Reborn America, this is my time

Chapter 157

In Ethan's plan, the next step in the game of fate should be to walk on two legs at the same time.Its specific way of expression is to continue to work in the electronic arcade industry while launching home consoles.

Now that they have already occupied the arcade market in North America, or in other words, when the vast majority of the arcade market in the world can bring them huge profits, it is impossible for him to give up everything he has in order to forcefully push the console. First, it takes time for players to switch between platforms. Second, if they easily give up the arcade market, it will undoubtedly give the other two... ah, no, it is to give Atari a chance.

Therefore, in Ethan's vision, after he designed "Northland Tetris" as an escort masterpiece for home consoles, the rest of the work will focus on the company's R&D department, allowing the guys there to make their favorite games. while forging his inspiration.

In terms of games, he also thought about it, and continued to operate the two IPs of "Pac-Man" and "Snake", and launched "Ms. Pac-Man" and the two-player competitive version of "Snake 2".

Needless to say, the expression of the former is the female version of Pac-Man, and the game level is rebuilt for it; the expression of the latter is simpler, that is, to divide the screen into two and make two joysticks, Let players have an exciting survival duel on the street.

Although this kind of twice-cooked meat is suspected of eating bad money and may damage the company's reputation, but in many cases, business and reputation cannot coexist, can't they?When the company's development goal is to maintain the stock market and attract users in the stock market to new projects, the games launched in the stock market will naturally not be able to steal the limelight from the new projects.

If not...

When arcade games are always fun, how many users will buy consoles?
And in this case, put "Northern Cube" in the arcade market?
MFxxk!

Then what kind of game does he have to come up with to attract users to the console?

Even if he is a time traveler, there is no way to answer this question!
Because in his previous life, after the launch of "Northern Cube", he slaughtered all his competitors!
"Er—Evelyn—you know what your thoughts mean, don't you?"

Ethan smoothed things out in front of his sister.

After listening to his description, Evelyn nodded with a smile and said, "Of course."

"I understand what you mean, and I also believe that you have the ability."

"Come on!" While speaking, the girl raised her right hand to cheer Ethan up.

Ethan, who looked full of energy, was helpless.

"Oh—I said, I was joking."

"Oh—I think you're being humble now."

The girl's crazy run made Ethan dumbfounded.

Raising his hand to signal to stop, he didn't want to continue on this topic that got farther and farther away, "Okay, okay, change the topic, can you tell me, is this game difficult to make?"

The topic of getting back on track made Evelyn stop her teasing. Looking at the face full of curiosity, the girl sighed and said, "This is the second big problem."

"Even if we solve the computing power problem of the chip, it will still take a lot of time to make this game. Because in my preliminary reading, I have already discovered two difficulties. The first one is that Your emphasis on infinite play."

The girl pointed to the concept map on the table and said: "Although we have already set foot in the field of infinite games when we were making "Star Wars", such things as infinite games will never appear in machines, and "Star Wars" The unlimited game of War and the unlimited game of Cube of Destiny are still two concepts, and the specific difference, I think, lies in the cube itself.”

"In "Star Wars", the unlimited game is the continuous emergence of imperial spaceships and players. The biggest change is that as time goes on, there will be some special changes in the appearance and forward speed of the imperial spaceships. Their operation The essence and trajectory remain unchanged.”

"And in the "Destiny Cube" you are designing now, the unlimited game is to let seven kinds of cubes appear continuously, and let the player put them in the right place to eliminate them."

"On the surface, the cubes in "Fate Cube" are the same as the spaceships in "Star Wars", but in fact, there is a difference between the two. The way the spaceships appear in "Star Wars" is artificially set Yes, but the way the blocks appear in "Fate Cube" is 'random'."

The girl puts emphasis on the word 'random'.

Ethan, who thought he understood, said directly: "You want to say that machines can't be truly random?"

Although Ethan does not understand technology, Ethan is still clear about the fact that computers will never be able to achieve true randomness.If it is described in a literary sense, no one in this world can give a definition of randomness in the true sense. When the human brain cannot explain this metaphysical abstract concept, computers relying on logical calculations are even more unable to do so. It's here, so it doesn't matter whether it's now or in the future, at least before Ethan travels, the randomness on the computer is pseudo-random.

And when Ethan said 'really random', the girl froze for a moment, then said: "Yes."

"But no."

"I said yes, because what you said is okay. I said no, because I personally think that the game "Fate Cube" itself cannot be written in a purely pseudo-random way."

Evelyn pointed to the squares on the drawing and said: "In your imagination, there are seven kinds of squares in this game, which are small squares that can be represented by the letter 'O', long bars that can be represented by the letter 'I', A misplaced trapezoid represented by the letters 'S' and 'Z', and a mirrored rectangular form of 'J' and 'L', and a 'T' shape."

"Whether it is a square, a strip, 'J' and 'L', or 'T', these squares can appear indefinitely, because no matter how many of them appear at the same time, the game can continue , but not the two squares 'S' and 'Z'."

"If many 'S' or 'Z' shaped cubes appear at the same time, the game of "Destiny Cube" will definitely not go on."

Evelyn draws her own conclusions.

Ethan frowned.

"What?" He was puzzled.

"Simple, because they cannot eliminate themselves by themselves."

Evelyn said a very twisted remark.

In the next second, she picked up the pen and paper and began to draw.

When the girl drew an interface and filled it with 'Z'-shaped squares, Ethan instantly discovered that no matter how the 'Z'-shaped squares changed, how they were superimposed, or how they were flipped, there would always be a section at the end that could not be touched by them. Fill it in place yourself.

This fact means that the arrangement of 'ZZZ' and the arrangement of 'NNN' after flipping the squares are not feasible in the case of no brain.Although this question may seem nonsensical, because the game "Northern Cubes" allows players to eliminate multiple cubes, and it will not provide players with unlimited cubes, but... what if there is a bug? ?Once the game's algorithm does not add restrictions, and a lot of the same 'Z' or 'S' shaped cubes pop out randomly in a single time, then the player will face a deadly situation.

and this……

It is an absolutely impossible problem.

Because it goes against the original intention of the game design.

That is, let the player control everything, rather than the machine giving the answer.

"So...Evelyn, what you want to say is that if we want to solve this problem, we must artificially control the number of 'S' and 'Z' shaped blocks that appear at the same time?"

Ethan understood what his sister meant. He touched his chin and said, "It takes time to calculate this limit value. At the same time, the appearance of this limit value will affect the calculation function of the random appearance of blocks? This may be a very difficult task." the process of?"

"The process is not difficult, all it takes is time."

Evelyn shook her head and said, "I can do it, but it's troublesome, and—"

She paused and said: "After solving the problem of the random appearance of the cubes, a new problem also appeared, that is, how to combine the infinite rotation gameplay you designed with the infinite randomness."

"In your vision, these blocks appear from top to bottom. Players need to place these blocks in a suitable position to ensure that they can be connected and eliminated. In this process, players can rotate the blocks to Keep the game fun."

"Although I think this design is very good, when infinite rotation is added, there are not seven kinds of cubes in the game. Except that the square can't be changed no matter how you rotate it, the elongated cube has two postures, vertical and horizontal. There are more 'L', 'J', 'S', 'Z', and 'T', and their changes will bring a lot of calculations to the game. For example, a 'T' has four different When the player changes, in order to ensure that the game does not end due to design reasons, the calculations related to it will become very large.”

"And this..."

"It takes time to do that too."

Speaking of this, Evelyn patted the blueprint that Ethan brought with emotion, and said: "I really want to do this project, but I don't have time for now... I haven't finished the work on the home game console, the CD-ROM I haven't finalized the project staff yet, and if you ask me to do this now... even if I have 48 hours a day, it's not enough!"

The research and development of the home console was officially finalized after the launch of "Star Wars", and the real operation was actually only a month or so away. When Evelyn couldn't recruit suitable people and researched it alone, the project was not completed. It is the norm, after all, this is not a pile of single game circuit boards.

As for the hesitation in choosing the CD-ROM... Evelyn also talked to Ethan about this matter.

Since Ethan's flash of inspiration came in summer, in this school season when classes may or may not be held, many teachers at Stanford are on vacation, and some of them even went abroad on the first day of vacation. In the developed era, they couldn't contact everyone at all, so in order to be fair, well, in fact, the director of Stanford's physics department also has a similar project, and he is not there yet, so the finalization of the cooperation candidates is still in the new school. Season, that is, when autumn comes, is determined.

Although the delay is more than a month, when the storage wars last for decades, let alone a few months behind, it doesn't matter even a few years behind.

Protracted warfare is a thing that can gain an advantage, but it is more durable than anyone else.

And in this respect...

Ethan has never been afraid of anyone!
Hehe ~
After confirming that the game "Northern Cube" could not be done, Ethan, who didn't want to put it on the arcade and launched it, burned the idea directly in front of Evelyn, then returned to the office, scratched his head, and now He really didn't know what to do.

There are indeed countless games in his mind, but there are really very few games that can be made in this era, and among them, the only one that can completely recall all the content is "Greedy Snake". , Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Tetris.

No way, who made his brain not ChatGPT?
It is simply impossible to store all the contents of previous life experiences as they are.

He can recite four games, thanks to the simple gameplay of those games.

As long as it is more complicated, he really can't remember it all.

Like Super Mario...

Even if he balds his head, he can only recall the classic 1-1!

And speaking of Super Mario...

Ethan admits that this game is actually the best game for them at the moment.

Because he asked Evelyn to order the home console, the final performance is not to say very close to the FC of his previous life, it is exactly the same. The CPU is 6502, the memory is also 2K, and the color reserve is [-] kinds. As for the sound source, it is also monophonic, with a maximum of one synthetic audio.

When the FC of the current world can carry "Super Mario", their current machine must also be able to carry the greatness of the plumber, but...Ethan actually doesn't want to do "Super Mario", because he can't recall all the The second reason is that he wants to continue to operate the IP of "Pac-Man".

That's right!

What he wanted to do was actually Super Pac-Man!
Isn't "Super Mario" about the story of an Italian plumber who rescues Princess Bitchi who was kidnapped by Bowser?The plot of "Super Pac-Man" is that Pac-Man is going to rescue Ms. Pac-Man who was kidnapped by a ghost! The mushrooms in "Super Mario" are the big pills in "Pac-Man", and the monsters such as turtles and chestnuts in "Super Mario" are the little ghosts in "Pac-Man". The cool bully in "Pac-Man" is the four wise ghosts in "Pac-Man"!
It's all about copying games anyway!
Then why not cultivate your own IP?

Since a single type of maze adventure game cannot make Pac-Man the number one in the world, then I will add more elements to them!Let it step on the tide of the times to appear in front of the world again and again!

If pushing once doesn't work, push it twice, if pushing twice doesn't work, push it three times.

As long as you push enough, you can always push a Mickey, right?
Yes!

The idea of ​​continuing the IP of Pac-Man came about after meeting with Disney.

The reason for its birth is also very simple, that is, he really likes these games.

In his previous life, these games brought him endless joy.

In this life, these games allowed him to achieve financial freedom in a very short period of time.

So why not give them a push when these guys have paid enough?

Fail, and that's just lost time and money.

If it succeeds, it will give these fur kids a new life.

"Extraordinary—"

Thinking of this, Ethan, who was leaning on the seat, sighed.

"Sure enough, no one in this world can refuse to be Disney."

He smiled and shook his head, the fairy tale kingdom created by Walt Disney is really enviable.

And since "Super Pac-Man" is going to be done after "Ms. Pac-Man", the escort masterpiece of the home console must have nothing to do with them.

in this case……

"Hold the grass! I have to think about what kind of game can make the machine sell better!"

Ethan is going crazy!
At this moment, someone knocked on the door of the office from outside.

"Please come in." Ethan shouted after he had calmed down.

With a click, Julis Noble stepped in.

Such a situation made Ethan's eyebrows tremble, and he asked proactively, "Is there nothing wrong?"

"..." Julis Noble was stunned for a moment, and then said with a smile: "No, Boss, nothing happened outside. And I came here because someone came to our company to visit you."

"Hollywood."

The first half of Julis's sentence made Ethan feel relieved, but the second half...

Make him frown.

At this moment, Ethan felt that these guys had zero EQ!
He has rejected the cooperation invitations of these people many times, and his words are very tactful, but they still come to disturb him again and again?
This is simply to give them some sunshine and they will be brilliant!
"Who?" He asked angrily.

"Disney? Paramount? MGM?" he guessed.

"Uh—none—" Julis Noble shook her head. "He said his name was Ronald Shusett. He met you in Los Angeles before and had an appointment."

Ronald Shusett?

The name made Ethan look confused.

Because in his memory, he didn't seem to know someone named Ronald Shusett!
The boss's performance also made Julis Noble understand, and reminded: "He said he talked with you about the script, a script for a science fiction film? It's called... STAR... STAR... STAR..."

Julis herself forgot the name of the script.

"Oh—" Ethan remembered, "STAR BEAST?"

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" Julis couldn't help nodding.

'It turned out to be him! '

Ethan knew who it was. It was a screenwriter whom he had met at the "Star Wars" celebration party before. At that time, he said that he was not interested in movies, but now he came here again?And you still want to meet under the guise of having an appointment with yourself?

'tsk—'

'How do you feel like Gates' son-in-law? '

To be honest, Ethan actually didn't want to see this guy, because he had something to do right now.

But just when he was about to wave his hand for Julis to drive the man away, he just raised his hand, and then put it down again, saying: "Tell him to wait for me in the reception room, I'll be back in five minutes."

Although this follower is a bit annoying, since the other party is engaged in creation, and is still persevering in promoting his own script, and he is not engaged in any weird cooperation, he is still willing to take a few minutes to meet.

And after he finished sorting out the documents in his hand, stepped on the time and came to the reception room, he briefly shook hands with the other party, and then asked straight to the point if the other party had brought the script.

"Of course! Mr. Jones—that's the script."

Ronald Shusett is a middle-aged man with thinning hair. After hearing Ethan's inquiry, he immediately opened his handbag and took out a brand new script.

When Ethan took the ink-scented script, he immediately laughed.

"Newly printed?"

"Yes, for your convenience."

Being so prepared, Ethan nodded, very satisfied with this guy's seriousness.

"Good~"

He praised it, then opened the script, wanting to see what this guy wrote.

However, after only two glances, his eyes narrowed in an instant!
Because it says--

[This is a story of a great white shark in space. 】

[In the future, human beings can already travel to the stars. The commercial hauling spacecraft 'Nostromo' carried seven crew members and 2000 million tons of ore back to Earth from the planet Sedus. When they passed an asteroid, they received a mysterious message. They went to investigate and found the wreckage of an alien spaceship. When they entered it to explore, they saw countless eggs. Then, an egg burst suddenly, and a strange creature rushed to the crew's face. Its name is...]

[Facehugger (face hugger)! 】

　Note: ① In the basic setting of "Northern Kingdom", the 'S' and 'Z' shaped blocks cannot appear [-] times in a row. ② "Northern Cube" did not have the function of infinite flip at the beginning, which is very computationally demanding.

　　PS, reply to a performance question about hardware.For a long time, when I write about game production, I always use Atari’s home console as a reference. As long as Atari’s machine can be used, then I dare to write that 6502 can do it. My practice also caused some readers to think that Things cannot be generalized. Among them, it is said that "Pac-Man" and "Little Bee" performed poorly on Atari mainframes.For this kind of problem, let me take "Pac-Man" as an example. Atari did restore the original version of Pac-Man with 6502. All the pictures and effects are the same. The reason why the game shrinks when selling the game is because Atari’s machine is 2K ROM, but the game they demonstrated is 8K ROM. Warner is unwilling to upgrade the machine, so they use the original version to promote and sell the shrunken version. This is an Atari engineer who worked on “Pac-Man” The transplanted Todd Fry broke the news by himself. In order to prove himself, he also took out the game restored with 6502+8K ROM.I am indeed not a professional in the field of hardware, but I also tried my best to check where the limit of 6502 is, and this time I found that I really couldn’t make this "Northern Cube". The laws of physics, not just for the sake of numbers.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)