Indie game dev

"What do you think I am paying your fees for?"

"..."

"I have been telling you for a long time. You have messed up your studies. There is only one month remaining. Your final exams are gonna start soon. What are you going to do with those grades of yours? "

"...."

"You just waste your time on that stupid laptop, playing games ..sigh.. Your mom said you were making some game? What's this all about? "

"Dad, I already told you. I want to be a game designer. I want to make games."

"You idiot! Is that even a proper job? Who's gonna pay you for making stupid video games that only kids play? You are not a kid anymore. Grow up! There is no scope for that stuff in our country. You should pick something that has some scope in Nepal. I am telling this for the last time there is only a single month before your exams start. Study hard and score at least 70% in the upcoming exams or else you can just leave thoughts of studying any further and find work."

"...…"

Saying this, Shuvam's dad stormed out of the room, leaving behind Shuvam in red misty eyes.

Hearing what his dad said, Shuvam crashed into his bed and started sobbing."sob..sob…why…why…did this happen? Why can't they…sob..sob..understand?"

His phone vibrated. He knew that he had received a message. He wiped his ' About to flow out ' tears from his misty eyes and checked his message.

The message came from some unknown source. There was no name or number of the sender, just the message. The message was - ' Mr. Shuvam, You have been selected as the winner of our lucky draw competition. You will be emailed a link to download a software which will be helping you in your life to achieve your goals for free. Install the software and your life shall change. '

' Huh ? I didn't participate in any lucky draw. How did I win? They even know my name and contact. ', he thought.

' Maybe I participated in something and forgot, I guess. Let's check what this is. It would be really good if it could really help me achieve my goals. Haha What am I thinking? A software making me a game designer. ', he thought.

He was smiling and hadn't realized that streams of tears were flowing from both his eyes. He realized he was crying and quickly wiped those tears. He got up from his bed and sat on the chair nearby and opened his laptop which was placed on the desk in front of him.

It was an old low spec laptop but it was enough for him to play some games and use older versions of unity to try game developing. This laptop was gifted to him by his cousin who was in U.S. It was old, bulky and even occasionally leaked electricity from its metal casing. But for Shuvam, this laptop was his life.

He had connected a keyboard and a mouse onto the computer because few of the inbuilt keyboard keys were not working and he didn't like using the touchpad. He input the password of the laptop and took out his cellphone simultaneously. He didn't have an internet connection at home so he had to use data plans along with the hotspot option of his mobile to be able to use internet on his laptop.

He used NRs 20 to get a data plan which allowed him to used unlimited data for a hour. He checked his gmail and quickly found the link to download the software. He clicked on the link and a setup file of 600 megabytes started downloading. The average download speed in his current network was about 500-600 kbps. It took about 30 minutes to download the software. He had been watching videos on YouTube which had considerably slowed the download speed which resulted in taking longer time to download. (1$ = about NRs 105)

After the setup file finished download, he opened the file and his whole screen was engulfed in darkness. Suddenly, a timer was shown on the screen with the same black screen in the background. The timer showed 25 days remaining. Shuvam thought he had seen it wrong due to his still somewhat musty eyes. He rubbed his eyes and looked again and was shocked to see that it really did show 25 days remaining. He removed his laptop battery and placed it again and opened his laptop again in hopes of terminating the setup process.

The laptop opened again but it directly took him to the timer screen. He repeated the process for a few times and suspected that the screen didn't go away but the timer was moving even after his laptop was shut down. It was already late at night (11pm) so he shut the computer down and went to sleep. He wanted to know for sure if the installation process would carry on or not.

Next day, he woke up at 8 Am. He brushed his teeth, had his breakfast. His dad was on his morning walk and his mom and brother had already went to school. His brother was a student and his mom was a teacher at the same school. He opened the laptop and found out that his suspicion was correct. Even though the laptop was turned off, the installation process was going on.

He decided to wait for the installation to finish and shut the computer down. He went ahead and read novels on qidian till 12:00 and went to sleep at 12:30 because his mom and brother would be home at 1:00 .

The next few weeks went by in similar manner. It was finally time when the installation would be finished. He was really looking forward to it. He wanted to know what this mysterious software was and the fact that if it could really help him achieve his goals or not. He opened the laptop, the timer showed that there were 4 minutes remaining till the completion of the installation of the software.

After the installation completed, the laptop restarted. He put in the password of the laptop and was eager to see what was installed. He saw that all the software shortcuts on the desktop were the already installed ones. There was no new software installed. He opened the program files and searched for any new folders. One should know that Shuvam really loved computers and computer games. So he pretty much knew the names of all the folder in program files. He didn't find any new folder and was disappointed in his heart.

' Maybe I expected too much from my life ', he thought and laughed at himself and his pitiful state.

Suddenly, a robotic thingy appeared on his screen. It had a rectangular body and stringy hands and legs. " Hi Shuvam.", it said. Shuvam was scared. This thing, a thing on his computer that seemed like it was walking in the background of his computer screen was talking to him.

"Hi", he said stiffly.