1988 Retro Game Tycoon - Chapter 107



Only Noblemtl

Episode 107 – Dark Moon

“Captain Park, try broadening your horizons. Watch a lot of animations, movies, and comics. Try watching some Japanese robot animations as well. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

I gave advice to Captain Park Geon-hyung.

“Does that really help with game development? Right now, I’m studying programming, coding, and studying other games. I don’t have enough time to do that.”

“Captain, you’re a good guy, but there’s just one problem.”

“What is the problem?”

“You think of everything as studying. You study this, you study that. Why do you think of everything as studying?”

“Huh? That’s right… If you study other games diligently, you can see the structure better, and figure out why this works well and why this doesn’t, so…?”

Captain Park looked as if he was asking such an obvious question.

But he didn’t seem confident in his answer.

“Yes, it’s important to study and research other games. But before that, shouldn’t you have fun doing something?”

In my experience, a lot of great programmers are nerds, especially anime nerds.

If you divide programmers into two groups, you can roughly divide them into those who like this nerd culture and those who don’t.

If you are a game developer, the former is probably a bit more advantageous.

Because it’s important to have the experience of being immersed in a work of art or a hobby and loving it deeply.

No matter how smart or technically advanced you are, if you have never truly loved something, it is difficult to create a masterpiece that touches the heart.

“I think games are the sum total of all the cultures that humanity has accumulated so far. Games are literature, theater, art, music, and film combined, and beyond that.”

“You once said that games are movies that you can experience yourself.”

“I remember. ‘Doing it yourself’ is the starting point of all games, and I think that’s why games are more difficult. You put on a movie just to kill time, right? But games are a little different. Playing a boring game is actually hard work. You have to do things you don’t want to do yourself.”

“That’s true. Sometimes, it’s really painful when I have to endure a really boring game. I wonder why they made it like this. There’s a big difference between something being hard to do and something being boring and not wanting to do it.”

“That’s why. That’s why games must be fun. First, they have to be fun, and then there’s the next thing. But fun can’t be found through studying alone. Of course, there can be fun in exploring and researching, but that’s not the kind of fun that games pursue. Games are about emotions, and they’re about a living heart.”

“A living heart?”

“Yes, no matter how flashy, cool, and flashy a game may be on the outside, if it doesn’t touch your emotions, it can’t be a masterpiece. Fighting and destroying things are just the outer shell. You have to get inside with real emotions. Think about why you wanted to make this game in the first place. Why did you want to make ?”

“that···.”

Captain Park hesitated.

***

During his school days, Park Geon-hyung was a terrible bookworm.

The reason he was so bad was because no one made him study.

He just liked studying.

Although he was born and raised in a small seaside village, he was not very familiar with water. Rather, he was afraid of the wide, deep, and salty sea water.

When he looked out at the dark night sea, it seemed as if it would come running and swallow him up at any moment.

Even when his friends were swimming and playing in the sea, he stayed alone on the rock and studied while listening to the sound of the waves.

Gunhyung’s friends thought he was weird, but they didn’t say much because they had to copy his homework later.

In a small rural seaside town, there wasn’t much to do except visit the ocean. There weren’t many books, and you couldn’t go to the movies.

Fortunately, he was good at studying.

He was always number one in his grades and his college entrance exam scores were also excellent. He applied to Korea University of Science and Technology, where he could receive a full scholarship.

Park Geon-hyung was surprised when he first saw the college campus. The campus seemed much larger than the town he lived in.

Although he was a little disappointed that he couldn’t go to Seoul, his heart soon softened when he saw the campus. Park Geon-hyung, who entered college that way, encountered a completely new machine at the university.

It was something called a ‘computer’.

Park Geon-hyung was completely captivated by the charm of digital machines that could process anything he input.

The sea was so vast and deep that it felt infinite. The infinity of the sea was terrifying to him.

But computers were different. I wanted to endlessly explore the infinite world of 0s and 1s that unfolded inside this small box.

He also joined the computer research club, Tobagi.

“Geonhyung, have you tried this?”

“What is this?”

When I joined the club, the first thing my senior showed me was none other than a game.

.

It was a simple game where you had to bounce marbles to break the colorful bricks that filled the screen. Park Geon-hyung played the game repeatedly for hours, as it was simple but controlled by perfect rules.

He soon became as interested in games as he was in computers. He wanted to play more games, but there were only a few available in his school dormitory.

Even if you go out to downtown Daejeon, there is only one small game shop. There was a game shop in Dongyang Department Store, but I didn’t go there often because the prices were expensive.

As he was studying computers and playing games so enthusiastically at Tobagi, Park Geon-hyeong became the president. After he became the president, the idea of ​​making games naturally came up.

After going through numerous processes, they created , but in the end, they never released it.

After finishing his meeting with CEO Seo Nam-joon, Park Geon-hyung was lost in old memories, reminiscing about the process of creating .

At that time, Hyunwoo Seok came holding a few pieces of paper and spoke.

“Hey, can you take a look at this robot design we’re working on?”

“Huh? Oh, okay.”

Park Geon-hyeong woke up from his reverie and picked up the painting.

“How is it working with Seongbeom?”

“Ah~, Seongbeom hyung is good at drawing, and he’s good at designing. Everything is good, but he really likes Top Gun. He says that everything he does ends up looking like the F-14. Among the animation tapes I bought from Japan recently, there’s one called . This time, he’s totally into the robots that appear in it.”

“Really? Is it cool?”

“No, it’s cool. This is a fighter jet that looks like an F-14 and can transform into a human, and there are stages in between. Take a look, hyung. It’s a robot called Valkyrie, and it’s really cool. It’s also much more realistic than other robots.”

“Really? I should watch it too. , you say?”

“Look, bro. It’s really fun. The space battle scene with all the flashy explosions is awesome. And there’s a singer named Minmay. Oh, it’s amazing. Anyway, Japanese people are really amazing.”

Hyunwoo Seok raised his thumb.

Park Geon-hyeong opened the painting, thinking that there was a lot to see, and was surprised.

“Oh! This is cool. It looks so sleek and strong. Did you design this, Woo-seok?”

“Uh, well… right?”

“That’s amazing~. Hey, but why didn’t you do it like this when you did ? Back then, the spaceship looked like some kind of fat eagle. But this is completely different.”

“Ah, that’s because the resolution was low back then, so I couldn’t bring out such sharp details. Well, it’s not because I’m bad at it.”

“Was that it? Really?”

“Why would I lie in front of you, hyung?”

However, Park Geon-hyung seemed to have noticed and stared at Hyun Woo-seok.

Hyunwoo Seok finally confessed.

“Oh, right. This is also something I drew by following a few things from the Japanese anime Gundam and changing them a little. I’m not saying I’m really going to do it like this. It’s just an example of what it would be like if it felt like this? Something like that. It doesn’t fool you.”

“Gundam? I think I’ve heard the name.”

“That guy looks like… No. Wait a minute.”

Hyunwoo Seok went to his seat and brought out several palm-sized books. All of the books were in color, and the covers had ‘Dynamic Kongkong Mini Encyclopedia’ written on them.

Giant, human-like robots such as Gundam, Gundam Mark II, Z Gundam, ZZ Gundam, and Psycho Gundam reveal a new appearance with every turn of the page.

“So you drew this after seeing it?”

“No, I didn’t draw it based on a reference. I used it as a reference. Reference. Oh, so that’s how other people do it. Then what should I do? I thought about it.”

“Hmm… I guess there’s a reason why the CEO told me to watch a lot of animations and other things.”

“Is that so, sir? Well, we are somewhat lacking in that area. I think we were a bit culturally malnourished because we were stuck on the campus and in the dorms in Daejeon, taking classes and making games.”

“Cultural malnutrition?”

“Yes, just by going to nearby Cheonggyecheon and Myeongdong, you can find a huge variety of magazines, videos, and records from the US, Europe, and Japan. There’s no game that our company doesn’t have right now.”

The word ‘malnutrition’ flew into Park Geon-hyung’s heart and struck him.

“I think the reason we made like that is because we were all malnourished. We didn’t see much. We didn’t play many games. At most, we played a few shooting games and rushed into making games. We should have somehow found some SF movies and animations to watch. I think about that a lot these days. Even Seoul is like this, so Akihabara must have been really great. Right, hyung?”

Park Geon-hyung nodded silently. Hyun Woo-seok flipped through the Gundam Encyclopedia.

Now, they had changed their name to to escape from , but the shadow of the moon was still long.

“Woo-seok.”

“Yes, bro.”

“Do you remember why we chose this story when we were making ?”

“I remember. At that time, my brother read and decided on an alien invasion. Originally, they were going to fight on Earth, but it was too hard to draw the background, so they gave up and changed it to the moon. The setting was that there was an alien base on the moon.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“My brother read War of the Worlds and went crazy over how interesting it was. It’s a typical story about a Martian invasion. It’s a novel that’s over 100 years old, but it seems incredibly new.”

“I didn’t know it was such an old novel. And I was really scared when I read it. Just think about the fact that there might be forces out there in space, unseen, targeting us.”

“Anyway, my brother is really serious in strange places. It’s just a novel written from imagination. At that time, I thought my brother was really scared. I thought, what if there’s a war in space? In a way, it’s thanks to that that we’re here. Well, I’m grateful.”

Hyunwoo Seok shrugged his shoulders and returned to his seat, saying he would draw more.

Park Geon-hyung recalled that time again.

While reading The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells in the school library, he came to think of space as a dark sea.

Just as we cannot know what is in the depths of the sea, we cannot know what is in the boundless universe.

Park Geon-hyeong did not think that Earth would be the only planet in this vast universe with life.

It is certainly a miracle that an environment was created on Earth that could support life. However, I believed that in this universe where countless stars are scattered and cannot be seen even if you fly at the speed of light, a miracle like Earth could not have happened more than once.

We don’t know, but far away, someone may be preparing for war without our knowledge. When I thought about it, space came to me with a greater fear than the ocean.

What if they are even hiding on the far side of the moon, which is closest to us but cannot be seen with the eye?

The idea that came from such fear was .

CEO Seo Nam-joon asked why I wanted to make this game as if he knew everything.

But Park Geon-hyung couldn’t bring himself to tell that story to the CEO. He felt embarrassed because it felt like all of his immature days were being exposed.

was Park Geon-hyung’s fear of the unknown world, and at the same time, the courage to face that fear head-on, and the last hope for humanity in the story.

Through , Park Geon-hyung transformed the vague and vague fear into something tangible.

He recalled the feelings at that time and thought about the three-act structure of the game that has now become .

From Earth to space, from space to the surface of the moon, and deep into alien bases.

As the game progresses, the gamer leaves the familiar world and enters deeper and deeper into the unknown.

The deeper you go into the world, the greater the fear, and the greater the courage required.

Even if I want to give up, I can’t. If I give up, humanity will be finished like this.

What’s even more frightening is that we don’t even know the aliens’ purpose. Whether they want to kill all of humanity, use us as experimental subjects, or enslave us, no one knows.

All we can do is resist, enter the heart of the enemy and destroy him.

has now established the foundation of action through strategic play using ‘various weapon systems.’ However, it was still unknown how to unfold that action with ’s own story and emotions.

‘What do I want to convey to people through this game? What do I want people to feel?’

Park Geon-hyeong first began to think about emotions while making games.

There are many games where you shoot and destroy with powerful and flashy weapons like bullets, guided missiles, laser beams, and napalm bombs. But that’s just the shell of the game. It’s a dress, a style.

It must contain the uniqueness of .

The vague but intense fear I had as a child, when I was afraid of the sea at night.

Entering a new world is a scary thing, but paradoxically, it is also exciting at the same time.

Park Geon-hyung pondered over how to make gamers feel more fearful as they progress through the stages.

By making the enemy stronger?

It was the most orthodox method, but it didn’t seem to be the right method because the main character’s body would become stronger as it equipped itself with weapons.

More than that, I wanted to make gamers feel the sense of hopelessness of how to overcome this. I wanted to make them struggle to find a way out of it. I wanted them to find a ray of hope in the midst of fear.

then···.

“Should I go the other way?”

What if, as you progress through the game, you become weaker?

When you first leave Earth and enter space, your ship will be fully loaded with fuel and weapons and will be at its most powerful. Here, you can equip new weapon systems and fight enemies at any time.

The universe of Act 1 of is one of confidence and hope. You can fight your enemies in any number of ways.

However, in Act 2, when you go to the far side of the moon, support is reduced. The ship detaches its heavy rear rocket, reducing its power and limiting the weapons it can receive.

When the protagonist descends to the lunar surface, he becomes weaker. It is not a transformation. The body that will fight on the moon is separated and descends separately. Just like Apollo 11 separated the lunar lander separately.

However, the protagonist finally manages to penetrate the enemy base with a drill. However, in the third act, even the last aircraft is destroyed, and the gamer is left to face the aliens wearing only a space battle suit.

You have to fight the final boss with the weakest human body!

Park Geon-hyeong frantically wrote the specific story line for Act 3.

My heart was pounding, but my mind was completely clear.

It was a challenge that completely broke the rules of shooting games, but I was confident that this was the right direction.

There was a mixture of fear of the new approach and confidence that I could create a unique and fun game.

An indescribable joy stirred within me.

It was an intense emotion I had never felt before in my life.