Rebirth of America, this is my time

Uh...Evelin, you know, I'm not technical, so can you explain things a little more clearly?

Ethan waved his hands, wanting to know more.

Okay, let me talk to you at the most basic level.

Evelin shook the creative draft in her hand, turned it to the first page, pointed to the second paragraph above and said: Ethan, according to your idea, Pac-Man is an unlimited game. A maze chase type game, right?”

Yes. Ethan nodded and said: The basic gameplay of the game is to control the protagonist elf in the game to eat all the beans hidden in the maze while avoiding the pursuit of four ghosts. As long as the This goal is considered as passing the level.”

The advanced gameplay is that small beans that are constantly flashing will appear in the four corners of the maze. If the protagonist eats them, he will gain the ability to not be afraid of ghosts and be able to devour ghosts. At the same time, the ghosts will also If they feel something, they will run away in fear to avoid the protagonist's pursuit, and because of fear, their actions will become very slow.

A more advanced gameplay is that after the ghost is eaten, it will return to the haunted house in the middle to be reborn.

These three points are all my ideas, so is my idea too difficult?

But what we are doing this time is definitely no longer a circuit board game, because we have MOS 6502.

Ethan feels that the biggest problem with the game Pac-Man is that it is divorced from the most basic physical feedback.

It cannot use the most basic photoelectric feedback to present game effects like Snake.

However, there is no way around this, because with the development of the electronic game industry and the increasing complexity of game content, the product CPU will definitely enter the field of game production. To put it inappropriately, an electronic arcade machine is actually a personal computer.

When the rolling historical trend is irresistible, Ethan will naturally choose to actively embrace it. Compared with all game companies on the market, he has a unique advantage, that is, they have the MOS 6502 that is comparable to the Motorola 6800. !

When a game company specializes in hardware supplies...

Ethan couldn’t even think of how he could lose!

I have creativity, I have technology, I have special codes and hardware...

Isn’t this an insult to all colleagues?

But now, before he could wave his little leather whip to whip his business partners, Evelin told him that this game had a bug?

How could he accept such a thing?

And when he spoke at a Gatling-like speed and in a tone full of doubts and surprises, Evelin also raised her hand and said helplessly: Okay - Ethan - I know you are in a hurry. , but don’t worry yet—”

I know that this game requires MOS 6502 for production, and I am ready to accept the challenge. So, please carefully recall what I just said to you? What I said is that your design does not meet the requirements. The laws of binary.”

And what this sentence means...

Let me explain to you this way, the carry rule in binary is to carry out every two into one.

1 is 1 in binary, but 2 is not 2, but 10, and so on, 3 is 11, 4 is 100...^

In this case, how many times can MOS 6502 count?

Maximum 255.

Because he's 8-bit.

The meaning of 8-bit is very simple. You can imagine that there are eight grids in front of you. Each grid can only be represented by 0 or 1. In this case, their largest displayed number is 1111, 1111, which is the decimal system. of 255.”

If you add one more 1, then the data will overflow.

And if one unit is used to represent 1 level, then this game can only reach 255 levels. There is no infinity as you mentioned.

So, it's impossible to make Pac-Man play infinitely like Snake.

Because the MOS 6502 CPU has an upper limit.

Do you understand what I mean?

Evelin flicked the creative paper written by Ethan with her slender fingers.

When the crisp snapping sound appeared, Ethan realized that it wasn't that the game couldn't be made, but that the infinite loop in the game couldn't be made!

And for him...

What a trivial matter!

If you can’t make an infinite loop, then don’t do it!

After all, there is no game in this world that allows people to play infinitely!

Breath of the Wild was already sticky enough, but after Tears of the Kingdom came out, it disappeared overnight.

After all, that kind of assembly and building is quite fun.

Therefore, as long as a game can make people find it interesting for a period of time, it is already the greatest success.

This matter is not important. Since MOS 6502 has limits, then we will reach the upper limit of this chip.

We do the best we can and leave the rest to the world.

There was a hint of lilt in Ethan's words.

Since the game can be made, all problems are no longer a problem.

However, his words made Evelin close her eyes suddenly.

When she opened it again for a moment, her face was already covered with a wry smile.

Oh Ethan, do you know how much work your decision means?

With 255 levels, it might take me a year to design them by myself.

And that's not the most important thing. The most important thing is the four ghosts.

Those four ghosts will chase players in different styles.

When you were designing these four ghosts, you thought your ideas were very powerful, right? Yes, I admit it. But I want to tell you that this game is not as easy to make as Snake. If you want To make the route selection of each ghost random, then we have to write the code of four ghosts separately to let them have different thoughts. Then, when the protagonist eats the invincible beans, these four ghosts have to use the same code. Detection code to ensure they transition from pursuit mode to avoidance mode...

For that matter...

Do you know what technology is involved?

To use the most popular words in the current scientific community, this is artificial intelligence.

‘What The Fuck! ’

Ethan was shocked!

Because he never expected that the development of the game Pac-Man would be so difficult?

AI? he asked in disbelief.

Yeah~AI~ Evelin smiled and nodded.

When the words of confirmation appeared again, Ethan felt his eyes go dark.

Because at this moment, he is not sure whether this game can be made.

Pac-Man is designed with AI?

This special code is a bit outrageous!

You know, when he time traveled, AI was an industry that had not been thoroughly studied!

ChatGPT4.0, that’s really easy to use!

And just when he was wondering why this Pac-Man seemed more difficult than Northland Cube, Evelin raised the scratch paper and waved it twice in front of Ethan, Hey! Why are you in a daze? Already?

Ethan spread his hands and said very bachelorly: Because I'm thinking about whether there are any other backup plans for our project.

Oh Ethan~ You don't believe me?

Ethan's frustration made Evelin laugh, Don't you believe I can make this game?

Aha? Ethan didn't understand what his sister meant.

You know, it was Evelin who was conveying negative emotions to him just now!

You can? Ethan asked doubtfully.

Give it a try. Evelin didn't give a positive answer. But the next second, she said: As you just said, we do the best we can and leave the rest to the world.

It seemed that he didn't want to continue on this boring topic, but it was more like he had found a new toy.

After encouraging herself with a positive tone, Evelin stood up directly, waved the scratch paper, and urged Ethan.

Go! Go! Go!

Let's make a game!

Ethan, let me tell you, don't even think about running away during this period! You can't go anywhere until I finish the game!

It's only been half a year since the production of Snake, right? You've given me such a big problem in half a year?

I really thank you!

This time, I must let you know how difficult the game is!

Lest you give me more difficult questions next time!

Note: ① Pac-Man does have an upper limit. The reason is the CPU upper limit limit written in the article. Regarding this, on the 30th anniversary of the birth of Pac-Man, Google restored this meme on the official website, reaching the 255th When it is closed, the game will end, and the old version of the game will crash. ② Pac-Man is the originator of game AI, and it is still the testing standard for AI autonomous learning programming. Facebook, NVIDIA, OpenAI, and Microsoft all use Pac-Man to test AI capabilities. This game is not only It is of epoch-making significance in culture, as well as in science and technology. ③In real life, the producer of Pac-Man, Tetsu Iwatani, led a team of nine people to spend 17 months to make Pac-Man. At that time, it would normally take up to four months to make a game. As for why it took so long, Iwatani Tetsu himself said that when they were making this game, they just wanted to make the game fun. If the four ghosts traveled in the same way, it would be too easy for players to clear the level, so they I wanted to design a path alone, but at that time, few people in the entire team, or in the entire book, knew the concept of AI, because at that time, the concept of AI was only popular in the American technology circle, only at Carnegie, Stanford, and MIT. , Harvard and other schools with scientific research funds are doing research, and other people have no access to it, so they bite the bullet and write code. Fortunately, they made it.

PS, there will be more at night.