As Ethan immersed himself in the process of making his game, the other students nearby were still trying to figure out who he was.
People with a real grasp of computers were still very rare.
Of course, there were a few tech-obsessed individuals who might've gotten into computers on their own, but even that was uncommon.
Ever since IBM launched its first personal computer in 1981, the mystery around computers had slowly begun to fade.
"Anyone know who that student is?" one upperclassman asked the others.
But all he got were shrugs and head shakes. Nobody had a clue. Ethan's sudden appearance had thrown off their original plans for the day.
"Maybe he's from Oxbridge or Imperial—here on an academic exchange?" someone guessed.
The upperclassman frowned. "That can't be. Our tutor didn't say anything about any visiting students."
"Well, maybe he's here on his own? Should we go ask him?"
One of them moved like he was going to tap Ethan's shoulder, but the upperclassman quickly pulled him back.
"Don't. Can't you see how focused he is? Would you want someone interrupting you while you're deep into code?"
"Er… fair point. So, what now? Just stand here and watch?"
The upperclassman thought for a moment. "If you're curious, keep watching. If you can follow what he's doing, you might learn something. If not, go back to the assignment."
The less experienced students—who could barely follow any of Ethan's code—went back to working on their calculator project.
But a few second-years and a couple of advanced first-years stuck around behind Ethan, quietly observing his every move.
Ethan, completely unaware of the crowd gathering behind him, was already deep into the architecture of his next game.
He'd decided on another side-scroller, building off the experience he'd gained from making Contra.
This one would be called: "Squirrel Squad".
In his previous life, it was known by a much longer name in the West and was based on a Disney cartoon.
Both the show and the game had originally aired in the late '80s. Here in 1986, neither had even been announced yet. Ethan had double-checked while in Japan—there was no sign of either project existing yet. That gave him a green light.
The last thing he wanted was to stumble into an IP lawsuit.
That said, there was still a problem: Ethan wasn't familiar with cartoon-style illustration. To make the game look the way he wanted, he'd need to find someone who could both draw and use a computer.
But finding someone like that would be nearly impossible in Britain right now.
If he couldn't find the right person, he'd just have to do it himself. Maybe take a crash course in digital art and come back to the project later.
The good news was that he still had time. Once Contra started earning revenue, he could polish Squirrel Squad and release it afterward.
For now, he'd use simple colored blocks as placeholders for characters, enemies, terrain, and interactive elements.
This was a common technique in his original timeline: developers would build the full structure of a game using basic visual elements, then enhance the graphics later once the core gameplay was in place.
After about an hour of steady typing, Ethan had finished recreating the first section of the first level.
Squirrel Squad included a lot of interactive mechanics: crates, boulders, apples, red balls…
It was packed with tiny details. Finishing one level a day would already be pushing it. He wasn't Superman.
His goal for today was just to test the basic flow—see if the level framework worked.
All the cosmetic and gameplay tweaks could come later.
By now, the computer science students watching him were frozen in awe.
For Ethan, everything he was doing was muscle memory—stuff he'd done hundreds of times before.
To the others, it looked like magic.
It had started with a burst of keyboard inputs—code flying across the screen.
Then, after he input the final command and ran the program… something incredible happened.
Color exploded across the monitor.
Green blocks for grass.
Metallic grey for walls.
Sky-blue for the background.
Red for apples. Brown for the squirrel character. Triangular grey blocks for enemies.
They were crude, abstract graphics—but to these students, it was hypnotic.
"Wait—coding can do this? It can make colored objects move on-screen?" someone gasped.
"Technically, yes," said the upperclassman. "Our tutor mentioned it before, but we haven't gotten that far in class yet."
He was trying to sound calm, but the truth was—his scalp was tingling.
He'd followed Ethan's logic for the first few minutes. Some of it was basic—initial setup in assembly language, stuff their lecturer had touched on.
But then Ethan's code had shifted gears.
It got way more advanced, fast.
The guy created a window, defined resolution, assigned a height of 2 to the squirrel character…
But why a squirrel?
The more the upperclassman thought about it, the more he got lost. His brain was melting.
Compared to Ethan's project, their dinky calculator program looked like a toddler's scribbles.
Who was this guy?
"Look, look!" one of the first-years whispered. "The red square just jumped! It follows the keyboard inputs!"
"I saw it. It moves and even climbs… is this thing going to start flying next?"
Ethan was testing character movement—controlling the squirrel's brown-colored block as it jumped, climbed, and traversed platforms.
Unlike Contra, which was purely horizontal, Squirrel Squad had vertical movement too. It was more complex by design.
Ethan wanted to confirm the logic worked before adding anything else.
It seemed to be going great—until…
Ka-chunk.
The screen froze.
Then the software crashed.
Ethan: "…Seriously?"
From behind him, a student grinned. "Called it! There's the bug! I was starting to think he was some kind of coding god!"
Ethan groaned. Even pros trip up now and then.