Chapter 5

Putting down the game controller, the three of them sat down, their expressions serious.

The tech enthusiast Aleksey spoke up, "With a large number of application stacks, simulating the snake's movement route, this game shouldn't be technically difficult."

Zhao Yongping nodded and looked at Yang Yun, "But the game interface is too simple."

Yang Yun was confident, "This is just my first experimental work. If Snake were this simple, how could it have become popular worldwide..." Suddenly he was startled, realizing he had let something slip.

At the beginning, Snake was indeed quite mediocre on PC. It was the Nokia phone that made it popular. People around the world who bought Nokia phones would play it while waiting for the bus, when they couldn't sleep, on the toilet, or when they were bored. Later on, the game evolved into 2D, 3D, speed-based, maze-based, and puzzle-based versions, which greatly expanded its appeal, making it a global sensation.

Hearing this, the other two laughed. They hadn't even considered global popularity; selling some copies in the Chinese market would be a huge success.

Besides, how could they imagine what would happen 20 years later...

Yang Yun cleared his throat and took out a stack of paper. Each page was filled with simple hand-drawn diagrams.

There were square prison rooms, four quadrants divided by horizontal and vertical walls, irregular barriers, and modes where eating all the points increased the speed. This small stack of eight pages corresponded to the eight game levels of Snake.

The two men exchanged glances and were immediately delighted. This greatly enhanced the game's playability!

In this era, what was lacking was not technology, but creativity!

In the first generation of Snake, everything was represented by black dots. Even with complex maps and varied gameplay, it was essentially the same at the technical level!

The stack theory in data structures can handle it perfectly.

The snake's movement is simply the addition of 1 to the coordinates of the top node of the stack, and the addition of 1 to the coordinates of all nodes within the stack, then redisplaying all nodes. This creates the effect of the snake moving forward.

Eating a point is the same principle, just increasing the number of nodes in the stack.

The change in speed is merely a change in the time it takes to reset the stack.

When the snake hits a wall or eats itself, the game ends because two nodes in the stack have the same coordinates, the snake dies, and the game restarts.

This kind of small game, in the 21st century, any computer science undergraduate who has learned some programming languages can basically create.

So, in this era, creativity is the most valuable!

Zhao Yongping asked, "Yang, how long will it take to code these eight games?"

Yang Yun looked at Aleksey, who immediately indicated no problem and was ready to fully cooperate. Yang Yun then smiled and replied, "Two days, mainly for debugging the method of burning the games onto the cartridges." These tasks required no artistic design, just programming and debugging, about 2000 lines of code, and most of the code for the eight games was similar.

Zhao Yongping was delighted, "That's great! Time is money, efficiency is life! You need to hurry up and get it done, then start selling!"

This classic saying was defined by a great leader in 1984, leading to a nationwide economic boom after his southern tour. Even Zhao Yongping, a graduate student, couldn't escape the trend, becoming the manager of a nearly bankrupt small factory, constantly thinking about making money and finding a way out, almost turning his hair white.

Yang Yun laughed, "Manager Zhao, we should take a long-term view and consider how to sell it."

What Yang Yun meant by "selling" was, of course, selling the cartridges!

Zhao Yongping didn't have many good ideas. Although he still had a sense of pride as a scholar, the pressure of reality was too great, and he finally gave in.

Huamao Electronics Factory was now penniless. They only had an FC development platform, which could be used for research or secretly burning pirated cartridges. They lacked the experience to develop the entire FC console and controllers, making it unrealistic to produce the whole system.

Most crucially, Huamao Electronics Factory had almost no sales channels. They had good games and technology but no way to sell them, starting from scratch.

So, after discussion, despite Aleksey's objections, Zhao Yongping and Yang Yun decided to engage in pirated burning and contract manufacturing!

First, they contacted Huqiang Electronics Factory in Zhongshan City, which had sold them the platform, and secretly bought 1000 sets of learning cartridges.

The source of these cartridges was not disclosed by Huqiang Electronics Factory. The labels on the cartridges were removed, leaving no trace, indicating they were completely black market. They required immediate payment, no credit, and no returns or guarantees.

Zhao Yongping gritted his teeth and accepted these terms. Huamao Electronics Factory had only one game technology to offer, and all other conditions were controlled by others, leaving them no choice but to endure.

After receiving the learning cartridges, Aleksey and Yang Yun quickly got to work. They needed to crack the motherboard's settings and implant the Snake game. The disassembly was challenging, but fortunately, they had Aleksey, the Soviet expert.

On Yang Yun's suggestion, Zhao Yongping was determined to save time. He hired a master from an underground cartridge factory in Shenzhen to come and guide the cracking and burning process. They worked non-stop for several days, costing him a total of 3000 yuan, which made him wince!

However, Zhao Yongping's resolute and decisive character was a key reason for his future success in business!

Three days later, Yang Yun and Aleksey had completed the secondary processing of the 1000 cartridges, perfectly embedding the eight 32K mini-games of Snake into the learning cartridges. They then affixed the popular Kote Learning Card trademark, making them counterfeit products.

Why use learning cartridges instead of dedicated game cartridges?

This was related to the situation in China at the time.

In 1984, a great leader visited the Shanghai Exhibition Hall and watched a 13-year-old child demonstrate various programs on a computer. He patted the child's shoulder and said, "The popularization of computers must start with the children."

Following this, almost all home computer FC manufacturers marketed their products as learning machines, successfully attracting countless parents who hoped their children would excel. As long as the parents had the financial means, they eagerly brought these new appliances into their homes.

If they had marketed them as game consoles, would they have been as popular?

Yang Yun's childhood was like this. His neighbors bought learning machines, whether it was the Dabawang or the Pyramid, the accompanying learning cartridges contained Basic programs, Wubi input method, LOGO language, and other high-end features that supposedly helped children learn computer knowledge.

Adding to the rising trend of competition and children's tantrums, parents feared their children would fall behind their peers and eventually bit the bullet, spending a month's salary to buy a set.

The result was that when parents were not at home, Yang Yun and his friends would switch to four-in-one or sixteen-in-one game cartridges, playing to their heart's content, often forgetting their parents' return and getting punished as a result.

Parents often said, "What's so fun about this?"

They didn't understand what children liked. Children are naturally curious, love to explore, and enjoy playing games. Asking them to study Basic language was far less appealing than playing games.

Moreover, the simple Snake game was suitable for all ages, making it more acceptable to parents than purely children's games like "Squirrel Battle," "Adventure Island," and "Ice Block Digging."

Zhao Yongping loaded the 1000 cartridges onto a jeep, and Yang Yun joined him, heading to Shenzhen to meet with Huamao Electronics Factory's former sales team, preparing to sell these highly anticipated cartridges.

This was their one shot at success!

PS: I was beaten by my father for playing game consoles in my childhood. Sigh, a tearful memory!