Chapter Fifty-two: Super Barlotelli

  In Jester's office, he sat face-to-face with Cao Kairui.

  The previous painting paper is on the table.

  Jester's face was filled with a smile as he asked curiously: "How did you come up with such an image?"

  It's clear that Cao Kairui is a bit nervous, although he's several years older than Jester, but he still speaks tensely: "Just as boss said, this image should make people feel close at first sight, so I thought, what kind of role can make people feel close at first sight?"

  As he spoke, Cao Kairui was no longer so tense and his speech accelerated a lot. "Then, after some deliberation, I finally thought of a role that is very suitable."

  Jester clapped his hands involuntarily and a look of realization appeared on his face, smiling as he asked: "Is that the police?"

  "Yes." Cao Kairui nodded.

  "What about this bearded image?" Jester picked up the drawing paper again, on which was the image designed by Cao Kairui, also the one that Jester was going to use to replace Mario's image.

  He also has two big mustaches like Mario.

  "Because of that distinctive feature you mentioned, the kind that makes people remember at a glance." Cao Kairui spoke confidently about his strengths, "Nowadays when we make games, the graphics we can handle are actually quite rough. It's very difficult to perfectly portray a character's specific features because even if we do it well, players can only see some blurry pixelated mosaics. So I thought, I must give him a very obvious external feature on his appearance, and a big beard is the simplest and most attention-grabbing kind of external feature."

  "Alright, then why design a police officer who doesn't wear a police uniform?" Jest continued to ask with a smile.

  "I thought so, the image of a police officer may make people feel at ease and close, but it's not necessarily going to eliminate a sense of intimidation. So I made this character no longer wear a uniform, but instead dressed him in the attire of a cowboy sheriff from the Wild West era, with a badge on his hat to signify his identity. This way, he gives off a friendly vibe without creating distance or fear due to the police uniform. Moreover, I also dramatized his facial features, such as giving him an Italian-style big nose, so that when people see him for the first time, they'll feel like laughing rather than being scared." Cao Kairui said with a smile.

  "Very good." Jester held the setting picture of Cao Kairui's character, giving him a feeling of looking at Mario. He had not mentioned the image of Super Mario to his opponent before, but this image still has a few similarities with Mario in design, although it is also certain that Jester designed it using Shigeru Miyamoto's thinking when creating Mario, so some similarities are not surprising.

  Geniuses always have some similarities.

  This image, with its comically large nose and thick mustache, wearing a cowboy outfit and sheriff's hat, was also officially recognized by Jester as his Super Mario character design.

  "Have you given a name to this role?" Jester asked with some curiosity.

  This time Cao Kairui shook his head.

  After a moment's thought, Jester chuckled and said: "Let's just call him Mario. It's simple and easy to understand, the name is also smooth and memorable. I think the image you designed for him looks like an Italian descendant, so his full name should be Mario Balotelli."

  " Mario Balotelli..." Cao Kairui muttered the name softly a few times, then nodded and smiled, saying "Not a bad name."

  After seeing off Cao Kairui, Jie still held the character setting diagram he had just named Mario Balotelli and took a closer look at it several times. Suddenly, an uncontrollable surge of creative impulse burst forth in his heart, and he couldn't wait to start designing this game immediately.

  He came to the table, took out a stack of manuscript paper, and started designing the first level again.

  Although Jie Shi is not as good as the Street Fighter Queen, Arimura Haruna, who can play through the first level of Super Mario with her eyes closed, he has written code for this game several times before, so he is also very familiar with the entire process of Super Mario.

  But anyway, when Jester first saw the video of Hanae Natsuki blind-clearing Ultra Mario's first level, he was also shocked to the point of almost peeing his pants. He didn't think there were such strong players in this world. Of course, Jester also coveted her collection, which is said to be worth around 10 million yen, rivaling even James' legendary game collection.

  Incidentally, her PSN ID is annoharuna. In Street Fighter 4 online matches, she has a record of 178 wins and 36 losses, with a win rate of 86.13%. Even Mei-Hua Da-Wu, a legendary figure in fighting games who may have no equal before or after him, has praised her skills. She is also the owner of the world's highest score on the PS3 version of Spelunky.

  Jester had previously drawn the entire process of Super Mario World's first level on manuscript paper, so this time it was also a piece of cake, only changing the character image to Cao Kairui's newly designed Western Sheriff image.

  For Jester, the first stage of Super Mario is actually quite interesting, with many scenes, bright colors and a strong sense of rhythm.

  And it's also relatively simple, with fewer interactive elements, monster types, and hidden elements compared to later levels.

  However, Jester didn't plan to completely copy Super Mario, he wanted to add some elements that he thought might be more fun based on his own understanding and experience with similar games, such as more hidden elements.

  One of the greatest joys of playing Super Mario is finding hidden elements. When he was a kid, there were no search engines and no game guides to be found. Jest still remembers the first time he played Super Mario, when he accidentally pressed the jump button, his character jumped up, and in a place that was originally blank, a brick block appeared, and on top of this brick block, a mushroom that could be eaten to grow bigger appeared. The feeling was indescribable for Jest, it was as if all the pores on his body were breathing, it was incredible, just like... sorry, I really can't think of words to describe my emotions at that time.

  To put it bluntly, I was shocked beyond words.

  And that's also the reason why Jester kept playing Super Mario over and over again, just to find out all the hidden bricks in this game - it can be imagined how huge an undertaking this was in an era without any strategy guides.

  Of course, this grand goal inevitably failed.

  So Jester made his own unique additions referencing some of the classic remix versions from later generations of Super Mario.

  In short, it's more hidden elements and more hidden pitfalls.

  For example, in the first version of Mario, there was no setting for poisonous mushrooms. Jester added it, he wanted players to know that not all mushrooms are good things.

  For example, the settings of red coins, blue coins, and large gold coins that are only available in later Super Mario versions, rather than just having ordinary gold coins. The role of gold coins is no longer just collecting one hundred to gain a life, but also adds more functions to other special gold coins.

  For example, gold coins are used as tolls in some places, and red coins can be exchanged for special items such as fire flowers.

  However, Jester thought it over and decided not to add the transformation gear setting that would later become a classic, because he felt that the gameplay he had added was already much richer and more fun than the original Super Mario settings, and there was no need to add the transformation setting, it's better to leave it for the next version, leaving more surprises for players.

  Jester also knows a rule of the game: too many ways to play is not good for a game.

  Jester has some malicious intentions and inevitably uses some of the vicious settings from "Mario" - some things that look like honey are actually not honey, but traps that put you in a desperate situation.

  These traps will also make players die very embarrassingly.

  Of course, Jestr also controlled the difficulty of the game. In his eyes, the original Super Mario's difficulty was a bit low and lacked sufficient challenge. However, he couldn't make this game as difficult as "Super Catrio". He just referenced some cleverly designed traps in "Super Catrio" and added them to Super Mario.

  In short, it's a bit more difficult than the original Super Mario, but if you want to get high scores, it can't be as easy as the original.

  But Jest had some malicious thoughts, if he released his modified Super Mario and triggered a sales craze, after everyone was captivated by the charm of Super Mario, he would release another extremely difficult version based on "Mario", I wonder what kind of feeling those players would have when they died repeatedly in the ubiquitous death traps of "Mario"?

  Will they persist in clearing the level with perseverance? Or will they smash the controller to pieces after repeatedly dying in frustration?

  Jester didn't know, but he was happy to think about it, even if he couldn't figure it out, he could still actually go and do it.

  Just thinking about letting players of this generation play "Mario" gets Jest excited for some reason, what a wonderful scene that would be.

  The first draft was done very quickly under Jester's passion, with over 20 different scene sketches and thousands of words of description, almost all in one go.

  Jester, who had just finished the first level, casually threw away his brush and shook his wrist, which was starting to cramp. He hadn't felt it while he was painting, but now that he'd finished, it was starting to hurt a bit.

  With a flick of his wrist, Jester browsed through the setting draft of the first level he had drawn from head to toe, and suddenly found that he hadn't even given it a name.

  As soon as he thought of this, Jester couldn't help but burst out laughing. He picked up the paintbrush that had been lying beside him and was about to write "Super Mario".

  But then he thought of the first level, which had been modified by himself and was no longer similar to the original Chao Ma, and a hesitant expression appeared on his face. Jester furrowed his brow and began to think.

  It was just one or two minutes later that Jester finally made his own decision.

  He picked up a brush and wrote the name of this game on the first level's starting picture.

  A name that is currently incomprehensible and may never be understood by anyone else, only he himself will understand, extremely ridiculous.

  Super Ballotelli