Chapter 52 of 100

Chapter 52

17 min read4,154 words

While Li Xuan and Professor Zhao were discussing issues related to his studies, the first batch of 200 Tank Battle arcade machines and 100 Hong Kong Block arcade machines, urgently shipped from Oriental Electronics, arrived in Los Angeles on a container ship from Hong Kong. Under the operation of Tony Cousins' distribution network, these 300 arcade machines were quickly sold to various corners of California.

Ryan, a high school student from Pasadena, a city in the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles, was left alone at home while his parents attended a colleague's wedding on the weekend. He originally planned to heat up the leftover pizza from the fridge for lunch using the microwave.

But when he opened the fridge to get the food, he accidentally slipped, and the entire pizza box flipped over onto the floor. So he had to go out to a nearby small store to buy a bag of raisin bread for lunch.

Before Ryan even reached the store, he noticed a large crowd gathered there. He immediately guessed that the store owner, Big Nose Jack, must have brought in new arcade games.

"Hey, Johnson, is there a new game? How cool is it?" Ryan patted the shoulder of another brown-haired white youth, who was also a student at Pasadena High School.

Johnson, who was squeezed in the crowd, turned around and, upon seeing his classmate, immediately nodded: "This game is so cool! It's a hundred times better than Space Invaders!"

Ryan was a bit skeptical. He was one of the loyal fans of Space Invaders. Although he had played the old game countless times and was somewhat tired of it, rarely playing the old Space Invaders arcade machine at the entrance of Jack's supermarket, he still didn't believe that any game could be a hundred times better than it.

Driven by curiosity, Ryan immediately joined the queue. He wanted to try out the Tank Battle game himself and see how good it was, temporarily forgetting his original intention to buy bread.

More than an hour later, Ryan finally stood in front of the Tank Battle arcade machine. His face was full of excitement, and he was completely immersed in the game. His skills were pretty good, and in his first attempt at Tank Battle, he made it to the eleventh level. However, this level's map was a bit tricky. Below the double-headed eagle statue at the base, there were many brick and water obstacles where the player's tank spawned, but above the double-headed eagle statue, there was only a thin layer of bricks, and the rest was an open field.

If the enemy tank happened to be driving directly in front of the double-headed eagle statue, it only needed to fire two bullets. The first bullet would clear the blocking bricks, and the second bullet would hit the statue, ending the game.

Ryan's good luck ran out on this level. The enemy tank happened to pick up a bomb power-up, which could instantly destroy all the enemy tanks on the screen. Ryan's and the other player's tanks were instantly destroyed, and before they could respawn, an enemy tank appeared directly above the double-headed eagle statue. They didn't have time to defend, and the statue was destroyed.

Ryan, feeling a bit depressed, tapped the buttons on the control panel and took out a quarter from his pocket, inserting it into the coin slot. In the second game, Ryan made it to the seventh level before failing again. His strategy was somewhat conservative, and he rarely left the base at the bottom of the screen to pick up power-ups.

So if the power-ups appeared at the top of the screen, they mostly fell into the mouths of the enemy tanks. This time, the enemy tank happened to pick up a timer, which prevented the enemy tanks from moving for thirty seconds. He could only watch helplessly as an enemy tank drove down and fired a shot, ending his game.

The thirty-second timer allowed a large number of enemy tanks to swarm down, and despite the frantic efforts of Ryan and the other player, they couldn't save the game. The double-headed eagle statue they were defending was finally destroyed by a tank from the left side.

"Game Over!" The second game ended like this. Ryan, still feeling unsatisfied, reluctantly gave up his position under the urging of the people behind him. Each person could insert two coins per turn, which was a common practice when the arcade was crowded.

Preparing to rejoin the queue, Ryan suddenly felt hungry. He looked at his watch and realized he had been out of the house for almost two hours. Ryan decided to go to the store to buy bread to fill his stomach and call his best friend Allen to come over.

Similar scenes were happening in various towns and cities across California. Hong Kong Block and Tank Battle quickly captured the hearts of many gamers. As the number of Hong Kong Block and Tank Battle arcade machines increased, a new trend rapidly formed. The enthusiasm of the players was comparable to when Space Invaders was first released a few years ago, and other game companies began to cry wolf.

Meanwhile, in Japan, another major market for arcade games, the Tank Battle and Hong Kong Block machines produced by Epson began to spread across the country's game centers. Initially, the owners of the game centers had some doubts about these new games. With its ample financial support, Epson adopted a risky sales strategy of delivering the machines first and settling the accounts later, quickly placing the two games in game rooms throughout Japan.

The performance of Hong Kong Block and Tank Battle did not disappoint Epson. Japanese players, like their American counterparts, were quickly captivated by the charm of these two games. Even in crowded, noisy, and smoky game rooms, some female players began to appear, mostly coming specifically to play Hong Kong Block.

In Hong Kong, the headquarters of Oriental Electronics, Hong Kong Block and Tank Battle were the first to be widely released. A scene that had occurred in Japan two years ago was replicated in Hong Kong's newspapers. According to the "Daily News," many housewives buying and selling vegetables reported that five-cent coins were in short supply in the market, and they had to use one-cent and two-cent coins as change.

The "Daily News" reporter found that the biggest reason for the shortage of five-cent coins was the large number of arcade machines that had recently appeared in Hong Kong's game centers, bars, and cinemas. The most popular among them were undoubtedly Hong Kong Block and Tank Battle. Tank Battle, in particular, was dubbed the "coin-eating monster," accumulating a large number of five-cent coins daily.

From the coin storage boxes of the arcade machines to the game center owners exchanging them for larger denominations at the bank, the circulation rate of five-cent coins significantly decreased, leading to a supply shortage.

For Oriental Electronics, the popularity of Tank Battle and Hong Kong Block brought a flood of orders. Many distributors placed second orders even before receiving their first batch of machines.

The production schedule of Oriental Electronics' arcade factory was already booked until the end of the year. How to rapidly expand production capacity became a happy problem for Li Xuan.

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