1988 Retro Game Tycoon - Chapter 120



Only Noblemtl

Episode 120 – Modern Fighters

After releasing in Korea and Japan simultaneously and completing a workshop in Japan, we returned to our daily lives.

This game release was different than the previous ones.

In Korea, Jewoo Electronics took it all in a bundle, and in Japan, Sega took care of publishing, so we didn’t have to do anything ourselves.

Even though an unprecedented and exciting event of simultaneous releases in Korea and Japan is taking place, we are just quietly watching.

then?

Is there any need to worry? I don’t know the outcome, but I should enjoy it for now. I don’t know when I’ll get another chance like this.

So I decided on the Japan workshop, and we all left for Japan.

The Japan workshop was a bit of an impulsive decision, and it was a struggle for those who prepared for it, but in the end, I’m glad I went.

Until then, our company office was incredibly cool and hip for an 80s office, but it was full of game development-related materials.

The numerous partitions and hallway walls were covered with materials related to projects in development and fan letters.

But after I came back from Japan, some ‘personal things’ started to appear in the office.

People display their favorite character figures on their desks, and the partitions are covered with photos of the workshop.

Japanese street scenes, game centers, on the shelves of Akihabara game shops, and our faces laughing and joking with each other.

We got to see Japan’s advanced gaming culture, broaden our horizons, and create our own great memories.

Each of these experiences adds up to a sense of unity within the company, and at the same time, it becomes cultural capital for game developers.

Game developers are creators, and to creators, capital does not necessarily mean only money.

Intangible experiences, one’s own sense, aesthetic sense accumulated through appreciating numerous works of art, a unique perspective on the world, a high level of intuition and abstraction ability that directly approaches the essence, analytical ability and logical ability to grasp problems.

Even personal wounds and pain. Everything becomes cultural capital.

The cultural capital I have accumulated cannot be converted into money. It is an internal element, so no one can steal it.

If I view my body as a machine, my cultural capital is part of the unhackable source code, the source and foundation of my creativity.

Inside a developer, there must be a source code that only he can interpret. Only then can he preserve even the smallest part of his uniqueness.

Next, you need to be able to unravel the source code and communicate with others, and you need to have the tenacity and execution ability to complete the game to the end.

It takes from a few years to several decades to go through all these processes to become a good developer. Once you reach the level, it’s not over. You have to constantly learn and adapt to the times. Otherwise, you’ll end up an outdated developer.

Unfortunately, there are many developers who work their entire lives but never develop these skills. They never develop their own perspectives and methodologies.

Even if a person like this is lucky enough to become a PD or director, it is nearly impossible for them to create a good game.

Games are art, and high-level developers eventually become artists without even realizing it.

Just as pottery making is a skill, when it reaches its peak it becomes an art.

If you are an employee of our company, even if you are not in the development department, you must understand the intricate code of game development.

That way, we can work together to move forward when we encounter more difficult projects that await us next.

Now that we’ve had fun, it’s time to get back to work.

This time, two projects are in progress simultaneously: Dark Moon and a fighting game.

The CES we’ll be attending is early next year. There’s only a little over a month left.

We plan to go to CES with two games that we can demonstrate to some extent, if not complete demo versions.

I first looked at , which had a somewhat established concept.

The core of the gameplay is that the character becomes weaker as the game progresses.

“Have you seen this before? Japanese shooting games are so hard these days. They look cool and flashy, but bullets keep pouring down from all directions, so you don’t even have time to enjoy them.”

“It wasn’t easy to even last a few minutes. It was so frustrating to die so soon after starting. I lost all desire to do it.”

“If we dig into this part, we will actually create opportunities for ourselves.”

is a relatively easy entry point since there aren’t many belt-scrolling games yet, but it’s not a shooting game. Shooting games are already full-blown, and it’s a bloody red ocean itself.

In the early stages of a genre, you can be successful just by following the genre’s grammar. However, when jumping into the red ocean, you need to have a solid differentiation.

Flashy graphics and production alone aren’t enough. Others are already flashy enough.

“So, for now, we plan to make Stage 1 as dynamic and spectacular as possible. That also fits the game concept.”

“Is this the fuselage design?”

Captain Park handed me a piece of paper and a floppy disk at the same time.

“Woo-seok and Seong-beom are doing the design, and they are freely drawing separately for now. Since we have a lot of data this time, we plan to dig deeper.”

Captain Park and Team B came from Japan to buy a lot of books on mechanics, animations, and plastic models for reference purposes. They bought so much that upon entering the country, customs officers suspected them of being smugglers and they had to explain for a long time.

I’ve looked at several designs. I’m still exploring various directions without any particular order.

There were completely humanoid robots, some that looked more like battleships than spaceships, and even some very avant-garde machines that looked like sloppy liquids…

This spectrum is too broad.

“I think we’re spreading things out too broadly right now. I think we need to definitely eliminate things that we don’t like and gradually narrow down the direction.”

“Which one do you think looks better, sir?”

“I’m not sure about the disc-type one, and the one that changes into a liquid. The disc-type one is too common, and the second one has a good concept, but it’s not cool enough to be the main character’s machine. Let’s redesign this one and reuse it as an enemy. I think that would be better than making it all new.”

“I think it would be better to remake it as an enemy. I also thought it would be a waste to choose this, but it would be a waste to waste the idea.”

“I think the middle or the latter half would be more appropriate than the beginning.”

I took out a few of the blueprints with Captain Park, and then we talked about the game design for each stage, the weapon system, etc.

Now that the concept and story are clear, the important things are the aircraft, stage, and battle design. These are impossible to fix all at once, so I think we’ll have to keep refining them until right before CES.

However, I wasn’t too worried about because the game’s core was firmly in place.

The problem is the fighting game.

It’s time to establish the game worldview.

I started by going through everything Captain Ko and Team A had worked on so far.

“Because this is a game where you fight one-on-one with people, not computers, we focused on creating characters and action movements that are most suitable for this. For now, we have Kim Do-kwon and Su-ji as the basic characters, so we are working on making characters from other countries more distinctive. Now, I will show you the characters I have created so far.”

Even at first glance, the number of characters created is considerable.

I waited with great anticipation for Captain Ko’s explanation.

“First of all, the first one is the Yeti, the snowman of the Himalayas.”

“Huh? You’re a snowman?”

It’s a bit confusing from the start.

Well, Seol-in is a person, after all.

“Yes, it is a legendary creature, but I created it because I thought it would be a unique and strong character if I added the setting of a human-shaped creature with white fur and the ability to freeze enemies by spewing cold air when fighting.”

Captain Ko spoke seriously with bright eyes.

“Hmm, shall we take a look?”

The Daejeon action game was also created from a test stage like . Two characters were summoned on the left and right sides of the stage.

Yeti on the left, Kim Do-kwon on the right.

Captain Ko grabbed the stick and started fighting by moving the Yeti.

The Yeti was more gorilla-like in build than human, covered entirely in white fur, and looked somewhere between comical and scary.

“Because I’m a snowman, I don’t have any special martial arts and it’s more like a melee fight, but instead I can use various cold attacks. Like this! Like this!”

Yeti’s attacks include spitting out cold air from its mouth, slamming the ground with both fists to shoot cold air into the ground, turning its fists into ice to increase its attack power, and, uniquely, summoning a block of ice on the enemy’s head.

At first, I thought it was too absurd because of the setting of the character being a snowman, but when I actually saw him fight, at least his character seemed clear.

But, it’s a magic to summon an ice block. If you want to use this type of magic, you must also create an evasion technique…

First of all, I tried not to overcomplicate things and erase as much of the image of fighting games I knew from my mind as possible.

The only fighting game that developer Team A has ever played is made by Capcom in 1987.

Aside from the game format, it was a blank canvas.

If I were to interfere from the beginning, there would be a high risk of blocking the development team’s imagination in advance. That’s why I’ve deliberately avoided interfering until now.

“Yetira. First of all, the character is clear. If I were to write it, it would need a lot of improvement. So what’s next?”

“Yes, next is China. This is Shaolin Temple…”

Well, is it a martial arts story this time? The concept is vague, but this one has a clear lineage.

“I am the chef.”

“yes?”

“I used to watch a movie called ‘Shaolin Chef’ and really enjoyed it, so I based the character on that. He uses kitchen utensils as weapons, but unlike the Yeti, Wang Wei uses fire!”

Captain Ko passionately demonstrated the character while the red-nosed chef swung a huge wok.

Ahh… I feel like it’s getting drier.

“What’s next?”

“Next, we go to Europe. There are hussars, which are old European cavalry, and they are said to have fought with wings on their backs. I thought it would be really cool to use this wing design.”

“But, if you’re a cavalryman, shouldn’t you fight on horseback?”

“Yes, but the setting is that he is also good at swordsmanship and martial arts.”

He was a snowman, then a chef, and now a soldier again.

Captain Ko’s explanation continued.

Japanese samurai, African native warriors, lost Incan warriors, Germanic barbarians, Roman gladiators, Native American chieftains, Tai Chi masters, Greek wrestlers, descendants of Spartans, British bomber pilots, German marine divers, and even vampires, as well as Lu Bu from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Lu Zhishen from Water Margin, and Tripitaka from Journey to the West…

The Yeti was shocking, but this is just too much of a mishmash.

This happened because I brought things here and there that I thought would be visually impactful. As a result, the action was also unmanageable.

Some characters are completely bare-handed while others use tools, some use science and technology while others use sorcery, etc. The actions are all so different that it never feels like one game.

It’s good to have a variety of feelings, but at least a minimal concept should be felt there.

The team was like that too, and this side was just spreading out their thoughts but not being able to properly handle them.

I ended up stopping the character demonstration midway.

“Captain, you know the saying, ‘Even beads need to be strung to be considered a treasure, right?’”

“Yes, of course I know.”

“I think that’s exactly the situation right now. I’ve created a bunch of different characters, but there’s no thread that connects them all. They’re all separate, so I don’t think it’s meaningful to comment on each character individually.”

“ah···.”

“Each character has its own strengths and weaknesses. It doesn’t have to be like this, but there are ways to make them different. But for now, I think it’s best to start by organizing the lineup with a consistent concept and theme. Let’s start by creating a theme that can be created by combining several of these characters.”

I thought the discussion would just go round and round if we left it that way, so I decided to start by coming up with a game concept.

We first created character cards with a notepad, then created several themes on the whiteboard, chose characters that fit those themes, and looked at the composition.

Fantasy character theme in creative works.

Martial arts school theme.

European theme.

The theme of a lost civilization.

Military theme.

Shaman theme.

Yeti theme···.

No matter how much I turned it, I couldn’t find the right angle.

Some lack the right characters, and some lack charm.

Even after several hours of meetings, no clear answer was reached. As the meetings dragged on, everyone became increasingly exhausted.

I folded my arms and started reviewing everything I had come up with so far from the beginning. As I was reviewing them one by one, a strange thought suddenly occurred to me.

No matter what theme we come up with, the characters we thought of as most basic, Kim Do-kwon and Su-ji, end up floating in the air.

Was it wrong to include both of them in the first place?

Should I have started completely over from scratch?

I thought back to the very beginning of this game.

“But this game, from the beginning, you decided to include Kim Do-kwon and Su-ji, right?”

“Yes, I continued to compose it by adding characters from other countries based on that…”

“Then how about we start over from the beginning, focusing on those two? First, let’s align the timeline. So, to the early 1900s?”

“Not the character itself, but the timeline?”

“Yes, Gyeongseong in the 1930s was under Japanese rule, but it was a time when modern boys and girls who received a modern education were born due to the influx of Western civilization. So it was a dark time, but at the same time, it was a time when a new culture sprouted and a unique individuality could be felt. In Europe, there was a time until the 1910s called the Belle Époque, the golden age of culture and science. The focus is on the unique atmosphere of that time.”

I was organizing my thoughts while talking. Sometimes, it is much better to let your thoughts flow while talking than to just sit there thinking.

“Don’t pinpoint the 30s, but set the time frame a bit wider, to the late 19th century and early 20th century. That’s the era when the Victorian era ended and the Belle Époque began. Colonies suffered from exploitation, but countries that succeeded in industrialization actually prospered on that basis, their economy flourished, science developed, and their culture flourished.”

“An era of light made of blood and violence, but at the same time an era of darkness filled with contradictions. An era where light and darkness, science and barbarism, adventure and violence are mixed. With that era as the background, we select unique characters and create a fighting action game.”

As soon as the thought came to me, I started spewing out words without stopping. My words couldn’t keep up with my thoughts.

“The starting point of modern civilization, where modern boys and modern girls became popular in Gyeongseong. Modern Times, where modern civilization was born. In that era, people from various continents and countries appear, each with their own mission and destiny, and go out to fight. That’s why they are the .”

I hastily erased everything on the whiteboard and wrote the six letters ‘Modern Fighters’.

We immediately thought of a character that would fit this. As soon as the spark of thought flew, the ideas started to come together in an instant.

Characters like pilots and divers would have been a good fit, and there would have been adventurers and grave robbers as well. The gentlemen and ladies of the Paris Exposition would have been indispensable, and conversely, there would have been people like Kim Do-kwon and Su-ji who decided to fight rather than live in hiding in colonial society.

As it is a fighting game, it is not fun if it is too realistic.

Since it’s an age of science, I added some steampunk elements, and on the other hand, I added some fantasy elements like magic that have been forgotten in civilized society, so there were a lot of elements that I could bring to life in the characters I’d worked on so far.

A fascinating era that created today’s world, where light and darkness, science and barbarism were in sharp contrast and coexistence.

The showdown of the century, featuring the inevitable battle between fighters who surpassed human limits in that era.

Now I finally feel like I have something tangible.

“I’ve come back to the beginning again after going around and around. It’s refreshing and thrilling, but also makes me feel empty, wondering what I’ve done so far. It’s a strange feeling.”

Captain Ko said with a deep sigh.

“Not at all. It was because of all those processes that we were able to establish this worldview. This game had its own seeds from the beginning. We just discovered it a little late.”

“Thank goodness it’s not too late.”

I was tired during the meeting, but once my worries were resolved, my thoughts exploded and I wasn’t tired at all.

It was already midnight when the meeting ended, but I still had a feeling that I had had a great day.

This is the real fun of making games.

Of course, resting is good, but without this kind of pleasure, I don’t feel like I’m living.

Following , has now established its worldview and even a title.

Captain Ko’s A-Team is .

Captain Park’s B-Team is .

And Captain Jeong’s 8-bit team is working on transplanting the Oh Seong-geum Boy from .

The development team, which had been working somewhat mixed up until then, is now starting to focus on their own projects.

***

As the excitement surrounding the game’s launch and the Japanese workshop began to die down, a phone call came into the office.

“Hello. Is this the Starbucks office?”

A woman asked in English, but it was Japanese English that was clear to anyone who heard it.

“Yes, that’s right. What’s going on?”

“Oh, you speak Japanese. Excuse me. My name is Misato Yamashita, a reporter for the game magazine . We would like to cover the story. Could you connect me with the public relations team?”

Us at ? That’s a magazine specializing in arcade games.

We just released one Mega Drive game, and directly requested an interview.

It seems like we’re finally starting to get a response from Japan too.

1988 Retro Game Tycoon Episode 121