Rebirth 86: I use games to kick open the door to the world

"Mr. Zuozhen, let me introduce to you this person named Takemoto Kiyoshi, who is our game program engineer."

This man was short, wearing the same white shirt and bow tie as Nakamura Akira, and was observing Zuozhen with a scrutinizing gaze.

"You made a game where two people share the same screen? How did you do it?" He asked Zuo Zhen directly and without politeness.

"This is a secret, I don't need to tell you."

Takemoto Kiyoshi frowned, he was not happy with Zuozhen's cold answer.

But when he was about to say something more, Akira Nakamura interrupted him.

"Okay, let's watch the game."

What he wants to see most now is how this Contra game is going to be, and nothing else matters.

"okay."

Takemoto Kiyoshi immediately became honest.

The relationship between superiors and subordinates in Japan is very strict. He can be rude to Zuo Zhen, but he must be honest to Nakamura Akira.

Akira Nakamura handed Contra's floppy disk to Takemoto Kiyoshi, who immediately took it with both hands and put it into a device in the center of the office.

This device is a general debugging machine for game consoles. It can be regarded as the first version of the game console. It is specially used to test the compatibility of new games and new hardware.

Since it is not a product for external sale, the surface looks very messy, with various wires exposed.

However, in Zuo Zhen's eyes, it is also very bloated and backward.

Takemoto Kiyoshi really wanted to see Zuo Zhen's surprised or curious eyes. After all, this is considered a high-tech product in Japan today, and it is also an internal device that ordinary people cannot see.

But he found that Zuo Zhen's reaction was mediocre, as if he didn't care.

This guy must be pretending on purpose. As far as he knows, China has not yet developed a mature semiconductor electronics industry. He has definitely never seen such equipment.

Insert the floppy disk, the machine starts decoding, and soon the game interface appears.

The unique rhythmic music of the eight-bit machine sounded.

Several gradually increasing audio sounds, then ending with the fixed start of the game, and finally ending with a sound that simulates an explosion.

Um? The sound effects in this game are pretty good.

Takemoto Kiyoshi was stunned. It was not easy to produce such a harmonious sound effect on an eight-bit machine.

Zuo Zhen had no reaction, but Takemoto Kiyoshi was slightly surprised.

After entering the game interface, it was Zuo Zhen's turn to demonstrate. He stood up and walked to the debugging machine, then picked up the handle on the side and pressed the start button to select the two-player mode. Then he picked up another handle and handed it to Takemoto Kiyoshi. .

"Mr. Takemoto, come on." Zuo Zhen signaled.

Until now, Takemoto Kiyoshi still has doubts. He feels that Zuo Zhen is too young.

He is probably only in his twenties. How much game development experience does he have? It looks like he is still making the game alone, which is even more outrageous.

How much game development experience do you have?

Can you alone solve a two-player mode that many people have a hard time solving? Why don't I believe it so much?

I'm afraid it's not a pseudo two-player mode that switches characters similar to Super Mario, but there must be something fishy about sharing the same screen.

The most important thing is that this person comes from China.

He's not saying that China isn't good at it, it's mainly because he hasn't heard of many video games in this country until now.

How can a good enough game emerge if there is no development soil?

Do you think it's child's play? That requires the cooperation of many people, and not just any rubbish game can be released on their consoles.

The collapse of the game industry three years ago is still fresh in my mind, because the garbage games developed by you guys almost destroyed the game industry.

If you really have a dream of game development, you might as well go to a game company to learn from it first, instead of thinking about doing it alone.

Just keep your feet on the ground and start from the basics. Don’t think that you can make a good game just by knowing a little bit of programming!

Takemoto Kiyoshi cursed Zuo Zhen crazily in his heart.

He was already prepared to make Zuo Zhen look embarrassed and expose his face. This arrogant guy must not be allowed to release the game on their platform.

However, after entering the official interface of the game, he forgot about it.

The game doesn't have any fancy plot introduction.

It starts off straight to the point, with two characters appearing on the far left side of the screen.

The background of the game looks like a jungle scene.

"Okay, Mr. Takemoto, the game has started. Control your character, move up, down, left and right, A button to shoot and B button to jump."

Takemoto Kiyoshi subconsciously moved his character, and at this time Zuo Zhen had already controlled his character to start firing at the approaching enemy.

"Be careful not to get hit by bullets, or you will die!"

"Oh Mr. Takemoto, you were attacked, but it doesn't matter, you still have three lives."

"Mr. Takemoto, you died a little quickly, but it's okay. I can still continue. It's up to me."

It only took Kiyoshi Takemoto three minutes to use up all three lives. He obviously didn't understand the game yet, so he died very quickly.

But none of this is important.

Akira Nakamura, who was watching from the sidelines, couldn't take his eyes away from the screen.

He didn't have Kiyoshi Takemoto's slanderous thoughts. He only knew that Zuo Zhen had achieved the two-player on-screen gameplay he promised.

And it's so perfect.

This value is even more important than the game itself.

It’s true that there weren’t games with two people on the same screen before, but those were not the type of two-player adventure games that we are facing.

This can be a great publicity stunt.

The first side-scrolling two-player adventure game was born on their console.

Nakamura Akira was thinking excitedly, while Takemoto Kiyoshi was falling into self-doubt.

This game is very complete.

He quickly used up his life, just watching Zuo Zhen's one-man show.

He didn't have time to pay attention to the few minutes of play just now.

But now he sees it from the perspective of a bystander, and the game is full of details.

He just subconsciously thought this would be a bad game.

"Mr. Zuo Zhen, please ask how many of you developed this game? How long did it take?"

"Huh? You're talking about this? I developed it by myself and it took about three or four months."

In fact, it took Zuo Zhen no more than ten days to make this game. The levels, code, etc. can be written in one day, and the rest is to edit the art and sound effects.

He would be more efficient if someone could share the work.

This is very simple for a person who has traveled through time in later generations, but for people of this era, it is a bit shocking.

So Zuo Zhen still had reservations, saying that it would be more acceptable to develop the game in three or four months.

But this is still a bit scary in Takemoto Kiyoshi's eyes.

If it is a team of more than a dozen people, it can be done in three or four months, but it can be done by one person in three or four months, which is quite impressive.

At this moment, he had completely lost his slanderous attitude and was replaced by a trace of awe.