Is it not a galgame?

Chapter 155 59. I'm about to throw up

Time flies, after March, pokeni rushed to work at full speed, and finally finished "The Witcher" in May.

The script and world view of this game were greatly changed in February. According to the assessment of the art team at that time, it would take about half a year to work on it.

I didn't expect that in less than 4 months, I have already done a lot.

Among them, Shinji Mikami played a key role, precisely because of his coordination ability, he split and integrated some resources, saving a lot of art workload.

For example, although some art resources need to be redrawn, the original set of mechanisms can be used for character actions, just need to match the corresponding new resources. The new resources can be changed, but the size and texture should be as close as possible to the original come.

The program side also shared part of the modification work.

For example, it supports [change picture] but adapts to the 2D structure of the action.

For example, in the allocation and integration of art resources, a more reasonable allocation method has been adopted...

According to Qing Zhiyuan's words, what the programming team is doing now is equivalent to developing a game development engine based on the Sega MD console.

This is a pretty amazing thing, at least for a period of time in the future, it can help the team save a lot of time in new projects.

And this [engine]'s support for new game graphics is absolutely unique, far beyond this era.

Some people find it unbelievable, when did pokeni programmers become so strong?
But Qing Zhiyuan knew best in his heart——

What restricts them is not the technology of the programmers, but their thinking.

The development of science and technology is always [design] or [theory] first. Some things can’t be done because you didn’t think about it, but once you understand this requirement and principle, it’s much easier to realize it on the program side.

For example, [Gaussian convolution], which is used a lot in art engines, Gaussian function has existed hundreds of years ago, but because the game or the development process of the game is still very short, no one can think of it for the time being. , and there is no related requirement so it will not appear.

But when Qing Zhiyuan put it forward, they will find that this thing is really easy to use. Intuitively speaking, you want to make a certain color value in the map larger, and make a transition distribution according to a certain curve. Then use a Gaussian function, after setting some parameters, you only need to adjust these parameters to easily get the effect you want.

Before that, these things were all manually drawn by artists. First, it took too long, and it might not be able to be produced strictly according to the requirements.

Once it is found to be wrong, it will lead to rework.

This is actually a huge waste of time.

[Toolization] [Modularization] proposed by Qing Zhiyuan, let the program share and support part of the art work in advance, allowing the art team to concentrate on creation, which greatly improves the team's efficiency.

It is precisely because of this that "The Witcher" can progress so quickly.

This shows that the overall strength of pokeni's team has reached a new level.

According to Qing Zhiyuan's theory, last year's pokeni was a pile of shit.

Of course, when the design and technology are improved, the biggest obstacle now becomes [hardware]

Qing Zhiyuan often got angry because of the hardware.

Damn, the hardware in the 90s was really far behind. If it was put in 10 years later, Qing Zhiyuan felt that they could all be old man rings now.

As a result, I am still tossing the Diablo series here, and it is still a 2D version. The textures are also very old-fashioned, better than mosaics, but not much.

It completely made the feeling of the Japanese future that Qing Zhiyuan wanted.

Lao Xu and Mikami Shinji obviously didn't hang out with the mecha, so this game can be seen that although it has a sense of technology, it is more about fist-to-hand combat, shattering killing effects, and various powerful weapons. Broken feedback.

Mikami Shinji can be said to be quite talented in this regard.

This guy can see this when he was doing Resident Evil back then.

Now after being baptized by Diablo, Mikami's destructive fighting talent is fully awakened.

Qing Zhiyuan just hoped that the combination of these two people would not be too dark.

Sometimes he has to spend time on psychological training for them, mainly for Lao Xu, lest this guy go from the original [Fated Sadomasochism] to another extreme of [Deep Thought].

The game needs to have a high level of thinking, but it doesn’t mean making a very depressing and dark product. Reality doesn’t get deeper the more it is exposed. You also need to consider the psychological endurance of the players.

Don't care about what others can't stand, just give a crit.

The point is, going in this direction, Qing Zhiyuan is very afraid of Xu Yuanxuan's psychological distortion.

Fortunately, the final ending of The Demon Hunter was not bad, and Qing Zhiyuan ran down by himself. So far, the game has been well guaranteed in terms of gameplay, storytelling and depth of thought.

And in it, Qing Zhiyuan can deeply feel the styles of Lao Xu and Mikami.

It can be said that the fusion is quite ingenious.

……

In March, pokeni published a recruitment information in major newspapers.

[Game test engineers: 3 to 5 people

Responsible for quality control of the game, discovering existing problems through game testing at each stage of the game and reporting...

Education requirements: high school graduate

Love the game, familiar with the game

Computer/semiconductor professionals are preferred

Salary: 20 to 40 yen/month]

Yes, in order to make the game version run smoothly, Qing Zhiyuan also specially created a new position in the company——

Game testing engineer.

The legendary QA (Quality Assurance), quality assurance specialist.

Some companies are called QC (Quality control), quality control specialist.

In Club P, Qing Zhiyuan still called them QA according to the habit of his previous life.

It sounds quite tall, but it sounds like the work is very hard——

Equivalent to manual testing, everyone is equivalent to a real player running from beginning to end in the game, not only to run the game according to the normal game flow, but also to play the game according to abnormal routines, mainly to discover the game hidden bugs.

For example, in Diablo, there may be a situation where the monster cannot attack the player but the player can attack the monster because of the stuck position. In this case, the value planned and designed is useless.

QAs need to run out of these situations, and at the same time record them and feed them back to the development team for them to make changes.

As for those game screens that are blurry, stuck, terrain that cannot be passed through, and players' value overflowing... These are bugs with the highest priority. They need to be fixed immediately after they are discovered, otherwise the players will not be able to play the game.

Back then, the Atari game console had too many bugs and was too crudely manufactured, which led to the collapse of the North American game console market. Therefore, quality problems cannot be ignored in game development.

Before that, in order to save money, the members of the project team acted as testers to run the game, find bugs and modify bugs.

Now that he has a certain financial strength, Qing Zhiyuan decided to recruit a few specialized testers.

It can be said that the current Pokeni has been at the forefront of the times in terms of professional differentiation.

This kind of professional differentiation has certain advantages, and the advantage is [professional people do professional things].

The division of labor is a very important step in the industrialization process. It enables all links to operate efficiently, and everyone can definitely play a higher value in the field they are familiar with and good at.

But there are also certain disadvantages.

The downside is the lack of connection. Members may have outstanding abilities in one aspect, but their shortcomings in other aspects will also be very short.

The end result is that it is very difficult to find a producer.

Because the producer needs to think holistically, comprehensively consider various factors, have expertise and also understand all aspects of the game [Comprehensive Professional]

Therefore, Qing Zhiyuan will ask the employees of P Club not only to make achievements in the field they are good at, but also to know more about other people, especially what those colleagues who have little relationship with him are doing, and occasionally Old employees in different fields will also be invited to give a small class to introduce and explain their work content.

……

Many young people were stunned when they saw pokeni's [Game Test Engineer] recruitment advertisement.

"Nani, there is still such a good job?"

"Not only can you play games, but you can also play games to make money!"

"It seems that there are basically no requirements. The main thing is that I like games and are familiar with games. I am very suitable. I have played more than a hundred games."

"Wow, is there a happier job in this world than this?"

"Yes, aren't there [hotel testers], [food critics] and the like? Not only can you live in a high-end hotel to experience the life of a rich person, eat delicious food, but also make money. Happy?"

"But the threshold for those professions is not low. The prerequisite for becoming a gourmet is that you really have a tongue with an absolute sense of taste and sharp writing.

It's not as simple as what P company asked for, okay? "

"Playing games every day and earning money, isn't that the best job in the world? What's more, it's Paradox's games.

It's like the game hasn't been released yet, so we can play it right away. Pokeni's games are famous for their high quality!
Especially in terms of plot, if you can become a test engineer, isn't it equivalent to knowing the content of the script in advance? "

"Hehe, you have to be able to apply for the job!"

……

In this era, game QA has not yet become a very fixed and valued profession.

Although many publishers have high requirements for game quality, most game development companies feel that there is no need to set up this position, but instead use the method of running insiders like the previous pokeni used.

The earliest QA probably also appeared in this era, but it is not called QA. Many companies set up positions to allow 1 or 2 people to experience the game from the player's perspective, so as to clear the blind spots in the developer's perspective.

To put it simply, as a game producer, they may be very familiar with the game and it is a game developed by themselves after all. There are some emotional factors in it so that their judgment will be distorted, and they always tend to praise their own games.

But it's hard to say what the real situation is. In this case, [Xiaobai] is needed to test.

Then in the later development and changes, the professional and scope requirements for these testers became higher and higher, and finally evolved into professional QA almost 15 or 20 years later.

They not only have to undertake part of the player's functions and give advice to the planning, but also control the product quality and conduct performance and function tests. In fact, there is a high threshold in the field of knowledge and professional standards, and it is not as easy as everyone imagined. .

Now Qing Zhiyuan has singled it out and professionalized it.

As soon as pokeni's recruitment advertisement came out, it immediately triggered a wave of competition for employment.

There are many people who have played the game, after all, this is Neon, the country of games.

Candidates submit tens of thousands of resumes every week.

And Koichi Tenne is one of them.

……

Little HR Akane Ayase didn't expect it to be so popular.

This is probably the first time she has encountered such a heavy workload. She has never been so busy since she was the HR of P Agency.

After layers of screening, three candidates were finally selected from more than 1 applicants.

Among them is Koichi Tenne.

This guy is not only a game fan, but also graduated from Dongda University majoring in semiconductors. He has a relatively in-depth understanding of programs, which perfectly meets Qing Zhiyuan's requirements.

On the first day of his employment, Teng Gen had a happy smile on his face. At this moment, he seemed to be the luckiest person in the world.

Being able to stand out from tens of thousands of competitors, and it is still his favorite Pokeni, he can earn money by playing games...

Is there anything happier in the world than this?

……

But a month later, Teng Gen Xiaoyi regretted it.

"Ah~ I really ran away to death during this time."

It is a happy thing to do a job that he likes to do, but he repeats a job that he likes to do every day, and the result is not as happy as he imagined.

In the final stage of Demon Hunter, there are quite a lot of bugs, and their test team probably reports hundreds of bugs a week.

And when the program converges, you have to check it again as a QA to see if these bugs are still there.

It is equivalent to eating a big lobster meal on the first day of coming to the company. It is very delicious and has made many suggestions for improvement.

Who knows that I will eat big lobster every day in the future, and I have to see if the chef has improved every day.

"I used to like playing games, but now I'm going to throw up playing games." Another QA said with a frown.

Hearing his words, Tengen also felt a little queasy.

"Yeah, who would have thought of it? This job is too different from what you imagined, right?"

……

"However, thanks to you, the product progress of "The Witcher" is quite good."

At this moment, Qing Zhiyuan, who was passing by, took their talk and said with a smile.

A few people were taken aback, quickly stood up and respectfully said, "President."

"There is no easy job in the world, right?" Qing Zhiyuan laughed and comforted them, "Although it is hard work, the quality of our products is quite good because of you.

The good news is—

The game "The Witcher" will be released next month. "

"Huh? Really?"

The eyes of the three QA boys lit up and they immediately became excited.

"The witcher is super fun. It will definitely be a hit!" Tengen clenched his fists.

The QA girl next to her rolled her eyes, "Hehe, why aren't you throwing up now?"

……

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no updates tonight

Thanks everyone
see you tomorrow

(End of this chapter)