DE Vol. 1 pt. 72

The worst part about the game was the waiting. Well, technically, there was a lot worse about it than just that. For example, all the ethical issues related to putting entire planets and people up for grabs, people being able to actually die during it such as in my case and the Demons’ case, and so on. Those were some pretty major, ethical issues that deserved to be rightfully criticized and not forgotten.

But they were so big that they weren’t a near-constant issue to me.

Say, the housing market. The housing market was a massive issue. Nobody could afford houses due to inflation and wages not rising to match it. A house that used to only cost fifty thousand dollars rose in cost up to two hundred thousand dollars and then potentially up to seven hundred thousand dollars. Meanwhile, the wages in the area stagnated, so somebody making ten dollars an hour might have only received enough raises to make up to fifteen dollars an hour within the same amount of time. It was impossible for somebody to buy a house, especially considering that they needed to keep on paying rent and bills instead of being able to save up for a down payment.

The same went for healthcare. The rising cost of food. Toilet paper, even.

Everything was becoming more and more expensive, and all of those things had arguably larger impacts on somebody’s life.

But were those the things most people constantly worried about and complained about?

No.

Instead, what people liked to complain about was the internet dying in the middle of a meme compilation. Or being stuck in traffic. The air conditioning breaking down and being stuck in a hot apartment. Being invited to a party that they didn’t want to go to but were too socially awkward to say no to, so they said yes and then wanted to die instead of go to a party and hang around people they didn’t know.

Those were the kinds of things people often complained about rather than the huge, pressing issues that affected their entire existence. Why? I wasn’t sure. The human brain could be strange and that was above my understanding of it. Of course, that isn't to say people weren't aware of all those issues. Everybody knew about them. Maybe that was why people didn't complain as much about them. They were the big issues that everybody already knew of, but seemingly nothing could be done about them, so people just stayed quiet for the most part.

And that was why, despite objectively knowing that issues such as the entire ethics of the “game” were horrible and the biggest issues related to it, all I actually felt like complaining about was how horrible the waiting was.

When it came to playing 4X games, especially when only going against AI, it was pretty common to get bored sometime between the middle and end of the game. The winner was usually obvious at that point even if nowhere close to the game being over, and there was also much less to do. Gameplay was often just sitting around, waiting, and ending the turn over and over at that point. Or if turns weren’t a thing, then speeding up time was to make it go as fast as possible. Of course, in that case, there was the issue of the frames per second decreasing the later into the game I’d get which then meant speeding up the time didn’t actually do anything since it was tied to frames per second and ticks per second.

But that’s moving beyond the point.

The point is that getting bored in 4X games when nothing was happening was to be expected. However, and especially in the case of turn-based games, it was made tolerable by being able to end a turn so that one could go through what were essentially dozens of days within minutes.

If anything, if somebody tried to publish a 4X game without any ability to speed up time, it would probably receive a ton of negative reviews from players not willing to waste time waiting for things to progress at a normal speed.

But that was exactly what was happening.

We were real people in a real world that operated with real time. Days were twenty-four hours, just like on Earth. Taking care of everything that needed done each day took less than ten minutes a day unless I purposely dragged the time out by involving the others in any decision-making processes. After those ten minutes, though, there was nothing else to do for the game until the next day came along.

It was the equivalent of having to wait twenty-three hours before turns in a 4X game. That was just bad design.

But it had to be done.

I didn’t see why they couldn’t speed things up a bit more. If I was the one in charge, then excluding all the ethical things I would change, I would have made it so that there were four “turns” a day. One every two hours over the course eight hours. That would still give people more than enough time to think and get any battles over with while drastically speeding things up. That could potentially be increased to five or six total turns a day.

Or even better, have a sort of “end turn” button somewhere in the system. If everybody finished what they needed to do and clicked it, then everybody could move to the next day.

Give people an eight-hour window that is used for “playing.” Same time as a workday. During that window, an unlimited number of turns is possible as long as everybody keeps going through their turns quickly and choosing to end it, and no more than two hours can be spent on a single turn before being forced to end it to guarantee that at least four turns happen each day still. Realistically, that two-hour limit could probably be decreased, but it was a game where entire worlds and people were at stake. So, it was probably fine to leave it at two hours to give everybody enough time to think things over.

But no.

Instead, there was nothing to do with the game after about ten minutes of time dedicated to it each day. All the free time meant that I basically had the next couple of weeks planned out unless anything interesting popped up to cause a change in my plans.

All there was to do was talk with everybody and help out with construction that didn’t actually need any labor put into it because it was going to get done on time no matter what we did.

I got bored. Extremely bored.

I had everybody’s names memorized. Each time a new unit of population arrived through the portal, our population became reinforced with Volcano Hounds and I got to know all the new arrivals, too. I knew their names. I knew if they had mates and children or not. I knew their goals. I learned how to easily tell them apart from a distance.

The Demons? I was on good terms with all of them. Thad often gathered all the Demons together, and any Volcano Hounds who were interested in joining in, to have little parties around the camp’s main fire where we all ate steaks cooked over the fire while some others sung music and danced. The more frequently he threw little parties like that, the more the Volcano Hounds joined in. They mainly joined in for the meat at first, but it didn’t take long before some of them tried singing or dancing since they thought it looked fun.

Volcano Hounds made for absolutely terrible singers and dancers. They have absolutely zero concept of either of those. They did, however, look like they enjoyed trying it out, and that was all that really mattered.

As for me and Enna, our relationship grew to the point where we started meeting each other in one of our tents almost daily. She was in the same boat as me, wishing time could pass faster, so we decided to help each other pass the time by making use of each other’s bodies.

Then there was Zira.

Zira… broke.

In tasking her to come up with a custom, tabletop roleplaying game, she broke. I never thought I would see her like that. Every waking second of her day became dedicated to it. Whether it was figuring out a combat system, designing and balancing various classes and skills, creating items and mechanics for non-combat systems, or something else, she was just… always working on it. Sometimes, she would pull in a group of “volunteers” to help her playtest it, and they wouldn’t leave her tent until ten hours later sometimes. Never sooner than five hours later.

I would even hear her giggling to herself sometimes whenever she didn’t think anybody was paying attention to her. Then as soon as I’d ask her what was funny, she’d straighten up and act normal.

I told her that, maybe, she should take a break.

And what did she tell me in response to that?

“I’m not losing my chance to finally have a consistent table for games.”

I had to respect her determination. It was incredibly American of her to push herself that hard just for a game.

To push oneself in the pursuit of passion to the point of mentally breaking was an admirable trait. It wasn’t like there was anything else for her to be doing, either.

She probably could have gone for some balance to avoid mentally breaking herself, but… despite how broken she seemed, she also seemed content. Happy, even. Waking up and working on the game was something she looked forward to despite how hard it was on her.

If my old man saw an American with that sort of work ethic, it would have brought him to tears—or rather, it would have brought him to a single, manly tear. He didn’t believe in multiple tears.

That aside, there was something else related to the system that I started trying each day… and that was contacting those short goat people we encountered before but accidentally scared off. Unfortunately, every single time I called them up and got them on the screen, they ended the communications channel as soon as they saw us.

They were still terrified because of before, apparently.

So, my only option was to try and call them every single day like a clingy ex desperately wanting to get back together. I showed them my American determination to never surrender no matter how annoying it made me look.

I was going to befriend them whether they wanted to be befriended or not. Especially because, if somebody else got to them first or they just never decided to become our allies, then they would likely eventually be used against us or cause us issues on their own.

I didn’t even want to assimilate them yet. We were only able to have a single minor faction assimilated at the time, not to mention that assimilating them would give us their settlement and push us back over the soft cap we hit. I just wanted to befriend them so that, when we eventually could assimilate them without facing any penalties, we could.

I also wanted to get them on our side because they had actual hands from what I could see. That meant they could use proper weapons instead of running around slashing everything with claws. If we wanted any sort of ranged units, we were going to have to depend on them.

Fortunately, after calling them for five days in a row only to get hung up on almost immediately after each time… their leader finally had the courage to face me. As terrified as the short girl looked going by the fear in her eyes, she looked me straight in my own eyes and didn’t turn away.

She finally had the resolve to face me.

And with the Demons’ help, I made sure that no Volcano Hounds were around to scare them by accident this time. They basically had to form a perimeter around the Council Pavilion for me to keep the Volcano Hounds away, but it worked and gave me the chance I needed to win them over.

All that was left was to actually befriend the terrified, short, goat people.