Chapter 57: Trial Play Meeting (Seeking Recommendation Tickets!!)

  When Jester received the message from Tamaki Kijuro, it was already the 27th. He had just checked into a hotel in Chicago and was preparing for tomorrow's trial game.

  The call was from California. Tamotsu Yoshida called the headquarters and couldn't find Jester, then the California headquarters asked for details and informed Jester again.

  "In less than two and a half days, all 100,000 units of the GP handheld console were sold out! Sega is now fully operational in manufacturing the GP handheld console, with the possibility of shipping over 500,000 units within a month!"

  When he heard the news, Jester couldn't help but clench his fist and swing his arm with force. This was the best news for him, and the sales of GP handheld consoles could also greatly alleviate his financial pressure, at least not having to use funds from headquarters for Sega's OEM fees.

  To know that the three games had a total of 45,000 arcade machine manufacturing costs is not a small amount of money.

  He set the message aside for now, poured himself a glass of water and sat down on the couch to flip through a revised plan for his "Super Balotelli" that a newly joined game planner had written before he left California. The plan was very detailed, with many things in it that Jester had overlooked beforehand.

  In this revised plan, the newly arrived planner first pointed out a major shortcoming of this game - it is not Americanized enough and too cartoonish.

  The plan also explains the reason why Americans prefer a harder style.

  Saevar Dabbler, a young designer, said in this opinion that if the image is designed as a western sheriff, why not move the whole story to the west instead of an unknown virtual world?

  Jester's move is exactly the original plot of Chao Ma, to be honest, this plot is unattractive, but Jester subconsciously feels that Chao Ma does not rely on stories to win, but its pioneering gameplay, and really playing it, who cares what the whole story is about.

  However, this revised proposal clearly states that Jester's idea is incorrect and irresponsible. Moreover, the newly joined designer even used Jester's often-quoted phrase "we want to make the best game" to subtly criticize such a design as being irresponsible towards players.

  Then, this young designer wrote out a story outline for his design.

  In fact, this designer's story is not much better than Jest's previous Superman plot, the same hero saves the beauty.

  But he changed the clichéd plot of rescuing a princess from an evil dragon into a story about a police captain, who is also a father, going to rescue his daughter who was kidnapped by bandits to be their bride.

  But this change makes the whole story's plot conform to logic and become more vivid.

  It is also easier for players to produce a sense of substitution.

  It's worth noting that this kind of western cowboy story with a bit of fatherly warmth is more popular in the US than those overused stories about brave warriors, evil dragons and princesses.

  Juster was extremely satisfied with this point.

  Then, the young designer made what he considered more westernized modifications to many of Jester's settings.

  For example, the entire game background has become a western style, and when using the soundtrack, you also need to use western-style music to match.

  The water pipes inside were replaced with mines that can be seen everywhere in the West, which is also consistent with people's impression of the West as a gold rush land. The castle that often appears at the end of the pass was replaced with a tavern with a strong Western style, and the tavern hides bandits that can be seen everywhere in the chaotic West.

  Mushroom people were replaced with outlaws, the turtle was replaced with a scorpion commonly found in western deserts, and the man-eating flower was replaced with a rattlesnake.

  The rewards of various mushrooms also seem somewhat out of place in such a worldview.

  The enlarged mushroom was changed to a pickaxe, with the same effect, which can be used to remove bricks, but the enlargement effect was cancelled.

  The firepower flower was changed to a revolver, and the initial Sheriff Barlow didn't have a gun. After getting the revolver, it can be used for shooting. After all, how can a western-style game lack a revolver? It's worth noting that revolvers are almost a symbol of the west.

  The super star is too figurative and not specific enough, it can be changed to strong liquor. After Sheriff Barrotelli drinks the strong liquor, he will enter a drunken state, which is the same as eating the super star.

  The life-giving mushroom was changed to a secret medicine of the Voodoo religion, and even added the monster setting of the Voodoo witch doctor.

  Moreover, the young designer also pointed out that the BOSS designed by Jest is too monotonous with the scene, and this aspect can also be set more delicately, for example, different BOSS battles can be used to reflect the different progress of Inspector Balotelli in saving his daughter.

  For example, the first level is in a mine where a black-hearted mine owner is hiding. After getting intelligence from him, he went to an Indian tribe living here. These Indian tribes have been bought by those big thieves and became their running dogs and accomplices. So monsters like Indian warriors can also be added. After obtaining intelligence from the Indian tribe, Sheriff Balthazar came to Voodoo...

  And even for trolling purposes, a hidden level about Area 51 Martians can be added.

  Jester watched silently, his face revealing a somewhat surprised expression, this revision almost elevated the original shanzhai super horse he designed to a whole new level.

  He can even imagine the frenzy this game will cause after its release.

  In this revised script, the designer also added a 2P character that Jester forgot to set up last time, a young policeman named Paul Martini, who is Inspector Balotelli's partner.

  There are over a hundred suggestions like the above in this document, with tens of thousands of words, all of which are based on the previous setting draft of "Super Balotelli" by Jester and further modified to be more westernized.

  Jester looked very carefully, very seriously, and read the manuscript twice before closing it. Then he saw the name of this designer written at the beginning of the manuscript.

  Severus Damboldor

  This is a Jester that nobody has ever heard of, but in the future world of gamers with tens of millions of people, it's also impossible for him to have heard of every single one.

  But just from the other party's modification of their own settings, it can be seen that this is a very talented designer.

  Moreover, Jester also had some epiphany. In his previous design, he also walked into a blind spot, always thinking that the classic of Super Mario was inviolable and he shouldn't make too many changes. But after reading this modification opinion, Jester found out it wasn't like that at all.

  Super Mario may have limited room for change in terms of gameplay framework, but there are still many ways to improve it.

  For example, a young designer named Sefton Hill took the western-style Sheriff of Bladestone as the core and designed a game that had nothing to do with the original Superman.

  Of course, apart from the way of playing.

  At this time, Jester couldn't help but feel a little curious about the young designer named Sefer Dabberwott. He had already decided to get in touch with him after he returned, and if his abilities were good enough, then Mars Entertainment's third core R&D team should be officially established.

  After all, there are too many people in "Qing Dao Fu" now, which makes it impossible for so many people to participate in the core R&D of the game, but only do some DEBUG work afterwards. Firstly, this is a waste of personnel, and secondly, their level will not be able to improve quickly if they continue like this.

  Time is still of the essence for Jester, after all, he will be going up against a monster that has united half of Japan's gaming industry.

  Moreover, Jester thought that handing over this completely transformed super mare to a young man named Seifer Dabworth might not be a bad idea.

  Then Jester stared at the revised plan for a moment, crossed out the opening words "Super Balotelli", and wrote in a new name - the game's new title.

  Inspector Balotelli

  In fact, this is another mistake that Jester made at the beginning of the design, because Chao Ma's influence on him was too great, even his name was not an exception. Even if he had modified the character setting at that time, he still added the prefix "Super" involuntarily.

  The reason why Super Mario has the prefix "Super" is because Nintendo had previously released a game called "Mario Bros.", so they added the word "Super" to the front.

  This name represents Super Mario Bros., the sequel to Mario Bros. Later, due to the convenience of Chinese people calling it, the "Bros." was dropped, and since Luigi's presence is really too low, it is simply called Super Mario.

  In fact, Super Mario is a sequel rather than an original work. The gameplay of Super Mario has changed so much that not many people would consider it to be the same game as "Mario Bros."

  But the problem is that the image of Balotelli just appeared for the first time, and he used a name called "Super Balotelli", which is quite inconsistent.

  Moreover, Jester felt that the modifications made by this designer named Sefer Dabrowort were very good. After such a modification, the entire game not only became a linear RPG but also was no longer like the original Super Mario where you repeatedly build castles without any new ideas. Such a modification greatly enhanced the sense of immersion.

  This has resulted in the biggest change, this game is like "Dawn", telling a complete story under a complete worldview.

  In the surrounding development, there needs to be selective diversity, whether it's comics, animations, or even TV series and movies, all of which can be operated on. Relying on the game's inevitably strong popularity, basically none will lose money.

  The most important thing is that it can further increase the influence of the image of Balotelli.

  The more excited Jester looked at the time, it was already after midnight, although he still had many thoughts about Inspector Balotelli, but thinking that tomorrow is the first trial play for Mars Entertainment, which is absolutely crucial, Jester also somewhat reluctantly closed the revised manuscript in his hand.

  Although he didn't feel sleepy, Jester still stretched and lay down on the bed, closing his eyes to conserve energy for tomorrow's trial.

  The second day.

  Dressed in casual attire, Jester arrived very early at his rented Chicago Convention Center.

  The interior decoration started three days ago and was completed yesterday afternoon.

  A total of 300 units of three new game arcade machines were lined up in a row, and Jester also had the original point design team bring out the trial version of "Snowman Brothers" at the last minute, with a total of 25 levels, containing most of the gameplay of "Snowman Brothers".

  However, due to the late release of the trial version and lack of time to produce a large quantity of arcade machines, Jester once again used his old method from when he was promoting "American Blocks", hand-crafting two units which were also brought to this trial event.

  These two "Snowman Brothers" were also his trump cards.

  It's only 7 o'clock in the morning, and the scheduled opening time is 8 o'clock sharp. Although it's still over an hour away, many players from all over the country have already gathered outside, including men and women of all ages, from young children to adults in their thirties and forties, as well as a number of media outlets.

  These players held up signs supporting Mars Entertainment and continuously chanted slogans of support, waiting for the trial play conference to open amidst the clamor.

  Mark Cerny did not follow Jester to Chicago, the development schedule of "Avengers" was very tight, and the original point from the establishment of the company to now has almost completed the research and development of the fourth product, which makes 'THE-KING' team that Mark Cerny selected from all designers at the beginning feel a little unfulfilled.

  Although these people also knew that the R&D difficulty of this game they were making was far more than the four big ones designed by the original team.

  If R&D is successful, it will cause a much bigger sensation.

  But they still had some reluctance, so under the motivation of this emotion, the development progress of "Avengers" was very fast, and the production of the first level was almost nearing its end.

  While Carri was renting warehouses in several states on the West Coast to build logistics centers and didn't have time for this trial, Margaret Whittum was also looking for a flagship store location. Only Adam Edgar, who had just finished acquiring Sid Meier's company MicroProse, had time, so he represented Stormfront Studios and followed Jester to Chicago for this trial.

  Jester also got a good news from Adam Edgar, Sid Meier agreed to the proposal put forward by Adam Edgar that you join Mars Entertainment and then Mars Entertainment acquires your company at a price of $100,000.

  This fledgling company, MicroProse, had only released a handful of titles, none of which were particularly successful and probably weren't worth $100,000. But Sid Meier was priceless in the eyes of Gilman.

  This $100,000 is worth spending in Jester's eyes.

  And in Sid Meier's memory, MicroProse made a name for itself in the game industry with simulation flight games. Before creating the groundbreaking "Pirates" and "Civilization", MicroProse was always making flight games and had built up quite a reputation with several good ones.

  Just then Dawn was about to start development after Snow Bros., so Jester also had the idea of letting Sid Meier join the original design team to participate in the development.

  As the opening time approached, Jester was checking each machine with Adam Edgar and some other staff members to prevent any malfunctions after the trial began, while chatting casually.

  Adam Edgar was even more impressed by Jester's vision, having met Seth Meryl in person and had several in-depth conversations with him, only to discover that the designer in his thirties who Jester insisted on recruiting under his command was a genius.