Game Development Giant

But after all, it is owned by me. It is the first studio established by Chinese people after Fu Zan's studio in China, so it is of great significance.

At this time, Jester couldn't help but think of another crooked game company.

Several games from this company are quite famous.

Maybe not many players have heard of the company's name, but most of the old players who have experienced the arcade era have heard of a very classic arcade beat-'em-up game developed by their company. It is based on the theme of the Three Kingdoms and draws on a lot of Round Table The elements of Samurai can be called the pinnacle of domestic arcade games.

This game is the famous Three Kingdoms.

The name of this company is Yixiang Electronics. Since its establishment, their main development focus has been arcade games.

In addition to War of the Three Kingdoms, several other domestic arcade games that many players are familiar with were also developed by them. For example, before War of the Three Kingdoms, their research work Journey to the West change.

For another example, the arcade fighting game Once Upon a Time, which was very popular for a while, is actually called Battle of the Stars. Jester was deeply impressed by this game because it was the game he played in The first game he played in the arcade was, if nothing else, because its language was Chinese, and it also contained his favorite Once Upon a Time in the arcade.

You know, when Jester was watching Tsui Hark's movie, he really regarded Huang Feihong as his idol.

In fact, although Ixiang Electronics is not very famous in the eyes of players and seems to be far inferior to Daewoo Information, which also comes from a humble background, in fact, people who have played Ixiang Electronics games may be more famous than people who have played Daewoo Games. Much more.

In addition to the famous Once Upon a Time, War of the Three Kingdoms, and Journey to the West, they also have an extremely famous arcade puzzle game. It is also the first Chinese arcade puzzle game, or it can be said to be a elimination game in the form of Lianliankan. It is still the famous Chinese Dragon. Many people may not know what it is after hearing this name. Which game is it.

However, it only needs a brief introduction. Anyone who has been to an arcade in the arcade era, even if they have not played it, has definitely seen this game.

It's that mahjong elimination game, after the elimination. The one with the beautiful girl in the background showing you taking off her clothes.

Of course, Jester has never played this game, and he doesn’t know if he can really take off his clothes. However, he heard someone say that he could take off his clothes, so he thought Jester really wanted to find a chance to do it. He wanted to give it a try, but at that time, these machines were occupied by people all year round, so he never found any good opportunities throughout the arcade era.

In fact, IXIANG Electronics’ games are not limited to arcade machines.

Although they are not as productive on PC as they are on arcade machines, they do not have the same large-scale production as on arcade machines. But this does not mean that their games on PC are not famous.

You know, Yixiang Electronics released a game on PC that was as famous as Daewoo's Monopoly.

This game should have been played by everyone who has been exposed to PC for the first time in China. It is even more popular than Monopoly. This game is the most famous mahjong game Star Three Missing One. Of course, Yixiang Electronics’ influential games are more than just that, for example, the first Chinese dancing game. The first Chinese rhythm game was once their pioneering work.

It can be said that if I hadn’t been born at the wrong time, I would have been in the late 1990s. The glory days of arcade machines have passed, so the influence of Yixiang Electronics will not be comparable to that of money-frauding companies like Daewoo.

Of course, after more than 20 years, IXIANG Electronics, which used to be constantly innovative and enterprising, has also been completely corrupted like Daewoo.

After Jester thought of Yixiang Electronics, he immediately called his company's office in Wanwan. Of course, he didn't make the call personally, and he didn't need to do this kind of thing himself. He only needed to talk to his The assistant can just tell me. I just want to check if there is a game company called Yixiang Electronics in Taiwan now. After all, this game company will be considered unpopular in the future, even for many players who are familiar with the history of games. .

Even Jester probably remembers that this company was established a few years around the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, but he didn't know the specific time.

Because he remembered that he had played the game Once Upon a Time in an arcade around 1993, so he concluded that Yixiang Electronics must have been established before 1993, and it was also After deducting the development time required for the game, arcade games take more development time than console games.

Based on this calculation, it is very likely that Yixiang Electronics was established in 1992, 1991, or even earlier.

He doesn't need to worry too much about the 'Era' project yet. After all, the formal development has not yet started. In addition, he has clearly divided the labor. There is no need for him to worry about anything until the results of the first phase are released.

Only after seeing the first phase of the development plan of the sub-project, was he able to make targeted modifications. Moreover, the participants this time were all absolute elites in the industry. To put it bluntly, if it was just about pure In terms of game development capabilities, these people may be above me. Moreover, this is a truly new game that I plan to make on my own, and at most draw on the gameplay of later sandbox games.

Without any ready-made games for comparison, Jester still had some self-awareness about his abilities.

Although Jester is not working on any new projects during this period, the two games he promised to produce for Sega still need to be released as soon as possible. Although it is said that two games will be enough within five years, However, the first game must be delivered to Sega before the end of next year. Although Jester has handed over the development rights of the game to Itagaki Tomonobu, after all, Itagaki Tomonobu is still relatively young and inexperienced, so , he still needs to check it.

During this period, Jester basically stayed in the development team of Shadow Blade every day, chatting with Itagaki Tomonobu about the development of this game every day.

For example, control the difficulty of the game.

Jester always believes that an action game must be challenging to a certain extent. If an action game can be completed by just pressing o throughout the game, then this action game has no value in existence. .

A good action game must have a certain level of challenge, but this challenge should not be too high.

What do you mean by too high?

That is, for some handicapped players, it cannot be so high that the player has no hope of completing the level.

For example, the game Ji Makai Village has committed such a taboo. Is the game a good game? Of course it is a good game. It is one of the few representatives of hard-core action games in the industry, but why is the fan sales and reputation of this game so much lower than that of Castlevania Symphony of the Night? It's because it lacks the level of Yuexia in terms of difficulty balance.

Of course, Under the Moon is a benchmark work in 2D action games. Except for Laor's New Metroid, there is no other game that can compare with it.

How should the difficulty design of an action game be designed?

Either you are like Ninja Dragon, where handicapped players can choose the difficulty. Even the lowest difficulty requires a high degree of concentration for ordinary players, but it will not be like the extreme Ninja difficulty. Is it completely hopeless?

Even after clearing the genin level of Ninja Dragon, some handicapped players will feel a great sense of accomplishment.

Or it's like Miyazaki Hidetaka's Souls series and Bloodborne. Although it's difficult, it's torture. Although there are no difficulty options, the design of the difficulty of his game is brilliant in this place. You don't need to be like Like Devil May Cry or Ninja Dragon, you need very high hand speed to play at high difficulty levels. In Hidetaka Miyazaki's games, even if your hands are disabled, as long as you have patience, perseverance, and perseverance, you can still complete the level.

Moreover, the sense of accomplishment gained from it is definitely not inferior to the action games of Sulfur Face and Kamiya Bald Head.

In fact, there is another company whose action games are quite special, and that is Nintendo's games, such as Mario, Yoshi, and Donkey Kong.

Despite the cartoonish graphics of these games, they seem to be games that younger players like.

But in fact, Nintendo's games have always been real core games. If you want to play with high stars and have a sense of accomplishment, especially Donkey Kong, the difficulty is really very high.

Therefore, many people say that Nintendo's action games have always been core-oriented, but they are always covered in a humble skin. It is also very accurate.

Ninja Dragon will be Itagaki Tomonobu's future work. At that time, he was already proficient in difficulty design, and naturally he did not need Jester to advise him. But now, for Itagaki Tomonobu, who is in charge of the development of action games for the first time. , At this point, even though Jester and Itagaki Tomonobu had talked so much from the bottom of their hearts, Jester was still not at ease.

Jester also received reports from the Wanwan office's investigation.

They conducted some investigations in various game development companies, but did not find the game company called Yixiang Electronics that Jester asked them to find.

Jester was a little disappointed when he got the news. He didn't know whether this was the butterfly effect caused by his arrival, or the reason why Yixiang Electronics hadn't really been established yet. In his heart, he still hoped that it would be the first one. Two kinds are better. (To be continued...)