Chapter 1: Year 2125

It was the year 2125 the world saw an intense rise in technology at the end of the 21st century and it was further taken up a level in the 22nd century.

The year 2100 saw an intense rise in the gaming industry, many new companies rose and fell; but one company namely Astro Revolution stood strong among them. It released one sensational game after another and instantly captured the player base of the whole world in the past few decades.

The company was renowned for its brilliant game mechanics and new elements it puts into its every game; furthermore, the company is also reputed for employing young and talented groups of game developers. All these factors ensured its continuous hegemony.

Simon aged 35, unmarried; was employed by Astro Revolution in the year 2112 as an assistant game developer. Filled with intense passion and ingenious ideas for developing games, he quickly rose to become the head of his group in merely 5 years.

His group consistently and continuously delivered one popular game after another. And after ten years, the year 2122 Simon and his group took on a new challenge of developing a new game.

Now 45 years old, he put his heart and soul into developing this new game.

Simon planned on making it his most masterful piece of work that he could take pride in. Most of the time he slept and ate in his office, sometimes he got so engrossed in writing codes that he skipped his sleep and meals.

More often than not he would blabber and keep on going through all the codes in his mind whenever he had free time. When his colleagues would take a break or a day off from their work, he would sit in his office racking his brain for ideas, run codes then debug them.

One could say this became the daily routine of the man named Simon.

—–

In a spacious room, there were many displays of monitors running complicated lines of codes, tables and their contents unkempt, tablets cluttering the floor, and in one corner of the room lay a mattress and pillow. The room was the very definition of messy.

Simon who delved deeper and deeper in his work was many times approached by his fellow developers to spend some time off of work.

But Simon would put their words in one ear and out the other. Months passed like this, his job became his life. His health was deteriorating but he paid it no mind. He put all his effort into developing the game he put his life and soul in.

Finally, in the middle of the year 2123, the game cleared all legal allegations and was set off for beta testing.

The initial reviews and testing were smooth and there were even talks about the game being launched at the end of the year going on among the top echelons of the company.

But the game was held off from launch due to some of its mechanics failing from time to time and bugs appearing due to repeated failures.

As a result, the game failed to pass the beta test at the end of the year.

—–

Simon was sitting on his chair in his office staring at the main menu of LAPLACE, the game where he put all his life and soul into. He was like a parent to this game, but the game couldn’t pass the final phase of the beta test. It failed to take off.

Due to this shock, Simon started putting more of his time developing and fixing the game. He stopped going home and started living in his office.

Simon murmured, “I will make this a success I promise”. At this moment Simon looked the very definition of a maniac.

—–

The year 2124, the month of June. In the blink of an eye 6 months passed and Simon like a fanatic devoted all his time of the year into the game.

And as result most of the bugs were cleared, the company decided to put the game for beta test for the second time. All the problematic mechanics were reconstructed and received intense reactions from the reviews, and the game finally passed the second beta test with ease.

The company decided to launch the game LAPLACE at the beginning of the year 2125.

In this period, Simon passed out many times while working. Waking up only when his fellow developers called out to him. Clearly, he had accumulated too much stress and had overworked his body to its limits.

Many times he was told by his colleagues to see a doctor but Simon paid them no mind, all his attention now was fixed on the launch of the game which was just one month away.

By now Simon had a head full of white hair even though he was 48 years old and had become an outcast in his group.

Due to limiting his social interaction to a minimal, he spent most of his time near his computer staring at the main menu of the game.

—-

It was the year 2125, today marks the official launch of the game LAPLACE.

Early in the morning when Simon’s fellow group members came to the office, they found Simon in front of his computer lying with his head down. It was like a daily event for them to find Simon in this state.

Some of his colleagues tried waking him up to no avail. Though he was sort of an outcast in their group, they were all aware of how much effort Simon had put into developing this game. If someone said the game was solely the work of Simon, nobody here could disagree.

So they tried shaking him as they reasoned it necessary for him to watch the official launch of the game he had sacrificed so much for.

However, no matter how many times they shook him or called out to him, they got no response.

Later a piece of news spread among the company Simon, one of the elite game developers had passed away in his office.