Rebirth of America, this is my time

Anyone who has experienced the baptism of the computer age, witnessed the development of the Internet age, and embraced the advent of the mobile Internet era should know that the game Northland Cube...

That is God!

No need to say more! I understand everything! Just blow it up and that's it!

As one of the greatest video games since the birth of video games, Northland Cube is different from other explosive video games. Like Snake, it is the dividend of the era when Nokia ruled the world; like Space Invaders, it is the combination of the strengths of hundreds of schools and the popularity of the ultimate; like Pac-Man, it is The first applied exploration of artificial intelligence in the field of science and technology not only opened the eyes of the public, but also caused the academic community to take it seriously; and Northland Cube...

It has neither reaped the dividends of the times——

Because there were puzzle video games before it came along.

It didn’t reach the ultimate level of popularity——

The one that can subvert an entire industry like Star Wars is called Avatar.

It also doesn’t have a topic that the academic community would like to talk about——

Well, it actually does, but the research effects it produced only happened many years after the game became popular. It did not attract a lot of attention as soon as it was launched like Pac-Man.

The point is, it also has a background that is not easy to publicize——

The nationality of the game's inventor and the place where the game was born have always been resisted by the West.

But even so, it still dominates the world with overwhelming force!

This kind of success is really more hard-won than all other games!

As for why it is successful...

To be honest, Ethan actually doesn’t know either.

In Ethan's memory, he should have seen the game Northland Cube when he was in elementary school. His first reaction when he saw the game was to speak simple words with his immature mouth——

Dang! What kind of game is this?

Because many years have passed, he can no longer remember the people and things at that time, but he can still recall the feeling when he first saw the game. The jumping squares on the screen seemed to have a different kind of magic, which could firmly hold the memory of the game. The ground caught his eye. The game of control and elimination didn't seem as exciting as fighting and killing, but it always made him feel itchy.

When playing games, he will be happy because of the successful elimination, rack his brains because of the appearance of gaps, be excited because of overcoming difficulties, and even be disappointed because of Game Over.

Even though he has been a man for two generations, Ethan can't tell what the real charm of the game is, but the fact that it has been popular year after year is constantly proving one thing to the world -

MFxxk!!! Ethan! - Is this a new game you came up with???

When Ethan spent two hours to come up with the extremely simple game overview and game interface concept drawing of Northland Block, Evelin almost threw up the drawing in her hand when she saw the inspiration!

The girl raised her head suddenly, her beautiful eyes as wide as bells.

The shocked gaze was like a sharp blade, seeming to dissect the boy in front of him.

Ethan, who was sitting on the reception chair in front of the desk, rubbed his hands with a smile, then crossed them and said, Yeah~ This is the new game I want~

How about it, am I a genius? He blinked and asked cheerfully.

Genius? Is this special code something that a genius can come up with? The girl shook the draft paper in her hand and said loudly: Oh! Sxxt! Why do you have such inspiration?

No--

“You can have such inspiration!”

But how can you continuously come up with such inspiration!

The girl was very puzzled at this moment!

She was very curious about how the guy in front of her had a brain!

Although in the past few years, she had only doubted the source of inspiration for Ethan when she first played a game with him. At that time, Ethan had just been fired by Milo, so she was worried that Snake was Milo's. Hua already has creativity. After Milohua would rather blow up their mosquitoes with a patented nuclear bomb than claim that Snake was their idea, the girl completely gave up her doubts about plagiarism. However, this does not mean that she can endlessly accept Ethan's ideas...

In the past three years, she has really been driven crazy!

She sees Snake as the product of Ethan's flash of inspiration;

She regards Pac-Man as a variant idea and gameplay extension of Snake, although she herself does not know why a game like Snake can become Pac-Man;

She also had a clear idea of ​​the source of inspiration for Star Wars because they watched the filming of Close Encounters of the Third Kind together, and the Star Wars movie does exist;

But even so, when she saw the game marked Destiny Cube...

She still found that she could no longer make up a reasonable reason for Ethan!

Now she feels that Ethan's brain is a black hole!

Pick it up and shake it, maybe you can shake out countless gold!

And when the girl stared at Ethan with a surprised look on her face, almost holding a knife in her hand and wanting to dissect him, the boy who looked at her shrugged.

No way, Evelin.

There are many things in this world that ordinary people cannot do in their lifetime.

“Among them is the God of Level Eyes.”

He pointed at himself.

Then he said: Many times, I squat down to communicate with you from a head-level perspective, and doing so not only makes me feel physically tired, but also makes me feel mentally tired.

So at certain moments I will relax appropriately and stand up and look down for a while.

For example, now.

He pointed to the inspiration draft in Evelin's hand.

The look of that stinky fart made Evelin’s face darken.

After looking at Ethan for a moment, the girl suddenly raised her lips and smiled.

She threw the manuscript paper in her hand on the table, folded her hands and leaned back.

Then it's your show time.

What? Ethan didn't understand, his brows furrowed slightly in confusion.

Evelin raised her chin and tapped the table a few times, Don't you call yourself a god?

Then how to turn inspiration into reality is your own business.

In the past few years, if you haven't made games by yourself, I will treat you as a gamer who is too lazy to do it.

Now that you've stopped pretending and revealed your identity, then...

Just do it yourself.

Oh, by the way, you can also design the home console yourself.

I quit!

With that said, the girl stood up with a smile and walked out of the desk.

He bowed slightly and made a gesture of invitation.

Seeing that the corner of Ethan's mouth was twitching but still not moving, she stepped forward and took Ethan's arm.

I just wanted to take Ethan behind the desk.

Hey, hey - don't pull me, don't pull me - I'm kidding -

Really? I don't believe it.

No - what's so unbelievable about this? I'm obviously bragging -

I think you can.

Oh Evelyn—oh my dear sister—I was wrong—don't push me—

Who pushed you? I am asking you to take the position of chairman of the company in a friendly way! From now on, you are the chairman, CEO and president of the company, and I... quit~

When Ethan sat down in the position that belonged to her under the half push of the girl, the view blocked by the data and drawings made Ethan feel the girl's work perspective for the first time.

Turning his head, he saw the girl's left hand on her hips and right hand supporting the table. She was half-leaning there to signal him to hurry up. The look of the supervisor made the boy dumbfounded——

Okay, Okay, I got this inspiration yesterday.

Ethan surrendered and said, Didn't we go see the farmland in our name yesterday? When you told me that the land in our hands can stretch from Los Gatos to Cupertino, I thought A huge map appeared, a long map...

On that map, there are areas of different colors, white, red and black.

The white ones are our land, the red ones are public lands owned by the government, and the black ones are other land that can be traded...

“I was thinking, what if I could buy all that land?”

So, I had a dream last night. Under our purchase, those lands continued to spread and eventually filled up the entire map.

When I woke up, I was shocked by this great idea of ​​mine, and I decided to make a game of filling in the map. But after thinking about it, just filling in the map didn't make much sense, so I slapped my head and decided Change the way the game is played, and then...

The Destiny Cube also appeared...

Although Ethan had never thought about the shock that the game Northland Cube would bring to Evelin before coming here, he even felt that Evelin should have accepted her Tinkerbell attributes long ago, so he simply He didn't have a source for his inspiration, but when Evelin desperately wanted to know how he designed this game, he was still able to make up a story in a short time.

Eh--

no way!

Who told him to rely on his words in his last life? If he didn't make those investors happy, how could those guys open their pockets to him willingly?

And his words made the girl's mouth twitch.

Too fake. She commented with a look of disgust.

You might as well say that God gave you a dream. The girl said.

That's what his old man entrusted to me in his dream! Ethan knelt down quickly.

... Such shameless behavior almost choked the girl to death.

Staring at the serious guy talking nonsense, Evelin panted and shook her head, raised her hand and punched Ethan twice, then sat directly on the desk, picked up the idea and continued reading.

Although she was still out of breath, Ethan knew that the girl was no longer obsessed with the source of inspiration, and after Evelin carefully read through it, solemnity continued to gather on her pretty face.

What's wrong? Is there a problem? Ethan's heart skipped a beat.

Yes. The girl stopped joking and slid down from the table.

Spreading the drawings on the table, he pointed at the seven blocks drawn by Ethan and asked: Ethan, in your imagination, this game is an elimination game, right? There will be seven types of blocks from top to bottom. Appearing in the game interface, the player needs to control the block and place it in the appropriate position. When a row in the interface is filled, the filled row will be automatically eliminated, right?”

Yes. What's wrong? Ethan was puzzled.

The gameplay of Northland Cube is so simple.

Precisely because it is easy to use, it can be used by young and old alike.

This kind of minimalism is actually the real reason why a thing can become popular quickly.

When a game can bring the simplest happiness to the world across barriers of language, race, and even civilization, then it will inevitably become a classic.

Of course, this kind of thing is easy to say, but extremely difficult to do.

And with Ethan's nod, Evelin also bent down and opened her desk drawer.

I took out a MOS 6502 chip from it and threw it on the table.

The game can do it, but it can't sustain it.

What's the meaning?

It's very simple.

Evelin, who was in working mode, spoke very quickly. She pointed to the printed fonts on the MOS 6502 chip and said: The chip we are using now can no longer support your inspiration. The MOS 6502 we are currently using is 1.79MHz. One megahertz is equivalent to 1,000 kilohertz, which is equivalent to ten to the sixth power of hertz, and 1.79 megahertz means that it can complete 1.79 million computing cycles per second.

When I got it two years ago, I found that its performance was not comparable to Intel and Motorola, but because it was cheap, and the games we were making at the time were pretty... simple? So I didn't care. When she said the word 'simple', the girl almost bit her tongue.

Because she knows that no matter whether it is Pac-Man or Star Wars, it is not easy.

But this is not important. After quickly debunking this, she continued: In fact, when developing Pac-Man and Star Wars, I already felt that 6502 was reaching its limit.

If it weren't for the fact that the 6502 does not use microcode for sequencing, but uses programmable logic devices to decode and sequence instructions, which allows the chip to have some overlap in acquisition and execution, I dare say that this chip can even be compared to Star Wars. No game can be made.”

Pac-Man is just a four-thread search, plus at most four corners of Dali Pills. Star Wars is a spaceship that constantly attacks the player with dynamic search. And now, you ask me to make seven squares. Random operation...this...I think it needs at least 4MHz speed...

1.79MHz...you are making things difficult for the chip...

Ethan understood what the girl meant.

After personally experiencing the GTX690 tactical core graphics card being eliminated by Leather Huang overnight, he certainly understands how important computing power is in the gaming industry.

In other words, without electronic games, the computer industry would never develop crazily, because the gaming industry’s demand for performance is never-ending. Before the metaverse really arrives, or before Liu’s digital life is truly realized, all industries Performance output can be quickly eaten up by games.

Although society has always had a certain prejudice against people who play games, if there are no players who play games, and nothing else, Lao Huang can't wait for the day when he will use his computing power to massacre the world. After all, , Nvidia’s money for artificial intelligence...

That’s all contributed by gamers around the world!

The results of it?

Are graphics cards getting more expensive?

Special code!

However, hardware issues are not a problem for Ethan.

There is no way, who made him a hardware manufacturer of medium and small size now?

Hehe~

Oh, is that right? Then I'll call Chuck Paido.

Ethan said: Let him customize a chip for us. That should be enough, right?

Ethan thought this problem could be solved with just a touch of his mouth, but Evelin shook her head and said: Customized chips can indeed solve the problem, but it will also breed more problems.

First of all, the first question is how do you want to release this game?

If it's still an arcade machine, then there's no problem with customizing the chip, because it's just a separate design. But if it's a home game console, then all my previous drawings will be in vain.

I designed the machine based on 1.79 MHz, and now you suddenly change the machine standard to 4 MHz, then everything has to be started again.

Then the second question, although you have shares in Chuck Paddo Chip Manufacturing Company, and MOS Company maintains a good relationship with us, the increase in chip computing power will definitely increase the cost of home game consoles. All settings had to be redone, including pricing.”

Evelin looked at Ethan with her hands on the table.

A few golden hairs escaped from the elastic band and dangled in front of the two people.

‘Fuck! ’

Ethan cursed in his mind.

‘How did I forget this? ’

His sister's reminder made him frown slightly.

Making home console games is different from making arcade games.

The former is a propositional composition with conditions.

The latter is a divergent novel that allows unlimited imagination.

When machines have functional limitations, all games must be produced under limited conditions. Otherwise, there would be no concept of next-generation games in the world.

No one can break this threshold unless——

The console manufacturers themselves need to upgrade.

Although Ethan can let his sister redesign the design at will, and Evelin will most likely just beat him up and let the matter go, but... the increase in cost will cause trouble in pricing the machine.

Our current price is $199.99?

Ethan asked: One machine with two joysticks and two built-in games?

I designed it according to this standard.

Evelin replied: For two games, each one is worth thirty dollars, and the cost here is sixty dollars. I count the sales cost as thirty dollars, and the rest that can be left for me is only $109.99. If we continue to use For the 6502, which costs twelve dollars a piece, I can control the cost at about eighty, which means our profit for the first single machine is 15%.

This profit is already very low, much lower than that of arcade machines.

Although we can make money back by selling games later, but——

If the price of chips goes up, we may sell at a loss.

Unless the price is increased, or the number of games is reduced.

This fact made Ethan purse his lips.

He thought for a long time and said: We can't increase the selling price.

$199.99 is already the limit.

The number of games cannot be reduced. No matter how fun our games are, people will feel that they are at a loss if one machine and one game costs US$199.99.

So? Evelin tilted her head and looked at Ethan.

At the same time, she also gave her own thoughts.

Then we should still make this game in an arcade style?

This suggestion made Ethan lean back, a little confused.

Note: ① There is research on Northland Cube in the scientific community, but the official research was only in 1994. Its influence in the academic community is indeed not as great as Pac-Man. ②Atari used the oldest version of 6502 to make Little Bee and Pac-Man, but Northland Cube really couldn't be made. I found that the latest chip equipped with Northland Cube is The Zilog Z80 used by ZX Spectrum is also an 8-bit chip, but its computing power is 3.5MHz. I checked it out and found that the performance of Northland Cube on it is relatively poor. When Nintendo, the stingiest player in the industry, launched Northland Cube, Game Boy all had a 4.19MHz chip. This almost real infinite type of game is still different from a level-breaking type of game.