Chapter 63: Development Team 1 and Another New Game

However, once several elements were added while making the sequel, the game suddenly became a huge hit.

“This game isn’t something you enjoy alone like Tetris.”

The key was a versus system.

By using the existing chain reaction mechanic, players could attack their opponents.

And because chain ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reactions were literally chains, the strength of the attacks could be increased progressively.

“And it won’t simply be two game windows side by side to see who clears everything first. We’re going to make it so players can actively attack ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the opponent.”

Most of the employees looked unable to imagine how someone could attack an opponent in a game like Tetris. However, a few of them seemed to have some idea, proving that their experience was not meaningless. Even among those without experience, there seemed to be a few with vivid imaginations.

“This chain reaction is the attack method. The more chains you stack, the more points build up above the opponent’s box. If the opponent doesn’t immediately counter with their own chain to cancel it out, they’ll receive a penalty equal to those points.”

“What kind of penalty?”

Since the team leader had already broken the ice and the conversation had gone on for a while, the tension seemed to have eased, and a question came out immediately. This time, it was a young female gnome who appeared to be part of the graphics team.

“Hmm.”

Ras knew what the penalty in Puyo Puyo was, but he briefly wondered if there might be something more innovative. However, even after all the thinking he had already done, there was little chance some miraculous answer would suddenly appear now.

“Blocks that don’t react with the falling blocks will pile up. In other words, ‘non-reactive blocks.’”

“If they’re non-reactive, does that mean they can’t be destroyed at all?”

“No. If that were the case, players would keep doing small single attacks instead of building chain attacks. That wouldn’t be fun. Instead, I’m thinking of making it so that if you destroy the blocks around the non-reactive blocks, they explode together.”

Then he looked around at the other employees, wondering if anyone had a better idea, but instead of raising their hands, they merely nodded. It was slightly disappointing.

“The single-player mode will also proceed through battles against the computer. Creating the AI and balancing the difficulty won’t be easy, but please do your best.”

The final topic was the design.

Ras’s mind leaned toward making colorful slimes burst apart like in his memories. However, he also wanted to make it differently. So he had prepared another idea as well. Ras wrote both options on the chalkboard.

“There are two design concepts, and we’ll decide through a vote.”

What Ras prepared was replacing the slimes with the faces of the various races that existed in this world. Including every race would be difficult, so he chose the five major races: humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, and lizardmen. The gray slime dropped through attacks would instead be replaced by a dragon.

Dragons had certainly existed in history, but they rarely revealed themselves and possessed overwhelming power and presence. Because of that, their image was often used in symbolic ways, such as representing something important yet distinct from the other races.

“Four to thirteen. Then we’ll proceed with this option.”

And unexpectedly, Ras’s idea was chosen. Ras had hesitated a little about using faces because they would explode, but apparently, the people here did not care much about that aspect.

The reason Ras’s idea had been selected was because slimes were simply too minor compared to the Five Great Races. On Earth, it might have worked differently, but in this world, when there was already the easy-to-understand and impactful concept of the Five Great Races, there was no reason to choose a monster like a slime, which also had a poor image.

“Then I’ll be counting on you.”

After explaining the plan and giving them a two-month deadline for a prototype, Ras immediately left the development room. He knew he would worry about it, but if he kept hovering beside them and interfering, there would have been no point in creating a new development team in the first place.

“Has everyone thought of something?”

Returning to Development Team 1 and gathering the members in the conference room, Ras looked around at them and asked.

He already had something in mind himself. However, because of what he had said earlier, he also wanted to accept the creativity of the people here and create something a little different.

“Now that a new ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠computer model has come out, I think it might be good to make a new Land of Adventure game.”

It was the opinion of Garazt, a fan of Land of Adventure.

It was not particularly creative, but it made sense. With the current graphics, they could create a game with visuals far more impressive than before.

Ras recalled role-playing games released in the 1990s. Things like Dragon Quest, The Legend of Heroes, Final Fantasy, Astonishia Story, and The War of Genesis.

Just imagining making a game like that made his heart race a little.

Of course, the graphics would fall somewhat short of late-1990s levels, but they could probably create a similar feeling. Games around the level of early Dragon Quest titles or The Legend of Heroes 1 should be possible.

“Let’s keep it as a candidate for now.”

Ras wrote “Land of Adventure 3” on the chalkboard.

“Anyone else?”

“Me.”

This time, Pana raised her hand. Without saying anything, Ras gestured politely for her to continue.

“How about a game centered around romance?”

“Hmm.”

This was also something that had come up once before. Of course, now that graphics had improved, they could create illustrations capable of attracting people’s attention to some extent. But if someone asked Ras for his honest opinion, he was negative about it.

The romance games he knew were the Japanese kind.

In other words, eroge.

Ras did not care if people enjoyed them, but he personally did not want to make them. It was blunt, but that was honestly how he felt.

Besides that, if he had to make excuses, there was also the issue that creating attractive female characters would not be easy in a world with many races. Of course, they could simply make characters for each race, but then the workload would become too high.

Making games was still a profession and a job, so efficiency could not be completely ignored.

However, after hearing the rest of Pana’s explanation, it turned out to be somewhat different from the romance games Ras had imagined.

“So instead of things like combat in a role-playing game, the game would progress mainly through events.”

The results would continue changing depending on the player’s choices, with various events and illustrations visualizing them.

Rather than focusing primarily on characters like Japanese games, it would focus more on the story.

In other words, she was proposing something more like an adventure game.

It did not sound like a bad idea at all. In fact, people interested in romance novels or comics would probably enjoy it greatly.

Of course, for those who were not interested in such things, it would fail to attract them entirely, making the user base extremely limited. But Ras still saw potential and wrote her idea on the chalkboard as well.

“How about an action game?”

It was Aspa’s opinion, since he had greatly enjoyed Fighters’ Club, which they had made previously.

“You mean something like Fighters’ Club?”

“Yes... but instead of only one-on-one fights, there would be many enemies, and the player character would use flashy techniques to wipe them all out. I think that could be fun too.”

“Ah...”

Anyone who had played versus action games could imagine something like that. And similar games had actually existed on Earth.

Command inputs increased action variety and immersion. And although this was more from the arcade operators’ perspective, they also raised difficulty and caused mistakes, leading players to spend more coins. That was why they were often introduced into action games.

“That sounds good. Let’s write this one down too.”

Even if it was not selected this time, Ras intended to record every idea anyway, so he could always make the good ones later.

Several more ideas came out after that, but none were especially impressive.

Ras spent some time thinking about which one to choose.

To be honest, the other games did not attract him much, but making a role-playing game with new graphics was extremely appealing. Because of that, he wavered back and forth between that and the idea he had already prepared beforehand. After much thought, Ras finally made his decision.

“This time, we’ll make a side-scrolling action game. However, I’m planning to take it in a somewhat different direction from what Mr. Aspa proposed.”

What Ras had in mind was Super Mario.

Actually, he had once given up on it after seeing a somewhat similar game before.

However, the quality of that game had been disappointing, and the graphics had lagged far behind. But now that systems capable of producing graphics around the level of the Famicom had appeared, his greed resurfaced belatedly.

Still, he did not intend to recreate it exactly.

It was such a masterpiece that he felt some burden about adding or removing things, but Ras still intended to give it his own color. His circumstances were different now compared to when he had first made Tetris.

First, he intended to preserve its important strengths.

And in Ras’s opinion, the most important strength of Super Mario was, of course, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠jumping.

Most of the actions revolved around jumping: leaping over terrain, avoiding enemies, hitting and breaking bricks or question blocks, and more.

Another important factor was inertia.

Instead of stopping instantly when the movement key was released, the character continued moving due to inertia. This made it harder to determine the exact jumping point, added difficulty, gave realism to long jumps, and even allowed players to slide into low gaps. It played a huge role.

Finally, there were various gimmicks.

There were things like traveling through pipes or gaining bonus lives through items from question blocks, but also transformations where the character grew larger and stronger, became invincible, or gained ranged attacks.

The transformations in particular relieved the subtle frustration that came from solving everything through jumping alone, and did so all at once through unexpectedness and exhilaration.

For starters, Ras decided to change the character.

Mario was already a good character that did not create resistance, but Ras wanted something more impactful.

“Ms. Pana.”

“Yes.”

After Ras fully explained the concept for the new game and then called her name, Pana realized this was about the design and grew tense. After all, the most important thing at the beginning was the design that established the game’s entire concept.

“Do you know what a robot is?”

Of course, this world also had the concept of robots. And in some science fiction novels, they were used fairly actively, but compared to Earth, they were nowhere near as mainstream. Ras found that disappointing.

“You mean machines that look and move like people?”

“Yes.”

Perhaps because Pana worked in creative fields, she at least knew what they were.

“The protagonist of this game will be a robot.”

“Ah, I see...”

Naturally, since she barely knew what robots were, there was no way she could immediately picture what kind of game would feature one as the protagonist.

“Anyway, I want it to feel both cute and cool. Please work out the concept. The character won’t be very large, so make sure it feels unmistakably like a robot even at a small size.”

Pana looked half on the verge of tears, but as a graphic designer who had already created many works, she nodded instead of complaining aloud.

“And this character will transform into various forms. It’ll grow larger, fly through the sky, run at high speed, and fire cannons or lasers. Ah! Do you know what lasers are?”

“Yes. I think I saw them once in an animated film.”

“That’s fortunate. Anyway, since it’ll transform into various forms, keep that in mind.”

This was a gimmick similar to how Super Mario transformed after eating mushrooms. Growing larger would allow the character to destroy certain obstacles. Firing cannons would resemble Mario somewhat, but with different presentation, while the other transformations would further differentiate it from Mario.

The running form would let the robot burst into flames and smash through enemies or weak obstacles at high speed. Naturally, it would not be able to continue forever. Ras intended for it to last only a very short time before ending with something like the robot’s parts exploding.