Chapter 21  

Chapter 21   : Sponsor Game (4)

As I expected, the game ‘Never Die Soldier’ that they were developing was of the military genre and was about a special ops soldier who swept the battle fields .

I learned a few more things while I was listening to them; the concept of this “Never Die Soldier” game was surprisingly from that assistant employee in the office corner . Unfortunately, it seemed as though Mr . Misaki came up with the crappy title…

In this era, it was commonplace for the programmer to also come up with the storyline for the game . The reason for that was because the programmer had to determine if they had the ability to code the narrative .

Of course, an advantage to a game programmer writing the story themselves was that they were able to quickly remove bugs and swiftly produce the game . However, it would be hard for them to make classic creation…

I briefly glanced at the script and saw that the code was just a ‘person shooting’ version of an ‘airplane shooting’ game . I felt no particular enjoyment from the game’s simple gameplay that consisted of dodging the enemy bullets and overwhelming them with even more power .

“I’m actually a military maniac . That’s why with ‘Never Die Soldier’, I wanted to bring the players a realistic feeling of being in a war, but the technicality is difficult . ”

Mr . Masaki’s question was a very simple one, it was about how to make many objects appear on the screen . It seemed like he wanted to depict an image of the last soldier resolutely standing alive, surrounded by countless enemies…

Then I shall give him the simple answer .

“It’s going over the limits . ”

“Excuse me?”

Mr . Masaki looked at me with an awkward face as I, a Mintendo employee, gave a very lackadaisical answer from my mouth .

“The game that Mr . Misaki is developing is impossible to operate with the current Family . If you’re a programmer, Mr . Misaki, you should also be familiar with the current boundaries of the Family . Our Family uses a custom CPU so it’s able to support any type of game to a certain extent, but unfortunately, since the CPU also handles the sound production, it wouldn’t be able to bear the additional output of graphics . Although the VRAM is helping out with the graphics, it’s only 2KB, so there are only so many things it can do . ”

(TL: Yes . A RAM of 2KB . gg)

“Isn’t that why we asked for help from Mintendo to resolve this problem? Doesn’t Mr . Shigeru’s ‘The Legend of Karin’, that was released late last year, also have a map as well as a variety of objects on the screen? It looks like Mintendo is hiding production techniques from us . ”

“Not at all . We started the development of that game along with the making of the Family, so we’ve accumulated the know-how . We don’t remove the ‘limit’ or anything like that when we make the games ourselves . ”

“Then what’s the deal with the plethora of animated objects in The Legend of Karin?”

“That is…”

I briefly slowed the tempo of my words for a moment, then brightly smiled and replied:

“It’s a trick of the eye . You’d know if you analyze the fighting scenes of The Legend of Karin . Although it looks as if a countless number of enemies are appearing on the screen, if you look closely, there is a set number of enemies that fight with the main character . The rest of the enemies are there to fill up the space and give the player a sense of urgency and let them know what’s coming next . And when the main character kills one enemy, an enemy in the surroundings immediately replace the dead one, so it’s creating the illusion of a constant barrage . ”

However, Mr . Masaki was wearing a clueless expression, as if he hadn’t understood a thing I said . Now, now… Is this guy really a programmer? His train of thought was inflexible… In the end, I gave him another hint as I shook my head .

“A barrage of enemies isn’t a prerequisite to capture the feeling of war . ”

“Mmm? Then in what way would…?”It wasn’t like there was a cut scene or any 3D graphics…

Making objects was easy as you can just make them with dots~

On top of that, Mr . Hojima had come up with a basic direction for Full Metal Gear while sitting in the corner up until now, so he was able to provide significant contributions with his outburst of creative ideas .

A blueprint could be analogized with building a model figurine . The blueprint that he came up with was comparable to a complete instruction on building the figurine .

In the end, Team Manager Yorimoto nodded his head towards the suggestion from Hojima and I, and gave permission to produce the demo for the new spy genre, infiltration .

Consequently, Masaki, who was the main programmer, was placed in an awkward situation . He was probably not enjoying the fact that the military game that he was a main part of took on a completely new direction . However, it was a somewhat completed game with a finished dot work, so it’s a bit wasteful to leave it like this…

“I’m not saying your game is bad, Mr . Masaki . After the release of Rambo 2, it stirred the masculinity of the male players, so I think a macho-like military game would definitely work well . ”

“Ri-Right?”

Mr . Masaki stared at me with trembling pupils as I showed support to his side . A memory of a particular game surfaced from my childhood memories as I saw his blueprint, and offered a piece of advice to him .

“However, Mr . Masaki’s game is on a large scale, so let’s aim for the arcade market with it . If you agree with one proposition of mine, I will help with the development of Mr . Hojima and Mr . Masaki’s games here .

“What… proposition do you have?”

“Please let us change the title… The title ‘Never Die Soldier’… The name is too blunt . ”

“Then what else do you have in mind?”

“Mr . Masaki, you’re fascinated with the burning spirit of a man . Hmm, how about “Undying Spirit”? Let’s try to grow this game in the arcade market, which currently has no innovations, before moving it to the Family . ”

“Undying Spirit… Undying Spirit… Uh? That sounds good?”

The year 2015 .

It was a masterpiece that anyone would remember if they’ve played video games as a child . The plan to add Undying Spirit to the list of legendary games, which contained Rambo and Komando, started like this .

The late night meeting finally came to an end, and as I packed my belongings to head back to the headquarters dormitory, the employees who were in the invention room with me all stood up from their seats .

“Then I’ll be leaving soon . If you have any questions, contact me any time . There has been an influx of requests for technical help recently, but we have Mr . Shigeru in the office and Mr . Kawata also became a part of Mintendo, so they should be able to answer most of your questions through the phone . ”

“We’re very thankful . We’ve killed two birds with one stone by discovering a new genre of games and taking the military game one step further thanks to your help, Mr . Kang . ”

Team Manager Yorimoto showered his gratitude towards me . A moment later, the employees came out of the building to send me off, which was completely different from their initial denial of my existence, and I left the Fox Soft building .

I had an incredibly busy work schedule while approaching the autumn of 1986 . On that day, I was running out of the company with a toast in my mouth, stamped the going-out-of-the-company stand, and was hurriedly running out the door as usual .

“Hey~!! Kang-kun . Where are you going today?! Are you going to Fox Soft again?”

I was done with my work in Fox Soft since last month . First, I had given various know-hows to Hojima, that was also used in The Legend of Karin such as Top View, to help with the theme of the spy genre . As he insisted on perfecting the game, I also imparted the Side Scrolling stage, the Scroll View, and the shooting stage and compiled them together to be able to do tons of action . However, the development period would probably be extended because of the slow-witted Masaki holding everything up .

“I’m going to Phoenix Soft today . ”