Chapter 57

Lin Yuhao's life in the Lin family was not going well, but if he wanted to change his current situation, he would have to rely on his own efforts. Only when he no longer needed to depend on the family and had the ability to survive independently would he have the chance to stand up straight and say no to people and things he disliked. As a friend, Li Xuan would give him a push, but the choices in life were still up to him to make.

As for Lin Yuxin, who had been mocked a few times at the banquet, Li Xuan wasn't really worried about this playboy. Such a spoiled rich kid hadn't truly entered the core power layer of the Lin family and couldn't easily mobilize the entire Lin Group's resources like Lin Yuli.

The next day, not long after Li Xuan arrived at the office of Oriental Electronics, he received a call from Professor Zhao Weiming at the university. Dr. Ma Lin, the president of Sun Yat-sen University, invited him to have dinner at his home the next day. Li Xuan readily agreed, knowing that his previous proposal to donate ten million Hong Kong dollars had received a warm response from Sun Yat-sen University.

Ten million Hong Kong dollars, equivalent to over two million US dollars, was such a huge donation that even thirty years later, it would be enough to make Li Xuan a welcome guest at any prestigious American university, let alone Sun Yat-sen University in 1980.

Although Oriental Electronics would certainly have a series of conditions for the use of the funding, such a large donation would still be enough to make the board of directors of Sun Yat-sen University very happy.

Since Li Xuan's last detailed discussion with Professor Zhao Weiming, most of the teachers had turned a blind eye to his frequent absences. Li Xuan was happy to have more time to focus on the rapidly expanding company.

The success of the first batch of Tank Battle and Hong Kong Blocks arcade games in the North American and Japanese markets had pushed the number of arcade game orders for Oriental Electronics to over ten thousand. After a new round of hiring, the company barely managed to implement a three-shift system, allowing for 24/7 production. Even so, Li Xuan optimistically estimated that the monthly production capacity would be around ten thousand units.

But Li Xuan didn't dare to expand further. The company's rapid expansion had already started to show some side effects. The newly hired workers were not yet proficient, and various small accidents occurred daily. Fortunately, assembling arcade games was not a dangerous job, and the consequences of these small accidents were merely wasted raw materials or reduced labor efficiency, not major production accidents.

With too many orders in hand, Li Xuan had to send Liang Ning to the United States again to negotiate with Cousins and Davis, inviting their arcade factories to produce some of the games on a subcontracting basis.

Compared to the busy production line, the R&D department, which had been working overtime, had just finished a long holiday. It was not yet the Spring Festival, but Li Xuan, the big boss, had already given out generous red envelopes in advance. His attitude was always that if you want the horse to run fast, you must feed it enough grass.

The first battle of Oriental Electronics was exceptionally successful, but past glory belonged to history, and a new journey lay ahead. Li Xuan estimated that the hot sales of Tank Battle and Hong Kong Blocks would last at most a year before gradually fading.

Even the most classic games, if played every day, would eventually lead to aesthetic fatigue. If Oriental Electronics did not want to be a fleeting star in the gaming industry, it had to prepare new hit games in advance.

As for what the new game would be, Li Xuan already had a plan. He had a mischievous idea: what would happen if Super Mario and Donkey Kong were released simultaneously?

In Donkey Kong, Mario, who first appeared in the game, was simply set as an Italian character, even without a specific name, only referred to as "Jumpman" (Jump Man). Players had to control him to jump continuously to save his beloved girlfriend Pauline, who had been kidnapped by the evil gorilla Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong was a vertical-scrolling game, while the later Mario series was a horizontal-scrolling game. Mario was not made into an arcade game but was directly sold on the newly developed FC home video game console. It was the huge success of the Mario series that established Nintendo's dominance in the home console market throughout the 1980s.

Compared to Tank Battle, where each fixed screen was a map level, the horizontal-scrolling game's screen would continuously scroll forward as the main character moved. The complexity of the game increased significantly, and the design difficulty naturally rose accordingly.

"The story of the game is a cliché: a beautiful princess is kidnapped by an evil dragon, and a brave hero sets out to save her, overcoming numerous difficulties and challenges, finally defeating the dragon and rescuing the princess, and they live happily ever after."

Li Xuan patted a few A4 papers in his hand, which contained the company's new game plan. The meeting room was quiet, and everyone was listening intently to Li Xuan's speech. In the past, they obeyed him because he was the boss and held everyone's fate in his hands.

But after the huge success of Tank Battle and Hong Kong Blocks, everyone had been conquered by Li Xuan's creativity and talent, and this respect and admiration came from the heart.

So, even though the story of the game, called "Mario Bros.," sounded very cliché and lacked any originality, no one expressed any objections but continued to listen to Li Xuan attentively.

"You might think this story is cliché, and yes, I don't deny it. But this is just the game's background. At least compared to Tank Battle and Hong Kong Blocks, our new game has a complete game world.

Okay, these are not the key points. The key is how we plan to design this game to make it interesting, fun, and engaging! Mario Bros. will be a side-scrolling game.

As the name suggests, each level is not just a map like in Tank Battle but a scroll that unfolds as the main character moves forward. This means the new game's screen must be horizontally scrollable, which poses higher requirements for our programming.

Programming is one aspect, and game design is another. The new game's map is more complex than Tank Battle, and naturally, it contains more game content. Whether a game can keep players engaged is the key to its success. How each level is designed is something we need to delve into deeply.

For example, the skill in arranging difficulty levels is to start easy and gradually increase the difficulty. The placement of enemies and traps should start simple and safe, not immediately causing the player to fail. We need to give players a period to adapt, gradually adding dangerous elements. Once players are familiar with the game, we can combine traps and enemies to guide them to higher difficulty levels.

If you make the game too difficult from the start, many players will give up, and no matter how exciting and interesting the later content is, it will be in vain!

Another example is how to control the game's pace. After a player overcomes a very challenging section, we should give them a break to relax. The next section of the map should be simpler. In some more mundane paths, we could consider placing some coins to encourage players to control the character to jump, which can increase their focus and engagement."

This was the first planning meeting after the new game's proposal. Li Xuan drew a few game screen images of Mario Bros. based on his memory and described some game development ideas. The Mario development team would then fill in the details of the entire game based on Li Xuan's creativity, come up with several detailed feasibility plans, and hold another collective brainstorming session.

PS: If you have recommendation votes, don't hide them; throw them at me!

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