America: The Godfather of Game Development

Chapter 103 When the Chessboard Meets the Video Game

Chapter 103 When the Chessboard Meets the Video Game

"I think I understand what you mean."

Sam picked up a piece from the chessboard and moved it two squares forward. "It's much easier to understand if you use a chessboard to explain it to me."

"Essentially, it's a board game-like simulation with RPG elements added, right?"

I have to say, that's a really good idea.

At its core, video games actually inherit a lot of content from traditional forms of entertainment.

Just like the wildly popular D&D digital version, which evolved from the board game.

The chessboard itself is already a representative of strategy games.

Bringing it to video games, the convenience brought by computers allows the originally rigid chessboard to burst forth with endless variations.

Sam then picked up another piece labeled "Lord" and placed it in front of the piece labeled "Warrior" on Lin Lixin's side.

"Let me think... According to the rules, you're within my attack range, so I can attack you directly, right?"

Having received Lin Lixin's approval, he flipped through the draft notebook beside him. "Then I'll have Roy equip a rapier and attack your 'warrior' Lott."

The weapon used by Lotte, controlled by Lin Lixin, is a steel axe. According to the rules, when Sam fights him with a sword, he can enjoy double the power due to the advantage of the weapon.

"Brilliant, that's it, that's what I meant by us being able to reuse the Pokémon code."

Lin Lixin casually tossed out a D100 die and deducted a portion of Lotte's health from his notes.

Sam nodded thoughtfully.

"The type matchup between the three weapons—gun, axe, and sword—uses the same algorithm as the type matchup in Pokémon, right?"

His gaze swept across the chessboard, confirming he had no more pieces to play this round. He rang the bell beside the table. "Alright, your turn."

"It does use that system, but it's more than that. Essentially, its combat system is still turn-based, so we can actually reuse most of our code."

Lin Lixin had always had an idea about this, but due to the lack of uniformity in hardware and various messy interface specifications, he had never had the opportunity to implement it.

"Sam, imagine this: when we develop more games in the future, we'll have ready-made modules for most gameplay elements, and we'll already have code implemented for various mechanisms."

Sam's attention was drawn away from the chessboard by Lin Lixin's words, and he began to think about the situation he described.

"You want to build a resource library so that game development becomes—like a jigsaw puzzle?"

If it can really be done, that would be a wonderful thing.

If a health bar is needed, add a health bar module; if a backpack is needed, add a backpack module.

"That's right, but I prefer to call it a game engine."

In the era before the concept of game engines emerged, game development always involved a lot of meaningless repetitive work.

For example, all games on NovaBo have a file guide.

Every time they develop a new game, they need to rewrite this completely identical part.

In addition, with no differentiation in the game title screen at all, just creating a game opening takes up a lot of their time.

"However, we've been really busy lately. Once Carmack and the others have sorted out OpenGL, we should be able to start working on it."

Lin Lixin's eyes kept scanning the chessboard, and finally he picked up a Pegasus Knight from the corner.

"Although you brought my Lot to low health, you also exposed your own weakness."

With the Pegasus Knight's mobility, he leaped directly to the nun, whose doors were wide open because Roy had been transferred.

No!!!

Sam let out a bloodcurdling scream.

The nun named Eling turned the tide of the battle just now, using her healing skills to bring the thief back from the brink of death.

If he hadn't been bewitched and wanted to cut that arrogant Lotte, how could he have given up protecting Ailing!

"How could you do this to my unrequited love—"

Sam picked up the chess piece with trembling hands, cradling it in his palm. "I'm so sorry, my dear Eileen!!!"

"See, this is what I meant: we don't need too much text to develop a character in too much detail."

Lin Lixin shrugged and continued to control his character without any mercy, having two cavalrymen wielding silver spears attack from both sides, directly beating Sam's ace Roy to death.

Without Roy and Ailing, Sam's formation collapsed immediately, leaving a lone archer standing in the wilderness, and the thief was only a step away from Lin Lixin's main force.

"It's ruined."

Sam had no choice but to knock over all his pieces, signaling his surrender.

Although he lost, after a few games, Sam had completely grasped the amazing aspects of the game.

After all, just simulating it on a chessboard is already so interesting.

"Then let's get started as soon as possible! I can't wait."

Due to its limited complexity, the chessboard simulation couldn't incorporate the whole bunch of fun-sounding mechanics that Lin Lixin mentioned, leaving Sam itching with anticipation.

According to reports, the game map will also feature a terrain system that is crucial to combat.

Each cell will have completely different geographical conditions.

On the plains, a unit only needs 1 action point to move one tile, while in the forest it costs 2 points, and in the mountains it costs even more.

This single mechanism is enough to make the battlefield change in an instant.

Whether it's planning the character's movement route, calculating the distance for pursuit and retreat, or even seizing villages and blocking key passes, all of these will become part of the strategy.

One wrong move and the whole game is lost.

Not to mention the terrain itself's ability to modify various character combat attributes such as evasion and defense.

These are things they can hardly simulate on this monotonous chessboard.

"You have to wait, even if you can't wait, unless you can finish the Japanese port of Pokémon today."

"Isn't that what we're doing? — Speaking of which, why don't we add a multilingual feature to the game? Or put all the text in a separate index or something?"

Sam pursed his lips and revised the translated text submitted by GameFreak section by section, referring to the document.

"Right? Well said, this job is yours."

Lin Lixin paused as he was organizing the documents.

This is definitely something worth doing.

With the growth of GAMENOVA's business and the consolidation of its domestic market in the United States, going global is an unavoidable topic.

Even if they don't expand into the Japanese market, they will definitely go to Europe.

French, Italian, German, Spanish —

It would be a real hassle to rewrite all this hard-coded text for every language version.

Previously, because there was no need for overseas expansion and in order to save development time, Lin Lixin had not implemented this feature.