Before Anton encountered the zombie mode in Counter-Strike, he still vaguely believed he lacked the talent for music and art. He told himself he needed more time to immerse, to hone his skills—and then maybe he could create a game like Stardew Valley.
So, he delayed.
That was, until he saw the Counter-Strike zombie mode.
It was just a gameplay mode—but it could easily support an entire game by itself.
If that mode weren't wearing the skin of Counter-Strike and had been released as a standalone game, he would've happily paid for it.
But wrapped in the Counter-Strike package, the difficulty of making it was absurdly low.
At that moment, he couldn't find a single excuse left.
The zombie mode required no artistic talent, no musical skills. All you had to do was find the templates you liked, drop them in, and apply your programming logic to tweak the basic rules.
Just like that, a brand-new gameplay style was born.
...
...
For someone like him, this was laughably simple.
Yet he had never thought of doing it.
Now, without even realizing it, he and a few coworkers had played over ten matches in the Battle.net office space.
Originally, they were just supposed to help the president debug the mod.
But one thing led to another—someone opened the game menu just to test it out, then others joined in, and before he knew it, he was in too.
And then time vanished.
The gameplay was magic.
And yet—it wasn't hard to make. Why hadn't he thought of it?
When he came back to his senses, they'd already gone through ten-plus rounds.
He scratched his head in frustration.
There were no more excuses left to delay working on his own game.
"What's wrong? You look like you're having a crisis."
Takayuki's voice suddenly sounded behind Anton.
He jumped, and so did everyone else. They immediately put down their mice, a bit flustered, and stood up like kids caught doing something wrong.
It was a bit inappropriate to be gaming right in front of the boss.
But Takayuki just waved a hand. "If you've already finished debugging, feel free to play. Playing games is part of your job. If you don't play, how would you know what kind of games excite you?"
The group looked a little guilty—but Takayuki's words eased their nerves.
Then he asked, "So, do you guys think this mode is fun?"
Everyone nodded without hesitation. "Super fun. Honestly, we were getting tired of Counter-Strike's standard deathmatch. This new mode is just... refreshing."
In zombie mode, you didn't have to worry about suppressing gunfire or bullet economy. You just unloaded on zombies in the safe zone. No deep strategy—just raw, satisfying action. The kind of stress-relieving experience that was dangerously addictive.
Especially for this world's players, who had never seen anything like it. The fun hit even harder.
Takayuki smiled and followed up, "Then, if you were given the chance to independently make a new gameplay mode like this, could you do it in the same short amount of time?"
"Um..."
They glanced at each other.
"This is just a mod for Counter-Strike. It only took me about half a day to build the entire thing. Honestly, it's not hard at all."
"H-Half a day?"
Some of them looked shocked.
They hadn't thought about it in that way—just that it was a fun new mode.
But to make it in only half a day? Was this guy even human?
Then again… maybe it wasn't so impossible.
They'd already reviewed the code. Most of it reused Counter-Strike's original framework. Only the game rules and models had been tweaked or added.
If that was the case, they could probably do the same in half a day too.
Watching their reactions, Takayuki nodded knowingly. "I want game development to become easier and easier. If you have any cool ideas or concepts, you should try building them with open-source game templates. It's basically zero cost, but it can cultivate your skills from scratch. That's why I made this zombie mod to begin with."
Anton stood among them, his heart pounding.
Yes...
The difficulty had already been lowered this much. With ready-made templates and open engines, all you had to do was try. It really wasn't that hard anymore.
If Stardew Valley was about testing a developer's full-spectrum skills, this zombie mode was about one simple idea—one fun concept that could carry an entire game.
So why keep putting it off?
Why keep saying, "I'll make a game someday, once I have enough experience"?
Anton couldn't hold it in anymore. He wanted to go home right now and build his own game, using the simplest tools available.
"It looks like all of you already have ideas—that's great," Takayuki said. "I hope someday I get to see the fun, creative gameplay modes you create. But before that… please finish checking this mod for bugs."
Having employees really was convenient. You could hand off all the repetitive tasks and free yourself to focus on creativity. This was their job anyway—and he wasn't asking them to work overtime.
Totally reasonable.
The group blinked.
Wait… he already made another new mod?
Anton's flicker of pride immediately crumbled.
Was the gap between natural talent really this wide?
Some others, though, were visibly excited. They got to play a new mode designed personally by Takayuki—again!
With their boss's blessing, they rushed over to a different computer to start debugging the brand-new gameplay mode.
Meanwhile, Takayuki had already started thinking about his next set of mods.
This time, he'd make four or five in a row—and turn them into tutorials, to show the world that game development wasn't really that hard.
The hardest part was just taking that first step.