1988 Retro Game Tycoon - Chapter 85



Only Noblemtl

Episode 85 – Motorcycle

After was released, game pocket sales began to increase noticeably.

Summer vacation was already starting and game pocket sales were on the rise, but the movie just added momentum.

The topic of movies also came up in regular meetings for the development of the A1 board.

“I heard that there are quite a few people who stop by after watching the movie to buy game pockets for their kids. There are also a lot of people at work who say they cried after watching the movie.”

At Myeongseong Electronics, it is said that it is a recent trend for each team to go to the movies after work to see the company’s products appear in them.

“It’s so common that people don’t drink much at company dinners or movie nights because they’re all talking about their children’s education. But since games are intertwined with education, everyone’s perspective seems to change. Some people are glad that their children have games, while others say that studying comes first during school.”

“This is a story with no right answer. Besides, Korea is a country that ranks second in the world in terms of educational fervor.”

Even in my past life, my parents really hated me playing games. My father was really angry at me, saying, “Games are ruining your life.”

Although there were differences in degree, most families considered games to be the enemy of studying. We said we relieved stress by playing games, but the parents who saw that only felt more stressed.

The value of studying has always been infinitely overestimated, and the value of gaming as a culture has always been infinitely underestimated.

criticized the reality of Korean education that is only focused on college entrance exams, and, although a little early, raised a new topic about the value of games.

When I requested the PPL, I gave the director some advice about the scene where the game pocket appears, but I didn’t know that the director would put this much thought into it and include it in the movie.

“Does Starbeat develop educational programs? For example, if there were educational games, it would be good because parents would be able to let their children play games without worry.”

“Well, there’s nothing that can’t be made, but there’s no good core yet. If it’s an educational game, it has to be structured so that the player can learn some content naturally while playing the game, but that’s usually not easy.”

“I guess so.”

“Honestly, if you look at the educational software that is being installed on computers in large companies now, it’s all about transferring the contents of textbooks or reference books to the computer screen and solving problems and getting the answers right. There’s no added value other than using a computer, so it’s embarrassing to call it educational software.”

Riding the wave of information education, many companies, including large corporations, are rushing to release computers, but compared to these, the software to be used on the computers is very poor.

“Actually, there were a few companies that offered to provide the content and asked me to create educational software for large companies, but I turned them all down. The content wasn’t all that different.”

The proposed ‘educational game’ was a simple platform game format where you had to solve problems at each stage to move on. There was no case where learning was naturally incorporated into the game play.

This way, when you play a game and a problem comes up, it’s not a challenge, it’s just stress. It’s not a game, and it’s not learning.

“I don’t know about later, but right now we’re not ready. We have a lot of things to deal with in the game we’re developing right now, and we don’t have time to look elsewhere.”

If we release some really good educational software or games at this time, we can capture the hearts of parents and improve the perception of games.

But unfortunately, our company doesn’t have the capacity to prepare for that yet. Someday, when our game console comes out, we would like to create a studio specializing in educational games.

After the movie was released, the number of fan letters coming into the company increased significantly compared to before, including letters written by parents.

After watching the movie, I play games with my kids these days. When they tried our company’s games, they said that they had fun playing them and now they understand why kids like them so much. Many of them asked me to continue making good games.

Of course, there was a somewhat absurd request in the letter, such as, “Can you make a game that automatically turns off after just one hour?”, but the content was understandable.

Among the letters sent to my parents, one in particular stood out.

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Hello. I am a mother raising a middle school son. My son has been asking me to buy him a game console for a long time. However, I kept telling him that it is not good for studying. My son grumbled but followed my advice well.

But after entering middle school, my child and I started to have a lot of big fights. It was because of the game pocket. It wasn’t that expensive, and it was popular to play one-on-one games with friends, but he kept getting angry because he couldn’t join in. I kept refusing to buy him a game console, saying, “Why do you need a game console when you can just play with your friends, like kicking a ball around?”

Then, my son gradually came home and didn’t talk to me much. I thought it was puberty, but I was even more upset when I thought it was just because of the game console. I also tried not to talk to my son unless it was absolutely necessary.

At a time when I was feeling suffocated, the movie was a hot topic among moms, so I thought let’s go see it together, and I watched the movie with my neighbors, Minju and Heechul. There, I saw the game pocket and at first I got angry. Because of that, my good son and I broke up.

But as I watched the movie, I realized why my son wanted to have a game pocket so badly. When I was a kid, I had never even seen a game console. So I didn’t really know what a game was, and I just thought of it as something that got in the way of my studies.

But after watching the movie, I realized that games are like dramas for our mothers. If you can’t watch popular dramas, you have to just laugh and watch when moms are talking to each other. Sometimes, even though you haven’t seen it, you just say “yeah, yeah” and laugh along. Because you can’t be the only one left out.

Honestly, I still didn’t really like it, but I bought a game pocket for my son and gave it to him. At first, he was watching me, but when I told him that I bought it for him, he was surprised and happy. I was surprised too. I’ve never seen my son like it so much.

I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw him put a name tag on the game pocket so that he wouldn’t lose it right after he got it. He goes to school a lot during the vacation, and I see him playing games with his school friends. He was bragging about who he beat today, and I really hope he won. But since he’s smart, his grades will go up soon, right?

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One of the reasons why games were not properly recognized in this era was because video games were so unfamiliar to the older generation. Everyone tends to avoid things that are unfamiliar and incomprehensible.

In the 80s and 90s, the video game industry grew explosively thanks to the power of children and young people, and games also developed thanks to them. The reason games were accepted as a part of culture was also because the children who grew up playing games at that time were older.

In an effort to break down these limitations as much as possible, we chose baseball, a subject that all generations can enjoy, but there are still many more people who have not properly accessed the game and therefore do not understand it.

I am also working hard in various ways, but I think that more diverse activities will be needed in the future to properly promote games in Korea.

For that reason, the success of the A1 board and the next game, , is important.

All the games released so far, from and to Game Pocket, have been successful, but this success is only in Korea, which is a small part of the well.

To really succeed, we need to succeed in the US and Japan. is a game that will be a stepping stone for us to go overseas.

Our company’s development team was entirely focused on developing .

The characters of Kim Do-kwon, New York, and Hong Gong-woo have been established, and now the concepts, visuals, and attack patterns of the enemies have also taken shape.

Since we felt that the characters and action had been sufficiently established, we moved on to developing actual game stages, moving beyond Stage Zero.

Stage 1, which starts in a shabby bar, is a stage where mostly thugs appear and helps gamers get used to the game. You learn basic attack patterns by fighting thugs who fight by throwing bottles and Japanese policemen with bats, and then you fight a yakuza mid-level executive in front of a theater.

Stage 1 was a warm-up, and the real fun starts with Stage 2. Inspired by the fact that the Umi Theater was a major setting in the movie , Stage 2 is a fight in a theater.

The background description and production have also been greatly upgraded in Stage 2. Enemies break through the glass at the ticket booth and rush out, Judo experts appear in the theater hallway, and fully patterned enemies appear.

“I wish you were a bit more prepared when the enemy tries to grab you. Right now, you’re fighting and suddenly getting grabbed, so you can’t prepare. Make it so they know you’re there, like by sticking out your arms or bending down.”

If you are caught by a Judo master, you will be thrown straight up. Since you cannot avoid the technique once it is used, you must give advance notice before the pattern is used.

I refined the game by going over the action direction one by one along with the stage design.

As you go up to the second floor of the theater, a beautiful backdrop of red curtains on the screen unfolds, and Takahashi, a former judo player who is now a yakuza, appears as the boss of Stage 2.

As the boss fight begins, the theater catches fire, and when Takahashi is in danger, his subordinates appear and throw burning chairs at him.

“This alone is not enough. How about making flames rise from the ground here and there? When you touch the flames, your health will decrease. Before the flames rise from the ground, show a red shadow on the ground to let you know in advance that flames will rise from that spot.”

“Then I guess I should get out of that place in advance.”

“Yes, but of course we will continue to disrupt them so they cannot avoid it. We will throw burning chairs and use our homing skills to tackle them and push them into the fire zone.”

“Are you trying to annoy me on purpose?”

“That’s right. That’s how games become much more fun when you appropriately distribute the frustration and pleasure. Even though it’s so obvious, if you get hit, you won’t think that the game was designed that way and end up blaming yourself. People get twice as angry when they get hit knowingly.”

“Well, you’ll probably think you got scammed with your eyes wide open.”

“The area and timing of the fire need to be constantly adjusted. You want to make it as difficult as possible, but you don’t want to make it feel like, ‘I can never beat this.’ The key is to always make it feel like, ‘I could have done it if I had just done a little more!’”

“Then I’ll put in another 100 won.”

“Yes. It should be difficult, but it should never be frustrating. When you die, you should feel like it was a waste.”

As games become more advanced and more veterans emerge, the game difficulty level also increases. However, it is still the early days of the game market. It is a situation where the door must be opened to attract as many gamers as possible.

In fact, the difficulty of shooting games or fighting games in arcades often increases so much that beginners can’t even imagine playing them.

Arcade games, once an important part of the gaming market, began to decline rapidly in the 21st century. This may have been due to the rapid growth of PC and console games, but the difficulty of adjusting difficulty may also have played a role.

After going through Stage 1, which is more of a tutorial-like stage, you move on to Stage 2, which features full-scale action and spectacular production, and the game unfolds in various environments, including underground tunnels and walls.

At this level, it seemed to be comparable to masterpieces like and . However, I felt something was missing. I wanted to go one step further.

I think this is enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the masterpieces of belt-scrolling action, but it would be nice if there were some more eye-catching scenes or productions…

My thirst was quenched in an unexpected place. A single word from Art Team member Ko Seong-beom was the clue.

“But, doesn’t New York appear in the game on a bike? It would be cool if he did at least once, wearing a leather jacket and his hair blowing in the wind.”

“A bike?”

At that moment, a vivid image appeared in my head as sparks flew.

It was a car chase between Japanese army trucks, with New York on a motorcycle.

Mounts often appear in belt-scrolling action games. In games like , , and , the game becomes much easier when you mount a horse.

But usually, when you mount something, you get stronger, but you don’t get faster. Even when I mounted a horse, I couldn’t really feel the speed.

What if we added a car chase action with a motorcycle that gives a sense of speed to ?

It seemed like it would be possible to create a unique stage that was clearly distinct from other belt-scrolling action games. If so, it would also be possible to create a scene where you could enjoy two genres in one game.

If it’s done clumsily, it might be a worse attempt than not doing it at all, but if it’s done well, it will bring out the uniqueness of .

“Let’s make it. A motorcycle car chasing action stage!”

With new inspiration, the development of also gained momentum.

The hardware part of the development was also going smoothly, and the A1 board was now nearing the final stage.

However, another problem slowly reared its head.

“Sir, no matter what we do, it seems like it will be difficult to lower the price below 3 million won.”

As two 16-bit CPUs were used and the game capacity of continued to increase, it became difficult to lower the cost of producing arcade boards.

No matter how fun the game is, if the board is too expensive, it is not easy to bring it into an arcade unless you have a certain amount of capital.

If that happens, no matter how much they prioritize overseas exports, it will be difficult to see it in Korean arcades, and if it is ported to console later, it could have a negative impact on sales.

“It’s okay. If we can’t lower our prices any more to maintain quality, we’ll find another way.”

“Is there any other way besides lowering the price?”

“No. We have to come up with a method from a completely different perspective. There is a capital company in the Myungsung Group, right?”

“Are you talking about Myeongseong Capital?”

This time, it seems like we’ll need to borrow some financial power from Myeongseong Group.