Game Development Giant

Jester had just returned home and had not slept for thirty hours. He had slept soundly and was just about to lie on the bed and have a good sleep when his mother told him that a letter had just been received in the company. The letter was addressed to him.

When Jester asked where the letter came from, most of his sleepiness disappeared in an instant.

The letter came from Kansas and the sender was John Carmack.

Jester thought of the little boy he met accidentally in Los Angeles some time ago. He knew that he was the unparalleled super genius John Carmack and the task he assigned unintentionally.

Let him design a very famous PC game in history - Minesweeper.

Then, Jester suddenly woke up and didn't want to sleep much. He didn't have the letter delivered to his home, but drove to the company himself.

When he got the letter Carmack sent him, he was a little surprised. It was not just a thin page and a floppy disk as he thought, but a thick stack.

Jester tore open the envelope with some curiosity and took out the manuscript paper inside. Dozens of thick pages were densely filled with lines of code.

Although Carmack's handwriting is not good-looking, the code is still written very neatly stroke by stroke. The entire code is divided into three parts, which Carmack carefully separated with staples. One part is from Apple, and the other part is from IBMPC. As well as those on their compatible machines, there is also one for the Commodore 64, which are currently the three most popular personal computers.

Only then did Jester realize. Could it be that John Carmack really thought he was submitting an article to a magazine and sent the code directly to him?

This immediately made him dumbfounded.

Jester was still a little impatient to return to the office. He really wanted to see what John Carmack had done.

He came to his room, turned on his computer, and used drawing software to simply draw a few pixel images needed for mine clearance. Then Jester carefully read through what Carmack had written about the mine clearance he had introduced. 'Program code.

Jester read it several times from beginning to end, nodding his head as he read, with surprise flashing in his eyes from time to time. After reading it, Jester couldn't help but sigh. Carmack, in terms of programming, He is much stronger than himself.

Jester has also had some insights during this period. Originally, the owner of his own body was a good programming master, but now he found that needless to say compared to a legendary figure among programmers like Carmack, even if Compared with the people he had just recruited into the company who specialized in programming, they were far behind.

In fact, Jester had previously considered how to program this simple game, but the program code he originally envisioned was much more complicated than Carmack's.

To achieve the same purpose of a program, you can tell the difference between a programmer and a programmer by looking at the complexity of the code.

When a good programmer completes a logic, his language is concise and clear.

Carmack's code is simple, clear, and extremely logical, with almost no redundant parts. It is as classic as a textbook.

At the end of the Mine Sweeper program code, there is also a brief introduction written by Carmack. The language is very similar to Carmack's style of a middle-school boy who feels he is invincible.

My future boss, Mr. Jester Lee, the first task you gave me has been completed. To be honest, this task is too simple. I hardly put any effort into it. I am not even interested in programming it with a computer. No, but even though I only did paper programming, I think the code I wrote must be the most concise, most efficient, and without any bugs, I...

In this way, he blablabla said a lot of praise for himself. Finally, at the end of the letter, Carmack specially wrote in large font: By the way, don't forget the Apple computer you promised me!

After reading it, Jester couldn't help but laugh.

He really didn't expect that a genius programmer like Carmack would be interested in a stupid computer like Apple. Didn't it mean that most programmers today disdain Apple computers? I felt strange about this when I wrote Revelation. Geniuses such as Carmack and Romero all started with Apple computers. Although they later turned to the study of PC programming, that was because Apple was closed. What happened after the decline.

He programmed the Minesweeper game on the Macintosh computer in his office based on the code that Carmack sent him. In fact, this is a very simple matter, just copy Carmack's code. , what he really needs to do is nothing more than what he has done before - just a few simple pixel icons.

As for why Jester uses Apple computers that are always used by fools, this is actually a very simple question. How do you let a person who is accustomed to future operating methods use DOS every day? It's not as convenient as using the Macintosh mouse to click directly.

Although it is still far behind win95 ten years later, I will bear with it for the time being.

After programming 'Mine Sweeper', Jester clicked on the game and started playing it on the computer. To be honest, the game 'Mine Sweeper' was very playable and the rules were very simple, but Jester Even if he is not very good at this, he can only play on the difficulty level of 40 mines. Even so, he often finds mistakes. He doesn't even think about the highest level, which consumes too much time and brain power.

However, the appeal of a puzzle game like Minesweeper lies in the sense of intellectual accomplishment after completing it, even if you only complete the lowest level one.

Jester loved playing Minesweeper in his last life. Sometimes when he was bored, he could even play all night long without doing anything else.

Although he has played it countless times before, this is the first time for Jester to play Minesweeper which he made by himself. This game is very similar to the later version. In fact, he originally just followed this version that he is most familiar with. Described to Carmack.

There is a timing system, difficulty selection, customization, the smiling face and the crying face, and the hero list.

Just when Jester was having so much fun playing minesweeper in this world that he forgot that he had not slept for almost forty hours, and did not even notice the knock on the door, Maxeni opened the door and walked in.

He saw Jester frowning in front of the computer, thinking hard, and seemed to be doing something.

So he walked forward with some curiosity and took a look at Jester's screen. The screen was a rectangle divided into many grids. The grids were very small, and 1, 2, 3 were marked in different colors. 4 and other Arabic numerals, and Jester kept clicking on these grids, sometimes tapping the keyboard from time to time to plant a small flag on the grid.

Just when Mark Saini was wondering what the other party was doing, after careful consideration, Jester finally placed a small flag on a grid again, and then controlled the mouse to click on the remaining empty grid points. After he clicked a few, a black dot suddenly appeared after a grid click, which seemed to be a mine or something. Then, he watched the word gameover appear on the screen.

The moment the black thing that seemed to be a landmine appeared, Jester showed an annoyed look and cursed fiercely. At the same time, he slapped the table heavily with one palm.

What is this? Mark Saini said with curiosity on his face.

At this time, Jester realized that someone had come to him. The failure of the game just now made Jester feel sleepy after not sleeping for a long time. He yawned listlessly and explained to Mark Saini: I just designed a small game that can be played with a mouse on a computer, called Minesweeper, which randomly distributes some mines in some fixed matrices, and then allows players to find these mines.

Then, Jester thought about Mark Saini and carefully explained the rules of minesweeping. For example, the game is divided into three difficulty levels: ten mines, forty mines, and one hundred mines. Those numbers represent this zone. There are numbered mines in the horizontal and vertical squares around the numbered grid. Then double-click the mouse to open the grid. Click to select and then press Enter to insert the mark indicating that this is a mine. red flag.

The current mouse does not have a two-button setting, only a single button, and it does not have the shape of the later generations that is based on the shape of the palm. It is just an ugly and silly small rectangular box, so Jester has no choice but to For the time being, let's play this game by pressing Enter instead of a button on the original mouse.

After hearing this, Mark Saini's eyes lit up. He thought about this gameplay carefully in his mind, and suddenly found that it was very interesting and tested one's logical ability.

When he was about to ask Jester how he came up with the idea, he saw that Jester had already yawned and walked towards the lounge on the side of his room.

This lounge was specially isolated by Jester. He knew that working overtime until late at night is common in game development, so he specially set up a lounge. When working overtime is too late, he can go directly to the office. sleep.

You have to play with yourself first. If it's nothing serious, don't wake me up. I really can't hold on anymore. While closing the wooden door of the lounge, Jester's voice came from the lounge. , and then, just a few seconds later, Jester was heard snoring as he fell asleep.

Mark Saini could only helplessly shake his head, then sat in Jester's seat and curiously played this game called Mine Sweeper.

Then……

Jester yawned and struggled to get up from the bed. The room was dark. He carefully moved to the wall and turned on the light. Jester looked down at the watch on his wrist. It read three-twenty. point.

I slept for so long? Jester himself was shocked. He remembered that it was not even noon when he fell asleep.

There was a small sound outside the house.

Jester shivered when he heard the sound. He couldn't have been robbed. While thinking about it, Jester quietly walked to the door and quietly opened the door a crack.

The big light in his office was turned off, but the desk lamp was on, and the screen of the Macintosh computer was also lit. Through the dim light, Jester could clearly see that a blond man was sitting He stared at the screen in front of the computer without blinking.

Jester took a closer look and saw that the blond man was Mark Saini.

At this time, Jester remembered that Mark Seney came to him before he went to bed. Because he was too tired and just wanted to sleep, he gave him the Minesweeper he had just finished and asked him to play with it first. .

Isn't he really just playing around?

Jester does not doubt the charm of the game Mine Sweeper. This game has become popular around the world since it was produced and installed on the Internet by two engineers from Microsoft in 1992. I don't know how many people have devoted their energy to this little puzzle game. , there seem to be countless secrets hidden in the small rules.

Even in the era when entertainment products emerged in endlessly before him, Minesweeper has never been out of date. I don’t know how many people turned on the Minesweeper that came with the win system when they were idle and bored. We will never give up until we find the landmines.

This is different from the mere venting pleasure brought by brainless car, gun and ball games. The sense of accomplishment brought by the completion of this puzzle and decryption game is indescribable and will never go out of style.

Jester walked up to Mark Cerny, just as Mark Cerny ended the round. He was playing the most difficult game of 100 thunders.

He also saw Jester. He looked at Jester with sincere admiration, gave a thumbs up, and said sincerely: You are simply a genius. It's so simple, but how did you come up with such a fun game? of?

Jester smiled and didn't answer, just said: This game is not bad.

It's more than good! It's perfect. Once you start playing, you can't stop at all. I've been playing since you started sleeping, and I've been playing until now. Although Mark Saini played for a whole day, he was obviously still in the mood. In a state of excitement.

As he spoke, he started a new round, still the most difficult one with 100 thunders.

It has to be said that Mark Seney learned very quickly, and the rules and gameplay of Mine Sweeper are also quite simple and easy to understand. Jester watched the opponent constantly looking for mines in the rectangular array, and Mark Seney Ni's minesweeper speed is already much faster than mine, which he has been playing for more than ten years...

Jester asked curiously: Mark, how fast can you play the highest difficulty level?

Mark Saini said wait a moment, clicked on the minesweeper hero list that came with the program, looked at the records on it, and said: Three minutes and six seconds.

Jester sighed after hearing this. It is very rare for a beginner to be so fast, especially when there is no minesweeping formula and all depends on one's own reasoning.

By pure reasoning, this kind of speed is rare, and of course Jester knew that the world record holder for mine clearance is the Polish Kamil Muransky, who won the Guinness World Record for Mine Clearance in 2012 Certification, one person holds all ten minesweeping records. Among them, his speed of 99 mines in the highest difficulty is a little over thirty seconds, while his speed of 40 mines in the intermediate difficulty is only 8 seconds.

However, Jester had never memorized the formulas at the beginning, and it was impossible for him to have such speed. Even he was far inferior to Mark Saini. He felt that playing this game after memorizing the formulas would not be as fun. , it became purely a competition between speed and hand speed.

Playing games is for fun. This is the most important thing for Jester, whether it is the previous life or this life.

If you are not happy, why should you play?

Doesn’t this mean putting the cart before the horse?

Seeing that Mark Saini was about to finish the game again, Jester said: You go to my lounge to sleep for a while, and I will discuss the promotion of this game with you tomorrow morning. Mine Sweeper is in It seems to me that the most suitable platform to run it on is a computer, and in fact, this is a game I designed specifically for a mouse.

Mark Saini nodded in agreement after hearing this. He did feel a little tired after Jester said this, so he said hello and walked towards Jester's lounge.

When Mark Saini closed the door to the lounge, Jester also sat down, thinking about how to promote Minesweeper.

It is of course possible to sell it directly as a floppy disk, but the sales volume of PC games in this era has not been high, and it is difficult to promote it to the maximum extent. The best way is to learn from Microsoft back then and install this game in the computer system. Do comprehensive promotion.

The problem is, I don’t make computers myself.

Jester thought, it would be impossible to go to IBM. Now IBM has a big business and its PC business is booming. Even if they take a fancy to their own games, they will only give a charity price.

And Apple...

Jester shook his head again. This was purely for personal reasons. He didn't like Apple. In his last life, he was scolded by those high-ranking Apple fans, so he had an instinctive aversion to Apple. Now that he has been reborn, Now, happiness naturally comes as it comes. How can you find yourself uncomfortable after being reborn? But it is undeniable that Apple is indeed the most popular in the field of personal computers.

It’s good that Steve Jobs was awesome, but so what, there are many awesome people in the world, but Jester’s urinary nature of hating Apple will not change.

Then only IBM's compatible machines are left. Jester knows that in the future personal computer war, the final winner will not be IBM, the blue giant with deep pockets and ambition to monopolize the entire market. , not Apple, which is currently in the limelight and seems to be rising rapidly, but those small manufacturers that are not yet favored by everyone and only make a living by assembling computers compatible with the system.

For example, Dell is still just a garage company.

It is these people who will form a compatible machine alliance when IBM reveals their greedy minions who want to annex the entire market. Not only will the blue giant IBM be unable to take care of itself, but they will also refuse to let go of their closed environment. Apple has fallen into the abyss. If Steve Jobs had not emerged again, I am afraid that Apple would only become a historical symbol and can only be seen in those encyclopedias.

Jester knew this period of history, and he felt that he should grasp it. Although the profits of the future PC market will be very low, because the prices of accessories have been made transparent, these profiteers can no longer rip off people, but this is not the case now. , the current PC market is where people are stupid and money comes quickly.

At this time, whoever dares to underestimate the IQ of Americans can make a lot of money.

For example, when Dell talked about his entrepreneurial journey, he said bluntly that he rented a room on the top floor of a building and posted a small advertisement. He only needed to install a hard drive for everyone who came here. He can get one hundred US dollars, and making money is like picking it up. Within a month, his turnover has exceeded US$50,000, and his net profit has exceeded US$20,000, all by himself.

Therefore, Michael Dell discovered that even if he took a serious job after graduating from school, he would not earn as much as he does now.

So he dropped out of school without hesitation.

I remember that Dell became famous in 1986 when its annual sales exceeded US$60 million and was selected as the 1986 Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the American College Entrepreneur Association.

Thinking of Michael Dell who is still struggling in a garage in Texas and dreaming about the future, he shouldn't refuse his investment?

Of course I won't refuse. You must know that the first thing Dell did after becoming famous was to raise funds.

Jester thought so.

Then Jester began to worry again. He had not had time to do what he had previously thought about acquiring the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by acquiring Vision Studios. Now he had the idea of ​​investing in Dell, but he was really alone. I’m so busy, should I set up a venture capital fund to do this?

Moreover, there are countless things he wants to do in his mind, but after all, he has limited energy alone and cannot implement them one by one.

It seems that this investment fund must be done.

Jester wrote down this idea on the paper on the table. He has been so busy lately that he always forgets many important things inadvertently.

While taking out the paper, he also saw the design of the level sketch of the first level of Super Mario that he had not completed that day. In addition to different types of bricks suspended in mid-air, various mushrooms and monsters, and various explanations, , and has the iconic image of Mario with his big nose, red hat, red and blue overalls, and big beard.

Jester suddenly discovered a problem that he had never noticed before, that is, what he drew on the drawing was Mario!

But the problem is that this image was already set by Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto in 1981, and this character has been used in three games, two Donkey Kong games, and even one specially made for Mario. game has sold 1.6 million units in Japan.

Thinking of this, Jester immediately angrily clumped up the setting diagram he had drawn and threw it into the trash can, secretly cursing himself a fool.

Jester wanted to redesign a character, but his mind was filled with the image of Mario, and Shigeru Miyamoto's original idea of ​​designing this character kept coming back to his mind - like marks Generally, the appearance is clear at a glance, and the color scheme is easy to express the movements, but the problem is that the image of Mario is too deep in his mind. No matter what he thinks, there is only one image of Mario in his mind that fits the palace. Ben Shigeru’s setting.

Therefore, Jester simply abandoned Miyamoto Shigeru's setting and wanted to create a character who was amiable and easy to distinguish. However, Jester drew several characters on the manuscript paper in succession, and even Including some classic games of later generations, or characters from classic comics, including handsome, cute, ferocious, etc., but none of them are as comprehensive as Mario's original image to combine the characteristics of this era.

Perhaps it's because the image of Mario is too timeless. After all, this image has been with me for twenty years since my childhood. This is an absolutely indelible memory.

Jester could only think so.

Although Jester knew that Mario was successful because of the gameplay of this game, it laid the foundation for how an excellent game should be made, guided countless designers who were still confused, and gave birth to countless children. 'I spent over fifty fucking dollars to move a super arcade machine back home! Simply awesome! ’ idea, rather than how classic this character is, this character’s classicness is based on the success of this game.

But in Jester's eyes, Super Mario, a game that can never be forgotten in the history of games, is a flawless work. Every aspect of it is flawless. Since he wants to do it He will never allow himself to make this game worse than the original version. As a person who loves video games and wants to revitalize the industry, he will never allow himself to desecrate the true meaning of this game in any sense. ’s masterpiece.

You must go beyond it!

Jester took a breath and had no choice but to throw away the almost-used paint brush in his hand. He looked through the window at the sky in the distance that had begun to turn white. The golden sun was rising slowly. : It's better to wait and find professional painters who have not been affected by the image of Mario to draw it.

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