Sep 02, 2025
I won't lie, but the use of game dev terminology here is weird enough that it's really breaking my immersion. Not sure what a 'geometry test' is - in reality that would be called a 'primitive' test, and it doesn't look colourless as you describe it. That's a whitebox level, and the lack of colour is because the game objects aren't textured.
Second off, that debug gun is kind of incredibly hacky for a live ops game, but I suppose that's isekai for you. Still, we typically don't load up every functionality into a swiss-army-knife asset. I get the rule of cool cinematics of it all, but might as well said he has access to the dev console.
Pedantry aside, I'm a little bit torn on this. On the one hand, it's a fun concept where some two-bit, downtrodden, capitalism-crushed shmuck is raptured into his own creation in the most ludicrous fashion ever. Like from the get-go this screams ISEKAI. However, at the same time, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but this feels like something that's extremely cynical. Like it walks like an isekai and quacks like an isekai but it's following tropes because it has to, not because you want to. No demerits there, of course – everyone has to eat, and failing this contest, there's always JNC on the horizon. But I think the fact that this is written with no love lost for the genre may hold you back.
Now the style is fine. It's LN-like, it's servicable. It's not Carlo Zen or Hachimoku Mei, but it's okay for what it is. I think what it's lacking is peaks and valleys, honestly. Even stuff like Shield Hero or the infamously bad Re: Zero LN have moments where the author/editor pair really cooked; and also moments where they wrote with one eye closed. But in here, everything feels kind of... sanitised? The MC repeats his own thoughts all the same, is bashful at a female's softness, the worldbuilding kinda comes in as soon as we pan over the objects (ain't that a game mechanic). All good, but all kind of depersonalised. This is first person, but the main character feels so distant from the action, it might as well have been third person.
And speaking of the main character, I'm kind of... I don't know, blase about him. Like he's just a boring victim of capitalism, literal salaryman self insert. Again, I get it: isekai. Escapism. Wish-fulfillment. But he doesn't really read like an isekai hero, so much as someone's interpretation of what an isekai hero is. He's there. He's sad about life. He's cowardly at first, but uses his hack and insane knowledge to move on quickly. Feels like he's got nothing to overcome yet, no personal hurdle, nothing to make the reader aspire to be him. You can argue he's relatable but beyond me, a game dev, being able to point at him and go 'he just like me fr', nothing sticks out. He doesn't have an insane passion for game dev, or some fauxlosophy to inform his world view. He doesn't have a sparkly desire in his eyes, or some kind of shounesque wish. He just kind of is. He's there. I really can't think of him as a hero - he sounds more like a background character.
Anyway, don't worry. This might all work in your favour. Who knows who'll judge this? It sure won't be me.
Best of luck in the contest,
Bubbles~
