Game Development Giant

Blushed a little by Jester's compliments, Rob Pardo touched his hair unconsciously, and then said: "Actually, I thought of it when I reached the end of the third level. The design seems to be very different from the previous two levels, because this game is not just a horizontal scroll or a vertical scroll, but a full-scroll game that combines the two. The characters can not only move left and right but also up and down. In almost all levels In terms of map design, the designers are also making full use of the characteristics of the full scroll to design, only the third level." "Very keen eyesight." Jester was somewhat impressed, although regarding the third level The design was the result of discussions between him and Mark Cerny, and he did not even tell other designers the reasons for the design. Even when making the third level, several designers led by Mark Cerny The designers of the R\u0026D team were still a little dissatisfied with this. They felt that the design of this level completely abandoned the advantages of the full scroll and deliberately created a bad scene that could only be moved forward and backward. This made them a little bit unhappy. understand.

But there is no way to explain this to them clearly, because the purpose of designing the third level is to accumulate and verify technology for a game that will be produced in the future - I just want to experiment and see the excellent fighting effect. Can it be done on an eight-bit arcade machine. The results of the experiment are very good. Both Jester and Mark Saini are very satisfied with the smoothness and impact of the characters in the game. In Jester's eyes, this effect is very close to the earliest "Street Fighter", as long as a brand new engine is written specifically for fighting games, it is not impossible to achieve the quality of the original version of "Street Fighter".

After all, the first version of "Street Fighter" arcade was released in 1987, and at this time Capcom had not yet developed the legendary base board cps1 that allowed them to dominate the arcade field. Therefore, despite Jester's opinions on "Street Fighter" He didn't know much about the arcade base version used, but he was certain that it couldn't be a 16-bit base version.

"To be honest, Rob, I don't mean to praise you, because to praise you means to praise myself - the plan you wrote is very original in the eyes of a real game planner, and you are The brand-new game mode proposed in it - fighting game, actually came up with this idea when Saini and I were discussing how to make "Avengers" at the beginning, and designed the one you mentioned. The third level seems to be incompatible with the overall game style. Even in this level, the player's operation method is forced to change. For example, swinging the joystick up no longer moves up, but becomes jumping, etc. This is just to verify whether such a game is feasible." Jester didn't want to let Rob Pardo get too carried away. After praising him, he immediately waved the big stick.

As expected, Jester's words also weakened Rob Pardo's excitement a little, but from his eyes, Jester could still see a clear look of dissatisfaction. Obviously, he did not I don’t quite believe what Jester said.

"Haha." Faced with this situation, Jester just chuckled twice. He did not speak, but directly took out two documents from the folder and handed them to Rob Pardo. , and then Jester said in a very calm tone, "Please take a look at these two character design drafts first. The first one was the preliminary design made by Mark Saini at the beginning, and the second one was made by me. After discussing it with him several times, we came up with the second setting, which is the setting you see now.”

Hearing Jester's words, Rob Pardo took the two separately bound documents with some curiosity and looked through them carefully.

The initial design is very rough, there are only two characters, and the moves are seriously homogeneous. Although the fighting styles practiced by the two characters are not clear, they basically only have a few attack moves, and even Most of them were similar, but far less rich than the version he had played before. There were three characters, and each character had completely different moves.

In the version he had played before, each character had a very detailed experience introduction on the initial selection interface. These were all included in the settings of the first version, but they were fully reflected in the character moves of the first version. There is no way to distinguish each character, and it is impossible to reflect the characteristics of their genre from their moves. It seems that the previous character introduction is just a simple thing to make up the numbers.

But when Rob Pardo opened the second setting book, what he saw was completely different from the first one.

At the very beginning, it is clear that the three characters belong to different fighting schools, and each character has different moves noted at the back. These moves are very comprehensive and include complete punching and kicking skills while standing. The punch and kick skills when crouching, the punch and kick skills when taking off, anti-air skills, throwing skills, and even the third Interpol character has many close-range throws that he has never seen in the game. tricks.

This setting is not too thick, but the character moves set above are much richer and more comprehensive than what he used in the game experience. There are many moves that he saw very well but were not added to the game. , even though he didn't know what the various fighting styles were, he could also see from the detailed setting diagram above that each character's move style was completely different.

While flipping through the second set book that Jester handed him, Rob Pardo couldn't help but think of what he wrote to Jester, which should be called a plan and should not be called test feedback. , and immediately blushed. It turned out that a brand-new game type that I suddenly came up with when I was playing "Avengers" was someone who had already thought of it.

Then, Jester could clearly see Rob Pardo's face fall.

He didn't want to dampen this talented young man's passion for game design too much, so Jester continued to speak with a smile.

"Are you discouraged? In fact, there is no need to do so. Your plan is actually very good. It can be found from a level that Seni and I designed to test the feasibility of the next game. I found that I can use this as an opportunity to make a new game. Your sharpness of vision is much better than that of many of my people. When you were working on this level, they were still questioning why you wanted to make this kind of level! "

As Jester spoke, he saw a look of excitement on Rob Pardo's face again after hearing his compliment again. He also nodded with satisfaction. The character of the game maker is It is very important to have an optimistic character and be able to cheer up immediately after encountering setbacks, because in the process of making a game, the setbacks encountered are simply countless.

"Rob, do you know why the tricks designed in this setting are much less than what you experience in the game?" Jester asked Rob Pardo again.

This time Rob Pardo thought for a moment, then shook his head.

He really couldn't figure it out. From the setting point of view, these moves were all very good and could further enhance the playability of the game characters.

"It's very simple. The hardware conditions are not up to par. You have to know that "Avengers" is a fighting beat-'em-up game, and the bottom layer of its engine was also developed to achieve the effects required by this type of game. Like this The main function of the engine is to process the full scrolling of the screen and the attack determination of multiple moving characters at the same time. With the eight-digit CPU computing power, it is very difficult to just complete these two functions, and then want to do it. More complex move determination is unrealistic.”…

Jester spoke very carefully, and Rob Pardo also listened very carefully. Although he didn't know why Jester told him this, he knew that what Jester told him meant a lot to him. Very useful in designing games.

"Now you understand why the boss battle at the end of our third level is specially designed in a style that seems to be incompatible with the full scroll and can only move forward and backward. Besides, except for the character controlled by the player and the boss at the end, there will be no Is there anything else that can be moved? , Jester continued to smile.

"In other words, we are simulating a scene suitable for fighting games for verification. For a designer, when designing a game, he not only needs to design diverse gameplay, but also make the game more interesting. It’s fun, but more importantly, it needs to be designed to be realistic, and your design has many unrealistic aspects. It’s too taken for granted. Of course, this is not your fault. After all, you have no understanding of the current hardware performance. An essential understanding.”

This meeting was not too long. If the time spent playing games together was not included, the whole process probably took no more than forty minutes. At the end of the conversation, Jester said to Rob Parr solemnly Duo said: "If you really want to work as a game designer in the future, you can come here to see me when you are in college, and I will arrange an internship opportunity for you at Mars Entertainment. To be honest, I am very happy I’m optimistic about your talent.”

After receiving Jester's promise, Rob Pardo left excitedly.

After this closed technical internal test is over, various development groups will make further corrections based on the feedback from the test. Some are just minor repairs, and some require larger changes, but at least there is no need to rework. A redo appears.

Among these works, the most popular game among the players who came to test this time is undoubtedly "Avengers", followed by the full version of "City of Battle". These two games are almost highly praised by the players and are highly praised. It is a masterpiece, and the side-scrolling shooter "Chief Balotelli" is also widely praised, and many players also like it very much. However, in terms of evaluation, it is still slightly lower than the previous two games.

The one with the lowest rating is the "Real Estate Tycoon" that Jester asked the three core people who produced "City of Battle" to form a new team to design a game that can run on IBM compatible machines.

Of course, the reason for the low evaluation of this game is also the low degree of completion. After all, it is only a game that has only been produced for a little more than a month.

The other ones are beta versions rather than alpha versions. Before this test, these games had been tested many times within the company themselves, and basically they were not much different from the finished products.

But this "Real Estate Tycoon" is a genuine semi-finished product. The completion level is not even fifty, it can only be said to be playable.

Originally, this is also a normal phenomenon in alpha testing, because the version of alpha testing should be like this, but the problem is that compared with so many highly completed games, this one is very low in completion, and even A game with many incomplete textures will naturally not be well received by players.

This was all within Jester's expectation.

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