His Naughty Lessons

** Harper **

Harper was getting distracted, thinking about the whole bizarre situation with Eli and wondering what he was trying to get at with those questions, when the attention of all the VIPs in the room suddenly snapped in her direction.

Geez, was that part of Eli's plan too? Did he want to give her a heart attack?

"A game like this can easily take many different directions when it comes to user experience," the man who spoke earlier continued. Harper didn't know his name or title, though he must be the person she was warned about earlier who liked to ask tricky technical questions. "Which aspect of gameplay are you planning to focus on? Adventure, strategy, action, puzzle solving, or something else?"

That was an easy one, thankfully. "Adventure," Harper replied without a second thought. "There will be a mix of all the above, but my goal is to create an immersive open world for the player to explore. Maybe combined with some factual details about physics and astronomy as well, to make it feel more realistic."

A smile that suggested increasing interest appeared on the man's face. "Hmm. I have always liked educational entertainment choices myself. Have you considered incorporating VR into the mix? It is very suitable for the kind of user experience you're after."

Hell yes, of course she had considered it! Harper had always dreamed of creating an epic, fully immersive VR game, but ... "Yes, that would undoubtedly take the experience to another level. However, given the complexity of the new technology ..." She tried to phrase her words most appropriately. "Our current design is centered around the same gaming platform that we already have in house for the kingdom-building products. The strategy and action aspects rely on the same mechanics we've already developed for FPS. To incorporate something such as VR that we don't currently have in our portfolio ... would require further research and development."

"And budget," another man from the investors group said. Harper didn't recognize him either, but she assumed that anyone raising the topic of budget was likely the CFO or some similar personnel within that department. "The budget proposed in our earlier meetings" — he flipped through a document folder in his lap — "barely covers a brand new project of such a scale. To go that direction would mean making this the sole focus of your company for quite a while, which is too substantial a risk."

"For something with such a bright outlook and breakthrough value, I'd argue that the risk is worth it," the first man countered.

"I agree a hundred percent." It was Eli who spoke next. Harper's eyes snapped toward him immediately, and she found him ... smiling at her? "That would be an important topic to include in our risk management discussions. But for now, perhaps we should not derail the meeting." He nodded back at the podium, where Naomi had been standing silently for over five minutes by now. "Thank you for entertaining our questions. Shall we move on?"

The presentation continued. Harper turned back toward the projection screen and resisted the urge to make more eye contact with Eli.

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