[Today seems to be my lucky day! I got a Golden Week Card!]
"Aha! This is exactly what I wanted! Kondō, it seems fate is against you."
The Golden Week Card allows you to designate a specific county for travel during the Golden Week holiday, at which point the toll fees will be doubled.
But that's not all. As the fourth player, Kojima will enter a new round after completing his turn.
Each round may trigger a random change in economic conditions.
The seafood industry is booming right now!
"Masaka! The Kojima's assets are all----"
Located in Hokkaido, the Kojima naturally didn't overlook these coastal plots of land, which are now almost entirely covered with seafood-related industries.
This change was exactly what they wanted.
Kondō, on the other hand, was visibly furious.
In just one round, he went from an undisputed champion to someone in a precarious situation.
One wrong step and you could lose everything.
"What terrible luck! We were so close to winning if we had just held on a little longer."
2
He slowly took the handle, and as if resigned to his fate, covered his eyes and threw the dice.
Before he could even peek through his fingers at Bing Rong on the screen, he heard the gasps of the three people beside him.
"Wow, what incredible luck! How did they even survive?"
Kondō then opened his eyes and looked over.
On this road ahead, stopping at almost any point would be fatal.
But he cast a perfect 5, which landed on the only low-priced yakitori restaurant among a group of high-priced businesses.
Although a large portion of their assets were directly deducted, they managed to survive another round.
Kondō figured it out.
You can't relax until the very last moment in this game. As long as you're still alive, there's always a chance to turn the tide.
And this persistence, in the end, did not betray him.
At the very beginning of the next round, Kondō was blessed by Lady God of Fortune and received discounts on various fees, as well as an extra sum of cash.
Although I only drew the lowest number starting with 1 from the list of numbers from 1 to 9, which is a bit of a loss, it's still free, so why not take it?
How long can you play a game of Richman?
Momotaro Dentetsu provides its own answer.
Three hours!
In the end, Kojima narrowly lost to Kondō by ten million.
"What a pity, I just had bad luck at the start, otherwise I would have won this game for sure."
" Kondō, that bastard, is really lucky. I thought he was going to be done for that round, but I didn't expect him to be able to pull himself back from the brink."
"That God of Fortune was crucial; otherwise, my final asset exchange would have been the decisive blow for him."
97
"I thought I could win by monopolizing the Tokaido Shinkansen and collecting tolls, but I made a mistake."
That's amazing.
In games like Richman, the Matthew effect is almost unavoidable.
As the assets of the stronger players increase, their advantage in the game will also grow.
vice versa.
This situation results in Richman, or any derivative of Monopoly, exhibiting a distinct curve in its game pace.
When the amount of assets reaches a certain threshold, the pace of the game will suddenly accelerate, allowing the strongest player to quickly gather all the assets and achieve final victory.
In other words, when players start to find themselves at a disadvantage during the game, it's destined that their subsequent gaming experience won't be very good.
However, in " Momotaro Dentetsu," this absolute truth is actually broken!
Even though I had lost, I didn't feel the intense sense of defeat and shame that I had expected.
Kojima sat in front of the television, watching the three people still reviewing the situation, and fell into deep thought.
He keenly sensed that something seemed amiss.
" Kondō was suddenly dumped in Hokkaido —was it really just bad luck?"
He couldn't help but ask himself this question.
It was all such a coincidence.
But it unexpectedly met everyone's expectations.
Kojima and his two companions wanted to teach the ever-dominant Kondō a lesson, while Kondō, having been somewhat uneasy about his previous successes, believed that misfortune was about to befall him.
Everything happened in perfect accordance with the intuition of the four of them.
But it is precisely this perfection that makes it seem somewhat eerie.
"The design of video games is probably far more sophisticated than I imagined—"
Kojima silently glanced at the GAMENOVA logo on the cartridge box.
Creating a masterpiece by piling on materials is nothing special; anyone with the resources can do it easily.
To make something simple fun and outstanding is no simple feat.
"Hey, Hideo."
Kondō's voice interrupted his thoughts, "Hey, let's stop playing Dragon Quest and start another round while everyone's here. Whoever comes in last treats!"
I agree!
"Come on, I was just thinking I didn't perform quite well earlier."
Kojima looked at the three people who were having a great time and forced a smile.
"You three brothers go ahead and play, I have something to take care of."
GameFreak Society.
"Uh... Mr. Kojima, we at GameFreak don't do game development; that's the job of GAMENOVA headquarters."
Satoshi Tajiri held the resume Kojima handed him, somewhat speechless.
This situation is actually quite common.
Since GAMENOVA officially entered the Japan market, it has received a considerable number of applications from developers.
Although he always carefully organized the data and sent it to headquarters, General Manager Lin never had any objections to this.
But it's so annoying!
Resumes from all sorts of shady characters flooded in like snowflakes, but after filtering them, only a few were truly valuable.
And those that were painstakingly selected are destined to disappear without a trace.
Honestly, he was almost ready to kick the young man out.
Economics majors are all here; aren't they just here to cause trouble?
"Sir, this is a design proposal for an AVG game I've created, which I call ' Snatcher '."
"Wow, that's really keeping up with current events, pretty sci-fi."
Satoshi Tajiri quickly flipped through a couple of pages; this seemed to be a cyberpunk-themed Adventure game.
It's really hard to tell anything from the concept design alone.
"Hmm—I'll send it to President Lin along with the email, but whether I get a reply or not isn't up to me."
Thank you so much!
KONAMI, MSX Game Division.
Kojima never dreamed that the position at Konami, the big company he had always longed for, would be like this.
In the cramped little office, there were only a few developers besides him.
With this kind of configuration, it's not even as good as some of the stronger indie game companies.
Friends, I still don't intend to give up on my—
"Don't speak so loudly, you're new here."
He was rudely interrupted before he could finish speaking, without giving him any chance to argue.
Today, I truly experienced the workplace culture Kojima Japan.
He silently sat back down in his seat.
Just then, the phone rang.
I wonder if it will be another lecture from my boss.
"Hello, this is Konami MSX Game Division, I'm Kojima, the game planner."
" Kondō? Why are you calling me? Go back right now? Are you kidding me? Didn't I tell you I'm at work?"
"----who??"
"Mr. Satoshi Tajiri? You came to my house?? You've had too much to drink??"
Listening to the excited, rambling voice on the other end of the phone, Kojima was completely at a loss for words.
Until that familiar voice rang out.
"Mr. Kojima, it's me, Satoshi Tajiri. Do you have a United States visa? Mr. Hayashi wants to see you."