Peter's POV
It felt weird, being back here after so many years.
"Welcome to Oscorp, the leading experts in medical technology." An automatic message played as I walked through the entrance.
It's been years, everything is so different now. Yet, somehow it still feels the same.
The walls have been repainted, the floor replaced, and the receptionist's grey desk has been replaced with a black one.
"What can I help you with, sweetie?" The receptionist greeted me.
"Oh, I'm here to visit a- um, a friend." I know Leo and Ned are my friends, but Harry's kind of complicated.
"Can I get your name, sweetheart?" she asked.
"Uhm, Peter Parker." Her eyes widened as she heard my name.
"Peter? Is that you? It's been ages—come here, give me a hug." She reached over the desk, embracing me.
Oh, I remember now. Her name was Emma, I think. I'm not sure, she always just told me to call her Emma. It's been years since I've come here, and somehow she still remembers me.
"Where have you been? I remember when you used to visit Harry every day after school. Then out of nowhere, you just stopped coming," She reminisced.
"Well- I…" I struggled to come up with an explanation.
"If I remember correctly, you stopped coming sometime during middle school. Actually, I think it was—" She stopped, a morbid expression appearing on her face. "Oh." Looks like she figured out why I stopped coming.
"Yeah." It was a bad memory, no reason to bring it up.
"I'll buzz you in. Just take the elevator to your left." I thanked her and walked into the elevator. "Oh, and Peter." I turned my head back. "It's nice to see you and Harry hanging out again."
The elevator doors closed, leaving me alone to think in silence.
The elevator ride was long and slow. It gave me time to think. What am I doing? Does Leo actually expect us to make a company? We're a bunch of high school students. Does he really expect us to compete with Stark Industries or Hammer Tech? It just seems impossible.
In the end, though, what mattered most is that Aunt May needs help with the bills. Even if we can only make a little bit, anything helps.
The elevator dinged as I reached the top floor, Harry's and his dad's penthouse. The doors opened, leading into a massive living room. Harry and Ned sat on the couch; in front of them was Leo. A whiteboard beside him, marker in hand.
Leo glanced at me, large bags underneath his eyes. When was the last time he slept?
"Hey, Pete," Ned greeted me.
"You're late," Harry added, annoyance clear in his voice.
_
Leo's POV
"It's about time," I greeted Peter as he stepped out of the elevator. "Take a seat."
"What did I miss?" Peter asked as he sat beside Ned.
"Not much. I'll give you a brief summary," I began to explain. "Like I've told Harry and Ned, I have dozens of potential ideas for games. Sadly, most of them are impossible due to lack of resources, time, or both."
I gestured to the whiteboard, Almost every one of my ideas was crossed out.
Undertale
Stardew Valley
Pikmin
Cut the Rope
Overwatch
Fortnite
"Which is why we're starting off with some mobile games, released by Omni Entertainment. A subsidiary of Omni Works, that reminds me," I glanced at Harry, "You trademarked the name like I requested, right?"
Harry scowled. "I'm still pissed about that. I spent, like, two thousand dollars."
Both Ned and Peter gasped.
"Is it really that expensive?" Peter asked.
"I thought it was only, like, a hundred bucks or something," Ned added.
"It probably would have been," Harry glared at me, "If he didn't make me buy, like, twelve other names!"
"Twelve?" Ned raised a brow.
"Omni Works, Omni Entertainment, Omni Media, Omni Medical, Omni Defense, Omni Life," I listed off the different subsidiaries I planned for. "Trust me, we're gonna need those names."
"Aren't you thinking a little too far ahead?" Peter asked, a hint of hesitation in his voice. It sounded like he was having second thoughts.
"No." I responded immediately. "Back to Harry, were you able to get the supplies?" My plan depended on it.
Harry sighed. "Well, because of how expensive the trademarking was," he scowled, "I had to improvise." He grabbed a large box from the floor and opened it.
Peter and Ned gasped, inside were four large and bulky laptops.
"They're old Oscorp laptops. We replace and update them every five or so years. These were supposed to be recycled, but I was able to grab them before tech support scrapped them," Harry explained.
I grabbed one of the laptops and examined it. "Doesn't matter. We're starting off with something simple. Once we get to the big stuff, we'll upgrade."
Ned grabbed a laptop. "Can we keep this? Please say yes."
Peter examined his laptop. "It's a lot better than the one I have now."
Ned frowned. "Peter, I've seen your laptop. It's made from scrap, duct tape, and spite."
Peter frowned at Ned's comment. Sadly, it was accurate.
"I don't care. Like I said, they were supposed to be scrapped and recycled. Do whatever you want with them," Harry answered.
I let out a low but noticeable cough. "Back to my presentation. I've designed three games, each one simple in programming and design, but highly addictive."
The year is 2007. Some of my favorite things have yet to be invented. There's also the chance they never will, YouTube came out in 2005, but in this reality, it was never created, or at least not yet. Instead, all we had were online forums and, unfortunately, Facebook.
Call it plagiarism all you want. It's not going to stop me from creating three of my favorite mobile games.
Crossy Road
Doodle Jump
Flappy Bird
The design for Crossy Road might take a while, but Doodle Jump is literally a doodle, and pixel art is kind of easy.
"All of those sound terrible," Harry said. He had some serious negativity today.
"So which one are we making?" Ned asked, ignoring Harry's comment.
I grinned. "All of them!"
"What?" Peter and Ned asked in unison. Harry just raised a brow and crossed his arms.
"Trust me, it won't take long. The programming will take an hour, two at most. The hard part is the animation and sound effects, but I've already finished all of that last night," I explained as I let out a yawn.
Harry groaned. "Every moment, I'm regretting agreeing to this."
"Give it a week." I pulled out a stack of papers and began handing them out. "Since Ned is the best coder." Excluding me, "He'll work on the auto-map generation."
Ned read over the papers. "So, for Crossy Road. I have to program a map that auto-generates roads, moving cars, logs, gators?"
"Despite being simple, it has a lot of details. Flappy Bird is easier—you just have to write something that generates a set of pipes with a gap between them. Doodle Jump is kind of in-between, but at the end of the day, it's just jumping," I explained.
Harry read over his paper. "You want me to work on controls?"
"Doodle Jump had motion controls, but almost all the games have the same basic control scheme. Tap to move, they just move in different directions." We won't be able to reuse everything, but what we can will save time.
Peter scanned his paper, a frown on his face. "It says here I'm the interface, and that's it."
I frowned. "Sorry, Pete. Since you're the weakest coder here, I gave the more complicated stuff to Ned and Harry."
Peter gave me an offended look. "I'm a great programmer. Heck, I could probably make these games on my own."
"True, but Ned and Harry can do it faster." Pete's a good coder, he could easily make these games himself, but I have different plans for him.
Peter sighed. "Fine."
"Now, while you guys are programming, I'm gonna work on some designs." I pulled out a drawing tablet. It cost me a month's allowance, but it was a necessity.
(About an hour later)
Despite the pain in my muscles, I pushed through. I had to finish these games and upload them as soon as possible—especially now that I have something to work for.
[Quest: Make a Successful Gaming Company]
[Reward: ???]
A new quest, and with an unknown reward. While I would've wanted XP, a mysterious reward could be useful.
Though it's a little unclear… What does the Gacha consider successful?
"Alright, I did everything I could." Harry placed the laptop down. "I'm going to grab a soda, anybody want one?"
Ned raised his hand. "I'll take one, and I'm pretty much done as well. I've created and coded all the environmental hazards, but I still need the design to overlap them."
"Can I have water instead?" Peter requested. "Oh, I'm done too."
"Sending them." The computer let out a faint ding as I sent the group the design and artwork for the game.
"Just curious," Harry said, handing Ned a soda and Peter a water bottle. "How exactly are we gonna make money from this? Ads?"
"Yes and no." I gestured to Peter. "Pete's working on it, he can explain."
Peter took a quick sip of his water as he began to explain. "The game uses a heart mechanic. You start off with five hearts. Each time you die, you lose one. They can naturally regenerate, but if you don't want to wait, you can watch an ad and gain unlimited hearts for a limited time. There's also a coin system—coins can be used to buy hearts, but they're mainly used to buy in-game skins."
I facepalmed. "Crap, I forgot the skins." We need those if we want to make money.
Peter ignored me and continued. "Coins can be earned by playing, watching ads, or through microtransactions."
Ned let out a groan. "I hate those."
"Too bad, we need them if we want to make actual money." Now… What kind of skin could I design?
"There's also an ad every five or so deaths," Peter added. "Enough to make some profit, but not enough to be annoying."
Harry began typing again. "Are you sure they'll be willing to play for that long?"
"How close are we to finishing?" I asked.
Ned gave me a so-so expression. "About half an hour."
"Once it's done, give it a try." Ned will probably like it. As for Harry… I'm not so sure.
(23 minutes later)
"Everybody done?" I asked the group.
"Yep / yeah / pretty much," Everyone said in unison.
"Alright, then it's time to test it out. While you guys play, I'm going to make more skins. Thank God for the simple art style," I muttered the last part under my breath.
Harry booted up Flappy Bird on his laptop. So far, he seemed unimpressed.
Flap. Flap. Flap.
"Where'd you get the sound effects?" Ned asked.
"I made half of them. The rest came from the public domain," I answered.
"Really?"
"Chirp, chirp, chirp." Using my voice mimicry, I copied the sound of a bird.
Ned gave me an impressed look. "Neat."
Plop.
From the sound of it, Harry just died.
Ned glanced at Harry's screen and read out his score. "Only 11 points?"
"It's harder than it looks," Harry defended himself.
Ned swiped the computer from him. "Let me try." Despite his excitement, Ned only managed a score of 9 before slamming into a pipe.
Harry smirked. "Told you."
Ned frowned. "It was my first try. Let me try again."
Harry grabbed the computer from him. "By that logic, it's my turn again."
"Technically, it's Pete's turn," I cut in. Ned and Harry begrudgingly handed Peter the laptop.
(3 hours later)
"And… done." I'll be honest, some of the Flappy Bird designs were meh. Mainly because I couldn't make any skins based on existing IPs. Maybe when the business expands, I'll make more.
I glanced at Harry and Ned, all three of them hunched over their respective laptops.
"You guys are still playing?" I know it's addictive, but seriously?
Ned slammed into a pipe. "Damn it, I almost broke the high score."
Harry smirked. "Wouldn't matter." He flipped his laptop around, a score of 107 displayed.
"Aww, man. I only got, like, 60," Ned sulked. "What about you, Pete?"
Pete flipped his screen. "My hand cramped around 500." His score read 526.
If Ned and Harry were cartoons, their jaws would have literally dropped at Peter's score.
"Dang." I guess spider reflexes help with gaming. "By the way, you've been playing for three hours."
Everybody glanced at the clocks on their laptops. "Whoa." They spoke in unison.
I smirked. "Told you it was addictive."
Harry grasped his chin in thought. "This… this might actually work." He had an odd smile, he looked like he was plotting something.