Chapter 21: Paying Homage and Worship

  What if the brand value drops due to poor word of mouth when releasing directly? But what about the R&D expenses spent on reworking it if we say to redo it?

  These two issues are essentially not something that a game designer should consider, but rather something that the boss of a game company needs to think about.

  But Jester still asked because he knew well that a game's quality is the responsibility of its designer, not the company's boss.

  A qualified game designer must take responsibility for his own work.

  Still speechless in front of everyone, Jester continued smiling and asked out the next question.

  "Let's change the direction of this discussion - why do we have to wait until a game is almost 90% complete before realizing it's just so-so, couldn't they have discovered that earlier while making it?"

  These words made the eyes of more than 30 designers from Huo Xing Entertainment light up, as if they had thought of something crucial but couldn't grasp it for a moment.

  "Perhaps..."

  Mark Sennett was indeed the originator of this theory and after hearing Jester's leading question, he also had some ideas of his own.

  However, this theory is the accumulation of his nearly twenty years of experience in game development, having gone through Sega, Universal Entertainment (Vivendi Games), and Sony's development teams, and countless games' R&D experiences. Now, he still has a long way to go compared to later generations.

  He opened his mouth and said only two words "perhaps" and then stopped.

  Like others, he seems to have already grasped the door frame in his heart, but to break through that thick layer of window paper, it still needs a long time of game development experience accumulation.

  This is why Mark Cerny's "Cerny Method" was sought after when it was first proposed, because his theory explained how to make a great game in a nearly methodological way.

  For those designers standing outside the gate, it pushed open the door that could lead them to success.

  Then Jester continued his speech, and everyone listened in silence, they were indeed attracted by Jester's theory.

  "We continue to deepen this issue, we think 'this idea is great' or 'this gameplay is absolutely beautiful' when designing, but after programming it, we find that it's actually 'so-so'. So I ask, how much do we need to finish the game before we realize our initial idea was wrong: this isn't a great thing, but a pile of crap."

  "What percentage of a game's content is actually its core elements? Taking my 'American Blocks' as an example, after removing all the unnecessary background graphics, electronic music and text that players may not even look at, what remains is just the core gameplay of eliminating randomly appearing blocks of seven different types. How much space does this game take up now?"

  As he spoke, Jester stretched out one hand, with only his thumb curled back.

  He raised his palm with four fingers exposed and shook it at everyone, then said out his answer: "Forty percent."

  Then Jester stated the three most important of Seni's four core theories.

  "A game, a designer must have a pre-product concept, this pre-product must be the first playable version that contains all the core gameplay of the game, I assume it's called Alpha version."

  "An alpha version, in addition to embodying the core of what you want to make for your final game, must be of a quality that is shippable, not just a collection of disparate game content - so I call it a releasable version."

  "Then, by understanding whether players are satisfied with this "first publicly releasable trial version", we can adjust and optimize our own development process."

  "That is to say, were we correct in our initial idea?"

  "As a game designer, the first thing to understand is that it's not about whether we think something is good or bad, but rather whether players want it - I asked you all earlier if you're making a game with a production mindset or a design mindset, which is actually a very interesting question. We produce products, so shouldn't we also make them with a product mindset?"

  Jester said with a serious face, he had experienced the great explosion of games in the later generations, and the audio-visual enjoyment far exceeded that of this pixelated era. At that time, games were called the ninth art, and making a game was not much simpler than making a movie. But now, maybe except for Jester, no one would have the idea that games are art.

  "One of my teachers at UCLA explained what art is like this."

  "He said, 'Art is a very subjective thing. What I think is art may be just a pile of crap to someone else. So this subjective thing may not have an exact and standardized definition. But I think what constitutes art is when someone puts something together to elicit a response from a certain group.' If that's the case, then aren't we also putting things together to elicit a response from a certain group when we make games?"

  Seeing someone nodding in agreement, Jester continued smiling and said.

  "Faced with the question in front of me, everyone can have a different mentality. I personally think that I am not just a game designer, but an artist. I am conveying my thoughts to the players who play my games and I want to get their response, their feedback."

  "So, games are art in my mind."

  "But the essence of a game is that it's a commodity, it needs to be sold, and it's completely different from art pieces that are just for appreciation. It doesn't need to stand out or be self-indulgent; it needs to be popularized, universalized, and accepted by ordinary people - so I think we should use the mindset of designing an art piece to create a product."

  "But our essence is to be artists who infuse our thoughts into our works, rather than just designers."

  "A game without a designer's idea will absolutely not be successful."

  Jester's impassioned speech was met with a sudden burst of thunderous applause, as everyone in the room clapped their hands with all their might. Jester's words were enough to rouse them from their stupor.

  Then, Jest seemed to be not quite satisfied, he raised both hands, pressed down a bit, and continued laughing: "Next, let's have a real brainstorming session. I have a game type here, you just launch your brain as a game designer, help me perfect this game. It must be special, unique, so that people take one look, or even just know about such gameplay, and generate such an idea - I want to play this game!"

  Looking at the eager faces below, Jester smiled mischievously and announced his topic: "Let's do one you've all played before - Richard Garriott's 'Ultima'. I think you should all know it. My topic is RPGs; come help me perfect this type of game."

  RPG, role-playing game, is one of the most popular types of games with a wide audience, but it's extremely difficult to do well.

  "I think we can make the plot more touching!" someone said.

  "I think we can design a powerful treasure that players will stop at nothing to get!" someone said.

  "I think we can establish a growth system that allows players to feel like the heroes they control are constantly growing."

  All sorts of opinions filled Jester's ears, and he just smiled without making any comments. Then, when everyone had almost finished speaking, he opened his mouth and said: "Okay, I'll change the game to give you an example, and then you can think about how to make an RPG have new gameplay ideas. For example, what is the core gameplay of my 'American Blocks'?"

  "Eliminate!" someone replied immediately.

  "It's the sense of accomplishment from leveling up!" Some people replied like this.

  "There's also the sense of superiority from beating others!"

  "That's the Easter egg!" As soon as this was said, someone immediately retorted, "Even without that Easter egg, Tetris is still fun!"

  "It's not just about elimination, but it's also not just about elimination." Mark Senni suddenly spoke up, "To be precise, this game is essentially a puzzle game. Players enjoy the process of considering how to eliminate, which is not too difficult but has endless variations. Every time a block falls, they need to think constantly - what should I do? As for points and Easter eggs, those are just add-ons, just like Jester said earlier. They're not the core gameplay of this game, but rather some fragmented content."

  Jester applauded, and he wasn't surprised. Mark Cerny was this kind of designer who could grasp the core of a game.

  "I'll continue to redesign a few games with this core gameplay of 'not particularly difficult but infinitely variable consideration process for elimination'. For example, there's this one game......" Jest's face showed a thoughtful expression, he had played many elimination games in the future, and just mentioning a few would be enough to make these designers now worship him.

  "The rules of this game were set by me like this."

  "Suppose there is a 10x10 square, inside which each grid has a gemstone. These gemstones have many types and colors, possibly seven or eight kinds, but we won't discuss this for now."

  "It can be known that they do not have three identical adjacent ones, whether horizontally or vertically. What the player needs to do is to swap any two adjacent gems, either horizontally or vertically, to achieve three identical gems connected --- and as long as this condition is formed, these three gems will be eliminated, and their vacant positions will be filled by the gems above them in sequence. New gems will also fall down from the top to fill the vacancies, and when these gems fall, if they can form a new trio, they will still be eliminated..."

  "I set the mode to three types, one is the normal mode. In this mode, players can continuously eliminate gems in the square until they cannot be eliminated - of course, eliminating gems will score points, and the more eliminated at once, the higher the score."

  "The second is the time mode, when the player is eliminating, a countdown bar will appear. At first, this countdown bar is very slow, and players can get rewarded time to supplement the countdown by successfully eliminating. However, as time goes on, the countdown will become faster and faster, and players need to eliminate as many gems as possible before the countdown ends to get more points!"

  "The third is competitive mode, which is no different from time mode, but two people play the time mode game separately, whoever finishes the game first loses the match."

  As Jester simply mentioned the idea of this POPCAP company's 2000 design, Bejeweled, many designers in front of him lit up, they all heard the incredible playability hidden in this simple game like Tetris!

  Even two thousand years later, Bejeweled was a huge hit after its release, selling 25 million copies across various platforms and being inducted into the IGN Hall of Fame for video games just two years later. Only two match-three puzzle games have been inducted, Bejeweled and Tetris.

  This is enough to show how great this game is, especially in 1984, a desert for electronic games.

  The impact Jest brought to them is indescribable.

  And their gaze towards Jester also became different, originally there were still people who thought he could make "American Blocks" just by luck and inspiration, but now from Jester's performance, it was not that simple.

  Otherwise, how could he casually come up with such a mind-blowing game idea like drinking water and eating? And it's so similar to the elimination style of Tetris, but completely different from Tetris in terms of gameplay.

  Then Jester, in order to deepen his shocking and tall image and status among these designers, continuously brought out the design ideas of two equally excellent elimination games, "Zuma" and "Puzzle Bobble", which made these young designers directly worship him.

  Each of their faces showed an expression of frenzy, they looked at Jester's eyes as if they had seen the god of game design, he seemed to not need to think, just a moment's thought and he could come up with a game idea that they couldn't have thought of no matter what.

  And these ideas sound so much fun!

  Even Mark Senna was speechless, staring at Jester, then he let out a deep sigh, feeling inferior.

  But Jester's face didn't show any triumphant expression, instead it was still that faint smile, he continued to talk about the question just now.

  "Now, you use another angle, just like I analyzed the core gameplay of 'Merricube' earlier, to design a completely different RPG game that can make people's eyes light up and can't help but play."

  Then, as soon as Jester finished his sentence, everyone fell into deep thought.

  Just now, Jester was talking about the process and thinking of designing games based on "American Blocks", which had a huge impact on them. It's as if they came to a big door, and as long as they pushed open this door, they could enter a completely different field.

  They seemed to have seen the future.