sound. To his surprise, he saw an enormous pink square hovering amidst thin air, directly facing him. It was a perfect square with neither texture nor any sign of reflection. It simply emitted pure magenta, which was equally bright in every angle.
"Who are you?" Asked GameDev, suspecting that he was hallucinating.
"I am the light of your mind," replied the square. "I am here to help you become a successful game developer."
The square began to move across the room at a constant speed, while keeping its face directly towards GameDev.
Several seconds later, the square hit the wall, bounced back at the angle of reflection without any apparent loss of momentum, and immediately ceased its motion once it came right in front of GameDev.
"First of all, my pronouns are she/her," murmured the square. "But don't get me wrong, I am genderless. The purpose of this is to let the reader easily distinguish between you and I while following the story."
GameDev nodded and said, "Understood. It is a pretty clever idea. I wonder why the author hasn't won a Nobel Prize in Literature yet."
The square continued her speech. "You are tired of this perpetual cycle of hopelessness, aren't you? I am here to save you from this self-inflicted curse of yours. I know you need some guidance regarding the question of your future vocation, which is quite complicated in nature and cannot be summarized by your inner voice alone."
"I agree," admitted GameDev. At this point, he didn't really care whether he was dreaming or whether the square was just a piece of his own imagination; he was desperate enough to seize any string of hope that was handed over to him, and had no luxury to care about its legitimacy.
"That's why I came over to you, from the deepest and most abused organ of your only friend over there," said the square majestically. A floating finger popped out of nowhere and indicated the gaming PC which was located in the darkest corner of the basement.
While making a bouncy pointing gesture, the finger accidentally touched the headphone which was hanging on the chair. The headphone fell to the ground, so the finger grabbed and placed it back to where it was.