Game Development Giant

Nearly half a year has passed since Nintendo officially withdrew, and Masayuki Uemura had already chosen to join Sony Computer Entertainment a month ago. He rejected invitations from Sega and Mars Entertainment, as well as some hardware development companies that had nothing to do with game consoles.

The dates for E3, Tokyo Game Show and GDC Game Developers Conference were also decided after discussions between the three founding companies of Mars Entertainment, Sega and Sony Computer Entertainment and the 25 permanent board game companies. However, E3 The Tokyo Game Show and the Tokyo Game Show will only be officially held next year, one is scheduled for spring and the other is scheduled for autumn.

However, the first GDC Game Developers Conference decided to be held in December this year in order to review the game history of the year and select several game awards.

The game awards are modeled after the movie awards. Since it is the first time, it is not too complicated. It has just initially drawn up three normal awards and one special award. The three normal awards are the best of the year. Games, the best game company of the year, and the most popular game platform of the year.

The special award is the GDC Lifetime Achievement Award, which is modeled after the Oscar Lifetime Achievement Award.

Only those who have made indelible contributions to the entire video game industry can receive this honor. Of course, Jester’s voice is also very high, but Jester himself knows that this award will definitely win. It would not be obtained by a young man like me.

In order to catch up with the second Mars Entertainment Carnival held in early November, Jester's two development teams are very fast. Whether it is "Fantasy Simulator" with a large amount of text or the first real-time strategy game, "Age of Empires", which poses extremely high challenges to developers, also completed the development of alpha version in early October.

If it is for sale. It’s definitely not possible. In fact, Jester’s release date for these two games is Christmas this year, which is quite generous in terms of time.

The current version is just a version where the framework has been completed and is completely ready for trial play.

"Excuse me. Are you really going to officially launch the trials of your two games at the Beard Mars Carnival?" Jester has been interviewed more often recently, and he will be interviewed by the media every once in a while. , released some development news.

This time is no exception.

In fact, the issues were all discussed before. Some content will not be leaked at all, and it will allow players to continue to pay attention and interest.

"Yes, our current trial version has been developed and is undergoing internal trial testing." Jester told the interviewer. He fluently spoke the answers he had prepared in advance. This answer is also answered truthfully, and in fact it is indeed the case. These two games did cause a certain sensation in the internal trials of Mars Entertainment.

Especially "Age of Empires", it has become a reserved project that more than 90% of people within Mars Entertainment will choose when taking a break.

"Are you satisfied with these two games?"

The reporter continued to ask questions, but in fact they were all nonsense. The answers to these questions were very flexible, and the respondents could choose very stereotyped answers. Waterproof, you can also choose to leak a little bit of small materials. to make the answer more eye-catching.

"Well……"

Jester hesitated for a moment, seemed to think for a while, and then said: "To be honest, I'm not very satisfied with the game "Dream Simulation War" because I didn't make anything on srpg with this game. It’s a breakthrough, and it’s quite satisfactory. To be honest, this is just a game that is very close to the original Fire Emblem, but I personally tried my best.”

Although Jester's tone was somewhat sad when he spoke, the interviewer's tone was anything but.

There was even a hint of unspeakable excitement in his tone.

"It is very rare to reach the level of "Fire Emblem". Mr. Li, I think you may not know that your "Fire Emblem" has become a textbook for this type of game by players. Almost RPG games can take into account You have completed everything you thought of inside. It is too difficult to achieve a breakthrough. Being able to get infinitely close is already a very brilliant victory!"

Hearing what the interviewer said, Jester's interest became a little higher, and the smile on his face became a little brighter.

"Then thank you for your kind words, but I don't think that what you said is that almost all RPG games can be achieved by "Fire Emblem". In fact, in my mind now, there is There are countless new ideas about RPGs, and even what the next generation of RPGs should be like. However, due to technical limitations, these things can only exist in my mind for the time being, but I believe that in the near future, , players who like RPG games will definitely be able to see a game like this."

"So from your statement about the near future, can it be inferred that Mars Entertainment has already started the development of the next generation 3D console?"

Hearing what Jester said, the reporter seemed to have heard something from this passage, so he tentatively asked a question that was not previously discussed. According to the prior agreement, the interviewer could During the process, several self-asked questions were asked, but because these questions were not agreed upon in advance, the interviewee had the right to refuse to answer.

But Jester has never refused to answer, and it was the same for this question.

But you can't just nod or shake your head about this kind of thing.

For any company, the development of new products is a top secret. For example, the development of Dreambox 3. Even within Mars Entertainment, only the top management knows the exact information about this matter, and only a few people. I personally know the specific information of the dreambox3 development team.

"This question is quite difficult to answer, because I feel that whether I say it has started or not, it seems to be of no use, because as long as you report this matter, then when players see it, it will definitely make them daydream. "

Jester smiled and talked: "I can only say that we are just studying what kind of console the next generation console should be. If this issue is uncertain, then the development work will not be carried out."

The interviewer must be dissatisfied with Jester's answer, but he also knows the interviewer's ethics in asking questions. He cannot pursue this kind of self-help question, because if he continues to pursue it, he will The interviewee will think that you are not here to interview, but to compete.

As the saying goes, when friends come, there is wine, and when wolves come, there are shotguns.

If a game media is considered a wolf by Mars Entertainment and wants to make a living in North America, then it basically means that this game media has reached its end.

Therefore, although the interviewer wanted to continue asking questions, he still restrained his inner thoughts and continued to ask questions according to the question script he had written in advance: "So, you mentioned the acronym RTS before. question, and the deadline you set before October has passed, can you announce the answer now? Also, the second Mars Carnival is about to open, has anyone guessed the correct answer? "

"Haha... let's talk about the second question first."

After Jester heard this question, he laughed a few times, and then stopped laughing and said a few words: "It is true that someone guessed the correct answer. Although I haven't read all the letters now, but from my perspective Judging from the results, one player guessed the correct answer, and there was even a young player who not only guessed the meaning of rts, but even wrote us his suggestions about this type of game. To be honest, the writing is very good, and one last thing, we have sent our letters to the players who guessed, and along with the letters, there is also our carnival invitation."

"So what does rts mean..."

The interviewer took the initiative to remind him that in the previous long paragraph, Jester did not say what rts meant.

"Oh...yes, I almost forgot if you didn't tell me."

Jester patted his forehead, deliberately showing an apologetic look, and then nodded and continued: "Actually, it is easier to guess this time. After all, the players already knew it before. This time I will develop this The team behind the RTS game was Sid Meier’s previous team that developed “Civilization”. By analyzing the game type of “Civilization”, we can get a lot of information.”

"The so-called RTS is actually real-time-strategy, and what is real-time strategy? It depends on the two words real-time. Real-time corresponds to the turn. I think players are interested in the turn-based system. Very familiar, but what about instant production? Actually..."

At this point, Jester stopped talking, with a weird smile on his face: "As for what real-time strategy is, wait until the day the carnival opens, and after the players have played our "Age of Empires", Then they will naturally know what real-time strategy is."

""Age of Empires"?!"

In just a moment, the interviewer caught the most critical term in Jester's words.

"Yes, "Age of Empires", that's the name of this real-time strategy game." Jester nodded, confirming the interviewer's question in a very affirmative tone. (To be continued...)