Rebirth of America, this is my time

Last month, when Ethan assigned the R\u0026D department the production task of "The Empire Strikes Back," he did say that he would have them write a specific design plan within a month.

Now that the time has come and the work is completed, Ethan naturally has to go and review it.

He and Damio Dean came to the conference room of the R\u0026D department, and after briefly greeting a dozen people in the department, Ethan sat on the swivel chair at the front and motioned for them to start directly.

The first person to take the stage was Tripp Hawkins. This guy, who was wearing a plaid shirt, black trousers and leather shoes, handed out a plan to everyone present, stood in front of the whiteboard and began to speak.

"Everyone, my boss said before that the movie "The Empire Strikes Back" can be made into two games. One game tells the story of Han Solo leading Princess Leia to break through the empire's blockade."

"The other one is about Luke Skywalker, who has received the teachings of Master Yoda, breaking into the Empire's trap alone, officially starting a battle with the Dark Lord Darth Vader, and defeating him."

"The game our team claimed was the first one. Because the core of this game is escape, so after discussion, our team decided to give the game a subtitle called "Escape"..."

Since Ethan had already set up the production framework for the "Empire Strikes Back" game and confirmed that the game type was a scroll-based adventure, Tripp Hawkins' speech was very smooth.

He followed Ethan's request and adopted a multi-character play mode in "Escape".

In terms of character modeling, it is directly copied from George Lucas's setting in "Star Hope". Han Solo is a young man in a jacket, and Princess Leia is wearing a white robe.

Because both of their weapons are pistols, and in this pixelated era, the details of the firearms cannot be reflected at all, so Tripp Hawkins decided to 'cut corners' and use the same model.

The shooting method also draws on the mature design of "Starry Sky" and decided to make three shooting modes: upward, forward, and downward. However, the jumping of the two people is still different from the protagonist in "Starry Sky". In the original painting of the design, When Han Solo jumps, he bends his knees and straightens up, with his arms spread wide, like a roc spreading its wings, while Princess Leia ducks sideways, showing a ladylike posture.

"Uh...can this be considered a jump?" Someone interrupted after hearing this.

"Of course." A young man from Tripp Hawkins' team introduced. "We set the purpose of jumping for the characters in the game, which is to add a way for players to dodge."

"Since the action of jumping is not purely good-looking, but has a certain special judgment, then the display of this action by the character graphics naturally has nothing to do with the judgment."

"When Princess Leia jumps, although her action is sidestepping and there is no upward movement of the figure, we can modify her judgment position so that her judgment coordinates are in the air like Han Solo."

"With this design, even if a bullet appears in front of her, it will just pass her by. This is consistent with the purpose of the evasion function we need. At the same time, this posture also looks better."

Everyone at the scene understood it.

The young man who asked the question asked curiously: "Is it troublesome?"

"It is not very difficult to operate." Tripp Hawkins' team member replied, "The only thing that needs to be noted is that when Princess Leia's determination coordinate is the sky, if a bullet appears in the sky, it will It is possible that Princess Leia died even though she did not jump, so we are actually still studying this action."

"Okay." The young man nodded, indicating understanding.

After seeing that there was no problem with the other party, Tripp Hawkins looked at Ethan.

Seeing that he remained silent and just waved his hand, he understood the meaning and continued: "I have already introduced the characteristics of the protagonist of the game. What I want to talk about next is the specific game. Please turn to the next page of the plan and start from Starting from that page, what is printed on the draft plan is the game map and levels we drew. Based on them, I will introduce our ideas to everyone..."

Although the movie "The Empire Strikes Back" has not yet been filmed, George Lucas has clearly marked in the script what scenes the protagonist will be in at each stage and plot.

With this help, map design becomes very simple.

Since the place where Han Solo and Princess Leia hide in the movie is called Echo Base, the first level of the game is played on a map full of technology.

In the original painting, Tripp Hawkins used the same design as "Starry Sky", designing a straight road for the level, but the background was not as lazy as in "Starry Sky", but with a steel sky that covered the sky. It consists of connected steel barriers and shining scientific instruments.

Because this is the first trial level of the game, what players need to face in this level are some of the storm soldiers who were the first to break into the base. They are wearing white armor and have only one way to attack, which is to use explosives. With guns biubiubiubiu, all players need to do is dodge bullets and kill them.

The boss of this level is a base gate occupied by storm soldiers, with an initial blood volume of thirty drops, which means that players need to attack thirty times to break through.

Its means of fighting back are also very simple. There are two openings on the top of the steel gate, which are small fortresses built by the storm soldiers. When the player appears, a steady stream of bullets will be shot from there.

Not only that, it also has two stages. The first stage is that every five drops of blood, three storm soldiers will rush out of the door and attack the player. The second stage is when its health drops below fifteen. , a huge turret will appear at the top of the base gate, and terrifying red lasers will be shot from there.

The attack here is not a bullet-like breakpoint attack, but a continuous attack that sweeps across everything.

When attacking, the turret will take the protagonist's position as the center point and shoot a blazing laser in front or behind him. The laser will continue to move towards the protagonist in the next two seconds. The method of avoiding it is also very simple. As long as the player runs away in the opposite direction of where the laser comes from.

As soon as this setting appeared, there was a commotion in the conference room.

"What does 'shooting a blazing laser in front or behind him' mean?"

Someone didn't understand Tripp Hawkins' description.

"Do you release this laser randomly?"

Some people discovered Hua Dian like the blind monk.

"Uh...can I understand it as rolling dice?"

Some people are thinking wildly, guessing how the game works, "Every time it is released, the program will detect a random number and determine the direction of the attack based on the size?"

"This idea of ​​yours is really great!"

"If you do this, players will not be able to figure out the boss's movements at all!"

The exclamation sparked a burst of laughter.

That's a friendly compliment.

"Yes, the random release here is a pseudo-random detection."

Tripp Hawkins was very satisfied with the reaction at the scene and nodded with a smile: "In our concept, when the boss's health drops below fifteen, it will change form within two seconds and reveal its laser."

"When it completes its transformation, it will make a judgment. If its remaining health is an odd number when attacking, it will fire a laser in front of the player. If its health is an even number, then it will Will fire a laser towards the player's back."

“The purpose of our design is very simple, that is, we want to add some fun to the player’s game process through some seemingly random things, making the monster look more alive, but because this design is not truly random, Computers cannot achieve true randomness, so when players master certain rules, such as counting blood cells, they can still find the secret to clearing the level."

"oh--"

Most people there understood.

"This design is amazing."

They praise.

"When first-time players don't understand the game routine, they will be caught off guard by the Boss. But as they understand the game, the Boss will also strip them of their underwear. This kind of addition is added to the level. The idea of ​​a puzzle element is really cool.”

Those words made everyone on Tripp Hawkins' team laugh.

The joy that arises spontaneously is the happiness after being recognized.

When Tripp Hawkins turned his attention to Ethan again, he listened to the whole content. Ethan, who had witnessed all this, still did not speak, raised his right hand and made a forward gesture.

The guy who got the clear instructions took control of the situation again and introduced the follow-up content.

Since the setting of the game is that Han Solo and Princess Leia are in the base and need to escape from the imperial army. They are blocked in the base by stormtroopers and must fight their way out of the base. Therefore, the map of the second level is different from the rising Regarding the passage, in Tripp Hawkins' design, this is still a scroll map, but it is not a horizontal board, but an upward impact in an inverse Z shape.

After the player appears at the spawn point, he needs to move from left to right to the end of the map. There is an upward staircase, but this is not a climbing ladder, but a landslide-like ladder extending toward the left. The player can Control the character to step directly onto the stairs. When they climb the stairs, the character in the game will also flip over. After walking to the end, they can reach the second floor.

Then, they could see a new passage, continuing to the right.

By analogy, after rising three times, you can see the exit.

Since this level is related to passages, the background maps are all made of pillars similar to scaffolding. The mobs in the level are still storm soldiers, and the boss at the end of the map is a huge one. machine creature.

This monster has three horns, four-limbed hands, a cylindrical body, and a semicircular head.

In the boss battle, it will attack the player with its steps, and it will also wave its limbs to beat the player.

Like the Boss in the first level, it also has 30 drops of blood. After half of its blood is lost, it will angrily tear off its semicircular head and use it as a Frisbee to bombard the player.

When the role reversal and the ruthless killing of the Boss appeared at the same time, everyone present was immediately in awe. The novel setting made them excited. But before they could be happy for a while, looking down, the design of the third level made them even more excited. It’s amazing because——

"The third level is a pure escape level."

Standing on the podium, Tripp Hawkins pointed to the design draft in his hand and said: "In our conception, the map movement in this level is not driven by the players, but the map itself updates at a constant speed with a fixed value, and the players The advancement will not speed up its refresh rate. Not only that, in this level, players need to face, in addition to the stormtroopers that appeared before, there are also imperial robots..."

After the battle in the base and the escape in the passage, the third level showed the location of the Echo Base, the ice-covered planet Hoth.

The vast white snow-capped mountains are the main tone of the background here, and they seem to hide a mystery.

The Imperial Walkers that appear in the background from time to time, that is, the Galactic Empire walkers that stand on all fours like war horses, portray the dangers behind the mystery in front of the players.

In Tripp Hawkins' design, the map of the third level is still a long strip from left to right, and the main monster is still the Storm Troopers, but while the players are killing the Troopers, they still have to dodge them. Lasers falling from the sky - Whenever the Galactic Empire walkers in the background of the map move to one-third of the screen, their eyes will glow red, and then a white beam of light will appear above the head of the character controlled by the player. , when this beam of light gathers, a laser cannon the size of a bowl will fall from the sky. What the player can do is to dodge when the laser appears.

This idea of ​​using the background to attack made the members of the other team stunned on the spot, but Ethan Jones, who was listening carefully... he finally had an expression, the corners of his mouth were slightly raised, and he kept nodding.

Although this kind of semi-automatic map will be very common in the future decades later, it is really the first time it has been proposed in this era. More importantly, the use of semi-automatic maps to trigger stable monster attacks can bring players A great sense of oppression.

Because when players find that they cannot control the character and update the map, the setting where they must dodge when they cannot avoid it will make the players feel mentally oppressed. This has nothing to do with the difficulty of the evasion method. It is purely a matter of the player's emotions being suppressed. Mobilization creates a sense of involvement in someone else's shoes.

The design of the boss in the third level is also very interesting. When players reach the bottom of the level due to the automatic movement of the map, what they need to face is the AT-AT, which is the Imperial walker in the previous background.

The attack method of this thing is very simple, that is, it shoots lasers from its mouth. After its health drops to half, its abdomen will open, and five soldiers will fall from the sky to interfere with the player.

After defeating it, Han Solo and Princess Leia controlled by the player can enter the Millennium Falcon spacecraft, leave the Hoth asteroid belt being invaded by the Empire, and hide in George Lucas's script of "The Empire Strikes Back" Set inside the abdominal cavity of a space slug.

Next, there is a plot with a black screen and white text, telling that although the Millennium Falcon spaceship escaped the pursuit of the empire, when Han Solo took Princess Leia to the planet Bespin to find his old friend, hoping that the other party could help him , Darth Vader has arrived first.

Then, they entered the abyss again and started a new battle royale.

The fourth level is a chase with the weather nebula as the background. Although the stormtroopers still appear this time, they need two bullets to kill them because they are red. Not only that, because Darth Vader arrived first. Because of this, there are also many bunkers on the map, and their expression is consistent with "Starry Sky".

The bosses of the fourth level are two humans. They are bounty hunters attracted by the interstellar hunting order issued by Darth Vader after Han Solo escaped. One of them is physically strong, and the other is skilled in marksmanship. Accurate, they will attack players in a coordinated manner using a combination of distance and near.

And this is also the most difficult level in the entire game.

Because after completing the fourth level, the fifth level will be the end of the Dark Lord Darth Vader himself. According to Tripp Hawkins' design, this will be a battle that players must lose.

Commonly known as plot killing.

Players in this level have unlimited health. They only need to hit Darth Vader thirty times to enter the plot. Darth Vader will show his true strength and freeze Han Solo in the crystal.

In this process, Darth Vader will wield a lightsaber to tease Han Solo. According to Tripp Hawkins and his team's conception, this level mainly shows the power of Darth Vader. What he wants is to let players feel the oppression from the Dark Lord through the screen...

"Boss, I've finished speaking."

When Tripp Hawkins put down the design draft in his hand and looked at Ethan with an uneasy expression, Ethan, who had not said a word since the beginning of the meeting, laughed and said, "Okay, don't be nervous."

"You made a great point, so I'd like to hear what the other group thinks first."

Since there were two games to be made, the R\u0026D department of Destiny Game divided them into two groups.

As Ethan glanced at it, the team responsible for the Luke Skywalker game suddenly looked at each other with big eyes and small eyes, because at this moment they didn't know how to evaluate this game.

They had expressed joy before as Tripp Hawkins narrated, but each of their exclamations failed to elicit a response from Ethan.

This fact made them somewhat confused about Ethan's attitude.

When Ethan realized that his employees were embarrassed, he immediately raised his hand to signal them not to be nervous, "You can say whatever you want."

"This is not an exam, and there will be no deductions."

Chi Guoguo's words made everyone laugh a few times. After seeing that the boss's words did not seem to be fake, someone took the lead in speaking and expressed his thoughts, "Boss, I think Tripp's design is great."

"They perfectly restored the description in the script while ensuring the gameplay."

"This will definitely make Star Wars fans very happy."

"Yes." Another person nodded and said: "What made my eyes light up was the pursuit in the third level, which means the map automatically refreshes. This mode will give players an immersive sense of helplessness."

"Before, players may have felt that they were playing the game outside the screen, but now, players will definitely feel that they are Han Solo and are being hunted."

"Also, I think the mirror image of the second level is also good." Others also became interested and said: "Tripp's mirror design will make players think that we have made the character very complete."

"Because before, players could only see the right side of the character's body, but now, they can see it all. But they don't know that the two sides they see are actually the same side."

"Hahaha——" These words caused everyone at the scene to burst into laughter.

"The first level is also great!" someone shouted loudly.

"That random laser is really a genius idea! Although it seems difficult to avoid, this approach can encourage players to use their brains and discover the inner process of game design!"

Ethan couldn't help but nod his head as you told me word by word.

After waiting for them to tell everything they were thinking, Ethan, who was listening carefully with his arms folded, also smiled, "Very good, you all have a pair of eyes that discover beauty."

"I know you like this game very much. In fact, after seeing Tripp's design, I was also pleasantly surprised. Their creativity made me understand that even if Destiny Game does not have me, you will still have endless energy. to produce excellent work.”

"but--"

"There is one thing, I personally think the design is a little inappropriate."

"I wonder if you have noticed it?"

Ethan’s words made everyone at the scene frown.

Almost everyone is looking around, wanting to know what exactly is the question raised by the boss?

Unfortunately, even if they looked around, they couldn't find the answer from their companions.

Because they all feel that "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back - Escape" is a perfect game and does not need to be modified.

After they couldn't find the problem, guessing became the best way to answer it.

Someone cautiously asked, "Is the process of the game too short?"

The design of five maps only takes fifteen minutes at most.

"No." Ethan shook his head.

After learning about storage prices in this era, he wouldn't say anyone short.

"Is there a certain discrepancy between the design of the game and the plot of the movie?"

Tripp Hawkins didn't actually follow the script exactly.

For example, the Boss in the second level passage was created by him.

But this——

That’s not what Ethan wanted to say.

"No." He smiled and shook his head.

"Is that because the game ended in failure?"

No matter what kind of art, ending with the failure of the protagonist is relying on the defense.

After spending time and money, people want to see only success.

There is no way, life is hard enough, but you still have to suffer after spending money? Isn’t that crazy?

"No, that's not what I want to say."

Ethan shook his hand and said: "If we only launch one game, then I will definitely not be able to accept this failed ending, but when our other game is about how Luke Skywalker saved Han Solo , and when two games are released at the same time, the failure of a single game is acceptable, or in other words, this will stimulate players' desire to explore."

"Players who have played Han Solo and seen the ending will definitely find a way to clear Luke Skywalker's game, because they will be eager to control Luke Skywalker and fight back."

"Players who played Luke Skywalker will definitely want to know how Han Solo, the extremely cunning man, was caught, so they will also play forward."

"In this case, the failure of a single game is the setting for excellence."

Tripp Hawkins breathed a sigh of relief at that comment.

When the boss says his idea is excellent, then his setting must be excellent.

After all, no one in this world knows the game better than the boss.

At the same time, he became more nervous.

When all the colleagues around me guessed were wrong...

So what went wrong with this plan?

"Boss, if you don't decrypt it, you might have to call an ambulance for me."

Tripp Hawkins couldn't hold it in anymore.

The joking words made Ethan narrow his eyes with a smile, "It's not that exaggerated." He said: "The problem I mentioned actually has a certain relationship with the ending of the game."

"Since you all know that players may not be able to accept the result of failure after working hard for half a life, don't you know that players also cannot accept the fact that the difficulty is too high and they continue to fail?"

"I personally feel that this game is a little too difficult."

"For example, the boss's health, and the boss' attack."

"The boss in the first level will have two stages? When the boss is full of blood, miscellaneous soldiers will appear five times, and the laser attack method is not fixed yet. Is this necessary?"

"You might think that the reason why players find the game fun is because they have overcome one difficulty after another? But I want to tell you that this is not the case."

"You are elites, Steven Spielberg, Steve Wozniak, you are all elites. You can persevere when encountering difficulties, but there are countless ordinary people in this world."

"The source of happiness for most players is to clear a game after their own efforts!"

"Instead of trying so hard to get through one difficulty, the next levels are like a chasm!"

"When designing a video game, our core idea is to make it easy to play!"

"The advanced requirements are what make it difficult to master!"

"Let everyone be able to pass the level! Let all players appreciate the charm of this game! That is the greatest meaning of the designer's existence! And then, how to surpass yourself? How to challenge the limit?"

"That's all the player's own business!"

Yes, when he heard Tripp Hawkins introduce the first Boss, Ethan felt that the design of this game might be a little difficult, and this was actually not in line with the creation concept of video games.

If this argument is put in the future, it may cause a lot of people to refute it.

Because the Soul series sells very well.

The sales of "Sekiro" exceeded 10 million.

"Old Head Ring" even reached 20 million.

but--

How many "Sekiro" movies are there in the world? How many "Old Head Rings"?

The ones that sell more games are those that are easy to play but difficult to master.

Take "Two People" as an example. When the biggest feature of this game is a friend who can play with you, it still sold 10 million copies.

This is not only because the game is fun, but also because it is easy to use.

Unless it's a real handicap.

Unless you really are not interested in the game.

Otherwise, your girlfriend next to you will definitely be able to play with you until you pass the level.

As a consumer-grade entertainment product for the public, taking care of the public’s feelings is the most critical thing. If an operation can only be described with words and cannot be performed with both hands, then——

Sorry, the public will definitely vote with their feet.

Therefore, when using a national IP like "Star Wars"...

Letting more people pass the level is the core of production.

As for the popular difficulty game, it may not be able to meet the needs of all players?

oh--

This is nonsense.

As long as the game is fun, players can do whatever they can to increase the difficulty of the game on their own!

As long as the audience of the game is wide enough, things like vanity will let players add their own rules!

For example, clear the level in one life!

Another example is customs clearance racing!

As long as the audience is wide enough, you don’t have to worry about players not being able to pursue themselves!

When this fact was fully revealed by Ethan——

Understanding appeared on the faces of everyone present.

"Boss, I understand."

Tripp Hawkins, who was holding the plan, promised: "I will reduce the difficulty of each level in the next work. As for the laser in the first level -"

"I personally think it might be more appropriate to remove it."

Tripp Hawkins' tone was full of reluctance.

After all, castrating one's own work with one's own hands is the greatest cruelty in the world. What is even more cruel than this is that there is nothing wrong with one's own creativity, but it does not meet the requirements of the market.

Ethan can understand all this, because when he was cutting "Starry Sky", his sister behaved the same way.

And this is actually a good phenomenon.

Without reluctance, where would the love come from?

If there is no like, where does the love come from?

If the creative person himself doesn’t love it, then why should others like it?

With the courage Liang Jingru gave you?

Note: ① I made up the game, it doesn’t exist in reality. ② Easy to learn but difficult to master is the production principle of popular games. This is not my theory. The actual person who proposed it is Nolan Bushnell.

PS, regarding the problem of using 6502 for the handheld device in the previous chapter, that is necessary for the plot description. The actual Game Watch uses a four-bit Sharp processor, but this is defective. Gunpei Yokoi knew that the four-bit processor could only run small games when designing, but there was no way, they did not have an eight-bit processor. . And how far does the four-bit processor stretch the crotch? In order to make games, Casio directly castrated some formulas of scientific calculators. This behavior caused their computers to be questioned by the market. In the end, they had no choice but to give up game calculations. This road. According to the planning ideas of those people back then, the most suitable CPU for handheld consoles was an eight-bit CPU that cost about one dollar. If it really couldn't reach eight-bit, it would go to four-bit. I wrote this correctly. There is a gap between the plan and the final product of a product.