Rebirth of America, this is my time

Chapter 198 Tom and Jerry James Bond

Dangdangdang~

Dangdangdang——

Dangdangdangdang~dangdangdangdang~

When Ethan powered on the Tom and Jerry electronic arcade machine produced by MGM, the Tom and Jerry theme song composed by Scott Bradley himself came from the arcade's built-in speakers. came out. The classic music that almost all Americans have heard made Ethan smile helplessly. This act of amplifying the special code at the beginning was really too extravagant.

When he stood up again and looked at the arcade screen, the Tom and Jerry drawn with pixels were exactly the same as the images in the animation, and they were also lifelike.

Even though there is no game name on the entire screen and only a PLAY logo, classic music and well-known graphics can show everything.

And this behavior...

This is a truly special kind of confidence! Ethan complained with envy.

He took out a twenty-five-cent coin from his pocket and threw it in, then clicked the red button on the operation panel. Hearing a 'dang' sound, the background music stopped instantly, and three pop-ups popped up on the game homepage. Options, the first is Tom, the second is Jerry, and the third is Tom and Jerry.

Without hesitation, I selected Tom, and then the menu interface pattern disappeared like snowflakes falling to the ground, followed by a game map that filled the screen.

White pixels are used as a fence around the map, and the inside of the map is filled with many vertical and horizontal white walls. In the middle left of the map, there is a mugshot of Jerry, and on the corresponding right, It was a photo of Tom, and in the middle of the two of them, there was a white wall pointing downwards. This wall was like a chasm, dividing the two of them.

After a countdown of Three, Two, One, the game on the screen seemed to be injected with life instantly. Jerry on the left began to run away madly, not wanting to fall into the hands of his natural enemies, but when he found that his old friend Tom was not chasing him Then, it stopped in confusion and hid behind a wall, as if wondering why that silly Tom was so passive in his work.

While waiting for Ethan to shake the joystick and control Tom to catch up, Jerry seemed to hear a voice and began to run away again, using the power of the earth to escape Tom's pursuit.

Oh Sxxt! This game is great!

After playing a game with concentration, Ethan said to himself with emotion, Jerry's code is very humane, and this behavior of stopping and waiting really feels like something in a cartoon.

Even though Ethan didn't catch Jerry in the first game and didn't experience the thrill of winning, it didn't stop him from feeling that the game Tom and Jerry was pretty good.

The important thing is that the gameplay of this game is actually different from Snake. Snake is about growing up by constantly eating, while Tom and Jerry is about an honest pursuit.

After being truly broken down, it is actually similar to the Speed ​​of Life and Death in the Kingsoft Typing Assistant made by Rebus in later generations, except that in Speed ​​of Life and Death, all progress is achieved by relying on the player to type out the English phrases in the game. Yes, but in Tom and Jerry, moving forward is just flipping the joystick.

This feature of copying but not completely copying made Ethan smile and shake his head. To be honest, he actually admired the designer of this game. Because according to Roy Disney's description, when he said that the game Tom and Jerry was very similar to Snake, the designer who was preaching on the stage was somewhat reluctant. From this point alone, It can be seen that MGM wanted its designers to directly copy the success of Ethan Jones, but the designers did have some ideas of their own.

‘It seems that conflicts between Party A and Party B exist all over the world~’

Ethan complained in his mind.

Then he continued testing the game.

Since he didn't catch Jerry in the first game, he still played Tom in the second game. When he re-entered the game, he was surprised to find that the game map had changed.

This situation made him energetic, and he tested it several times in a row. The display of the game made him look solemn. There are more than ten guaranteed maps in this game. When the AI ​​plays Jerry, the player's probability of success in catching it should be It's 50%, because Jerry's pause seems to be not only related to Tom's capture speed, but also to the designer's design, and this situation...

Then you have to look at the code.

Thinking of this, Ethan immediately turned off the machine and got into his sister's office.

Pushing the door open, he saw a girl wearing overalls and a ponytail staring attentively at the Apple II in front of her. There was a huge green circuit motherboard scattered on the ground, and the CPU and memory soldered on it were all cut off. Then, in an unknown way, the girl soldered it to her own board and connected it to the Apple II, so that she could directly see the programming content in the game.

If MGM saw all this, they would definitely curse.

but……

What does this have to do with Ethan?

Roy Disney got these things for him.

Yes, that's right. In order to show his sincerity, after MGM's new product launch conference, Roy Disney had someone buy several arcade machines and then sent them to Palo Alto without any concealment.

Have you finished the test over there? So quickly?

The sudden voice prompted the girl to ask directly.

Perhaps it was because only Ethan would come into her office, so she didn't even raise her head.

I haven't finished the test, I just played a dozen games as Tom.

Then why are you here? The girl was a little curious.

Ethan told the truth, MGM did a good job with this game. They made me eager to know how the character Jerry was designed.

While explaining, he also moved behind the desk and sat on the armrest of the girl's boss chair. When he put his hands on the back of the chair, he saw a pile of codes like a book of heaven spread on the monitor.

His doubts also made Evelin lean back, raised her head and said, They did a good job.

They are smarter than you.

What? Ethan was shocked, You said they are smarter than me?

This is impossible!

Ethan didn't accept this kind of evaluation. After all, he didn't make the games in Destiny Game himself. When he copied the inspiration from the popular game in his previous life, Evelin said that these natives were better than him?

Ah--

Then in his previous life, why didn't these guys defeat Taitung, Namco, or Nintendo?

I am telling the truth.

Evelin saw her brother's dissatisfaction, smiled and stretched out her right hand, pointed at the code on the screen and said: Their inspiration may not be comparable to yours, but their ideas are very simple, take this Jerry code For example, the staff at MGM played a lot of tricks in writing this aspect.”

Do you think Jerry in the game is as smart as Jerry in the anime?

That's because they reverse-coded our code in Pac-Man.

There are two ghosts in our Pac-Man. One is bright red and has a bad temper and is constantly chasing the player. The other one likes to be lazy and will rest there after not detecting the player's approach. Tom Jerry in and Jerry uses a combination of these two codes.

In MGM's design, Jerry's intermittent stops are the reverse of the lazy ghost in Pac-Man. After no player is detected, it will rest. Once a player is detected, it will According to the writing idea of ​​the red ghost in Pac-Man, it locates the farthest coordinate and keeps running away. Among them, it also has a tired setting. When Jerry runs for ten seconds, the tired setting will be triggered, and then their program will select a random number between one and ten to make it Jerry's final escape time. For example, if the number selected by the program is three, then Jerry will Then stop and rest, and if it’s seven, Jerry will stop after seven seconds.”

This procedural combination is indeed more complicated than the single ghost in Pac-Man we did before, but if four ghosts are added together at the same time, then the total amount of Jerry's algorithm in this game is A lot less than Pac-Man.”

When they create a character with a recurring personality out of a string of moderately difficult codes, it's really smarter than your idea of ​​segmentation...right?

Although Evelin used rhetorical questions, her tone was full of affirmation.

After listening to his sister's description, Ethan's brows also tightened.

You mean, they copied our code?

Uh - I just made a metaphor - Evelin shrugged, the metaphor in terms of the final result, the real content is not the same.

Oh, okay. Ethan nodded.

Why, are you a little regretful? Evelin asked with a smile.

hold head high.

Ethan showed his heart unabashedly.

“If we can legally confirm that they plagiarized, can’t we just strangle them to death?”

Ethan admitted that the game Tom and Jerry was doing well, but as a competitor, it was Ethan's job to directly defeat them in a simple and clear way.

Not to mention……

Those bastards at MGM went so far as to have a hand in the movie project!

But when Evelin said these people didn’t plagiarize...

well!

That's such a pity!

Why don't you copy it?

After hearing these words, the girl laughed helplessly.

Instead of continuing with this topic, he turned around and continued to introduce the game.

The code they used when designing Jerry is interesting, and Tom's code is even more interesting because the code of these two guys is almost copied...

If Jerry's code is a combination of the Fishing Ghost and the Fiery Ghost, then Tom's code is the combination of the Chase Ghost and the Fishing Ghost. In Tom and Jerry, when players play Jerry, they face Tom is actually a lazy man who feels tired from time to time.

Like Jerry's code, after ten seconds of pursuit, the entire program will select a pursuit time for Tom. If it is two, it means that Tom will continue to catch up for two seconds before resting. If it is five, then It means that Tom will chase for another five seconds.

Of course, if it is a simple rest, then when the player plays Jerry, Tom's rest will suddenly reduce the difficulty of the entire game. When the player will keep running and the pursuer will stop to rest, as long as the player has some brains, then They will treat their pursuers like monkeys.

Ahem...

Although Tom in the cartoon is indeed not very smart.

But you can’t do that in the game, right?

In order to give the player a certain sense of urgency, Tom's movement speed will suddenly increase after taking a rest. This process will last for five seconds. Precisely because he will suddenly increase his speed, in many cases the player will be caught off guard. Defend, causing the player to be caught.

After reading the codes of the two characters, all the highlights of Tom and Jerry were at a glance, and their maps, just as Ethan guessed, there were twenty-five in total.

It seems a little small, but that’s not the point, right?

The real selling point of this game is Tom and Jerry. When they have the distinctive personalities in the game, they will also have the highlights in the promotion.

What about the other game?

After listening to his sister's introduction, Ethan asked again: That 007?

When big companies get too excited and want to die, they can't just make one game.

In addition to Tom and Jerry, they also pulled out James Bond.

And this game -

The gameplay is basically similar to Star Wars.

Evelin knew what Ethan wanted to know and said, But the code was not plagiarized.

James Bond is a shooting game. Perhaps they thought the design of Tom and Jerry was good, so they directly designed the character controlled by the player into a big Bond head.

This head is located at the bottom of the game interface. It can move left and right just like Star Wars. After pressing the button on the operation panel, it will shoot a bullet with a biu sound.

What he needs to destroy is the enemy from above.

The designs of those enemies are actually the same as the alien spaceships in Star Wars, except they are all humanoid, uh... well, actually different mosaic heads.

When the player controls James Bond to eliminate an enemy, he will gain one point. However, if an enemy rushes in front of James Bond, James Bond will lose a life. After losing three lives in total, The game will be over.

To be honest, compared with the fineness of Tom and Jerry, the production of this game is indeed a bit rough, but with the name James Bond... it should be easy to sell.

Are you stressed?

Looking at Ethan who was standing in front of the electronic arcade in a daze, Evelin asked with concern.

ah?

This question made Ethan snap back to his senses, then he shook his head with a smile and said, No pressure.

As if to make his words more credible, he continued to explain: If MGM releases the game together with us, then I will definitely be worried, because the competition will definitely have an impact on sales, but What if we had a gap in when we released the game?

Then this impact will be minimized over time!

All our machines have been sold!

How could their new tour pose a threat to us under such circumstances?

Such words made Evelin look at Ethan a few more times.

Under the girl's gaze, Ethan also showed a confident smile.

But after he left his sister's office, the smile like the rising sun disappeared instantly, and was replaced by the coldness of winter. When he returned to his office, Ethan immediately called Steve Ballmer and asked him. He issued his latest mission.

In the next period of time, you should keep a close eye on our products.

If there is an unreasonable drop in sales, just tell me directly.

Okay?

He stared at the bald head sharply.

Ballmer immediately nodded and said Okay, Okay boss, I will sleep in the company these days.