What a pity, born at the wrong Time.
This sentence wasn't directed at Aoki Haruhi himself, but at Chata.
Aoki Haruhi didn't know Chata's real name, and this girl was probably too young to debut yet.
There was no other way; Aoki Haruhi could only find a solution to the music problem.
After some discussion with Maeda Jun and Atsushi Shirakawa, it was decided to invite Yuko Miyamura to sing several theme songs from CL and LL.
Yuko Miyamura was a new voice actress who had just debuted this year, and Aoki Haruhi had pulled her in to voice characters for the game. However, the teachers in the recording studio, including Maeda Jun, quickly discovered her singing talent.
Japanese voice actors inherently double as idols and also perform anime songs.
Yuko Miyamura's voice was sweet, and her vocal lines were very alluring, possessing both a tsundere and a cute side. Plus, she had already sung the insert song in CL—
It's Only The Fairly Tale
So, there was no problem with her continuing to sing dango daikazoku.
Moreover, Yuko Miyamura was about to play the role of Asuka in the anime "neon genesis evangelion" next year.
According to Aoki Haruhi's idea, once EVA became popular, it would be like Kotono Mitsuishi back then; when the voice actor's fame soared, it would likely boost the popularity of CL and LL.
In short, the president was full of tricks.
And all of this was happening quietly, unknown to the company's employees.
Those who could foresee history had already laid the groundwork, just waiting for things to fall into place, and Time would reveal the answer.
...
All related issues for both games had almost complete solutions, and the later development progress accelerated significantly.
By the end of July, CL and LL were completed and began testing.
This meant that in a few more days, the operations team would get busy.
Those who needed to advertise would advertise, and those who needed to contact distributors would contact distributors.
The battle was about to begin, and everyone was on high alert.
Especially Maeda Jun. Although CL's script was originally by Aoki Haruhi, it was almost entirely handed over to him to refine the details, meaning he was essentially the scriptwriter for both games.
And since these two games primarily sold on their story, Maeda Jun appeared calm on the surface but was actually panicking internally.
He constantly ran back and forth, verifying the game, terrified of any small error that might lead to players tearing it apart.
In contrast, Aoki Haruhi was quite leisurely, as if these two children weren't his.
Everyone else was bustling with activity, but Aoki Haruhi sat in his office every day, clacking away at his keyboard.
One might think he was a programmer.
What was most surprising was that during this Time, Aoki Haruhi had also pulled in Akanishi Ken, the head of the programming department. The two of them would tinker with something in the president's office every day.
But Maeda Jun himself didn't understand.
...
Even HR-chan couldn't stand it anymore. She walked into the president's office, staring intently at Aoki Haruhi's computer screen, and asked doubtfully, "President, aren't you concerned about CL and LL? These two games are almost ready for release."
"Concerned, of course, I'm concerned," Aoki Haruhi said without lifting his head.
He was communicating with Akanishi Ken, who was at the table, via the computer.
Ayase Akane took a look and saw: "Can you see what I'm saying?"
The entire screen displayed an extremely rudimentary interface. How to describe this interface?
It was roughly a small window, but at the top, there was a row of button menus, and below that, an input box.
It was like a series of whiteboards.
Each whiteboard had some content written on it.
After a while, a line of text appeared on a board below:
[Yes, I can completely see the posted messages. The BBS feature you developed, President, is really good.]
"BBS?" Ayase Akane asked, puzzled. "What is that?"
Aoki Haruhi smiled and left a reply under the post: [OK, test complete, can be put into use]
Afterward, he turned his chair to face Ayase Akane.
"BBS stands for Bulletin Board System. It can be called an online forum, a place where we can post information and communicate online."
They were still in the dial-up internet stage, with very small data transfer volumes, making it impossible to load websites with images. Aoki Haruhi hadn't planned on creating a website for the company.
However, creating a forum was still very necessary.
After all, it was already the Internet Age, and communication between people didn't need to be as troublesome as in reality.
And Aoki Haruhi really wanted to know how players evaluated his games, so he set up this forum, now named:
Pokeni Community.
He also considered it part of the future Pokeni official website.
The features were actually very basic, mostly relying on text for description and transmission, with not a single image.
Above were the various sections of the forum, and clicking them would jump to the corresponding content. He himself had the highest administrator privileges, and he also upgraded Akanishi Ken to a senior administrator.
Anyone logged into this forum could leave comments below, and those comments could also be seen by others.
Aoki Haruhi even set up a public area for this. If players wanted to create their own content sections to discuss new things, they could open new threads in the shared area.
Of course, opening permissions required applying to Pokeni, as it would occupy a certain amount of server resources. In this era of hardware limitations, even the landlord had no surplus grain.
"Eh? Is that how it is?"
After listening to Aoki Haruhi's description, Ayase Akane finally nodded in sudden realization.
"So we can communicate online, right?"
"Yes," Aoki Haruhi smiled and nodded. "See, aren't I chatting with Akanishi-san on the forum through posts?"
Ayase Akane looked, and it was indeed true.
"But why type in a forum when you can just walk over and talk clearly? It's so much trouble!" Ayase was utterly confused.
Most importantly—
She thought what the president had developed was a bit silly.
HR-chan couldn't help but chuckle inwardly.
President, even I, who haven't studied programming, can immediately think of this, so how could someone as intelligent as you not have thought of it?
"Of course not," Aoki Haruhi corrected her solemnly. "That's because we're currently at work, so we're close enough to create conditions for chatting.
But what if Akanishi-san was thousands of miles away? For example, if a player in Hokkaido wanted to communicate with a player in Tokyo to discuss Pokeni's new game.
Would he have to travel all the way to Tokyo?"
"Emmm... that's true," Ayase Akane nodded seriously. "That's why humans invented the telephone."
She finally couldn't hold back her giggles.
However, upon seeing the president's sharp gaze, HR-chan quickly apologized, "President, I really couldn't hold it in. Because this is a problem even elementary school students nowadays can understand. You're so smart, President, you can't possibly not know about telephones, can you?"
As she said this, Ayase Akane couldn't help but laugh again.
After laughing for two seconds, she silently took a step back, stood at attention, and prepared for a scolding, "President, I was wrong."
Aoki Haruhi's forehead was covered in black lines. Honestly, he felt like beating this person to death.
But thinking about it, he couldn't really blame Ayase Akane, as these things belonged to future products.
"Then how about this?" Aoki Haruhi thought for a moment and replied, "Suppose these two distant players not only want to discuss Pokeni's game but also want to record their discussion content so they can review it later.
Then a phone call wouldn't be able to do that, would it?"
"Hmm..."
This Time, it was Ayase Akane's turn to be silent.
But her silence only lasted for two seconds before Ayase Akane suddenly had a flash of inspiration and asked:
"For text, isn't there email? The traditional way of sending letters, isn't that good enough? If the letter takes too long to arrive, you could totally use electronic mail."
Japan's famous Yahoo company had just been established at the beginning of this year and had developed a so-called free email system. As long as you registered, they could help you set up an email address to send letters and so on.
But even without Yahoo, computers had their own built-in email systems. You just needed to know the recipient's computer name to send an email. While not as convenient, it did, to some extent, replace part of the traditional letter function.
"And don't you think paper letters are more ritualistic and romantic? A pen pal romance between Tokyo and Hokkaido, that's something that only appears in TV shows and novels!" HR-chan's eyes gleamed, lost in her own fantasy.
Aoki Haruhi really wanted to hit her.
Such a cute girl, if he punched her in the face, she would surely cry terribly, right?
"So, let's put it this way."
Aoki Haruhi calmed down. Although Ayase Akane seemed to be arguing a bit, it also perfectly illustrated the different uses of various tools. Demand without differentiation cannot become true demand.
A forum must have its own unique function.
"Think about it. Let's call the player in Tokyo Player A and the player in Hokkaido Player B. What if a player C from Okinawa wants to see A and B's chat content, comment on it, and join the conversation?
You can't just send another copy of the two people's emails to C, can you?"
"To be even more extreme, what if there are thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of people interested in A and B's topic? They also want to understand the discussion content and participate in the discussion.
In this situation, wouldn't the previous methods be unsuitable?
Well, that's what a forum exists for.
It's like we post the chat content on a bulletin board, and everyone who passes by can see it and leave comments on the bulletin board.
It's that kind of thing."
Nani?!
Ayase Akane covered her mouth in shock. Could there really be so many people?
"How could hundreds of thousands of people want to read other people's chat content? That's too scary!"
"There just are," Aoki Haruhi scoffed inwardly. "Think of it this way: our 'patema inverted' has sold 1.5 million copies, right? That means we have over a million players.
If all of them can enter the forum to discuss, wouldn't that be over a million people?"
Ah!!!
Ayase Akane felt her brain was overloading.
She couldn't even imagine what it would be like for so many people to gather and discuss games.
If it were in reality, there wouldn't even be a place big enough to accommodate so many people, would there?
It wasn't that her imagination was lacking; it was mainly limited by the Time.
Things that little kids in the future year 2023 could easily understand and accept became terrifying, era-defying, and imagination-defying content for Ayase Akane.
It must be said that the advent of computers changed many people's lives and thinking habits.
"But... why would we discuss things with strangers on this BBS thing? What if someone finds out what's in my heart?"
Ayase Akane asked, somewhat confused.
Actually, it was quite alarming for her. Letters were inherently very private, but suddenly they were laid bare, and anyone could see her chat content with some handsome guy in Hokkaido.
How could she live like that?
If, in this forum, she and the other person clicked, confessed to each other, or said some mushy things...
All of it would be seen by everyone.
How embarrassing would that be~
Ayase Akane's cheeks were flushed, unable to imagine further.
Seeing HR-chan looking squirmy, completely lost in a mysterious and uncontrollable fantasy, Aoki Haruhi couldn't help but roll his eyes at her.
And you, looking like that, are afraid of exposing your inner thoughts?
"You don't understand, the future is the Internet Age!"
"And it's quite the opposite; some things are actually harder to say in real life," Aoki Haruhi patiently explained to her. "But, they might be very easy to say online. I don't need to explain 'online' anymore, right?
It's just computers connected to each other, and doesn't it look like a big net?"
Ayase Akane understood this concept. After all, computers had been around for quite some Time, and moreover, Japan already had dial-up internet service. Although Ayase Akane hadn't delved deep into it, she had some basic knowledge.
"Eh? Why?" Ayase Akane found it strange. "Why is it easier to say things online?"
"Think about it, in real life, your name is Ayase Akane, right?"
"Mhm."
"But online, you can be called Chata."
"Chata?" Ayase Akane looked bewildered. "Why would I be called Chata?"
"Don't worry about it, it's just an example, like Maeda Jun is called Maeda Jun, Urobuchi is called Gen Urobuchi, and I'm called Furuhara Tsubaki. It's just a virtual identity online."
"Oh."
"So, to other online players, they don't actually know that Chata is Ayase Akane, and they don't know what you look like in real life, right?"
"Mhm."
"So, do you understand? No one knows who you are, what you do, or where you are. You can completely play another role, for example, the president of Pokeni Company.
Or fabricate yourself as a princess of some country.
You can completely talk to these people about the senior you had a crush on in middle school, or discuss embarrassing things you've done.
Anyway, no one knows it's you, right?"
At this moment, Aoki Haruhi's voice was like that of a devil.
Ayase Akane only felt that the little devil in her heart had been stirred up by him.
"Wow~"
HR-chan's eyes lit up. "I finally understand!"
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