Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 156: Destiny Cube

Anyone who has experienced the baptism of the computer age, witnessed the development of the Internet age, and embraced the arrival of the mobile Internet age should know that the game "Northern Cube"...

That is God!

No need to say more! Those who understand will understand! Just blow it up and that's it!

As one of the greatest video games since its birth, "Northern Cube" is different from other popular video games. For example, "Snake" benefited from the era when Nokia dominated the world; "Space Invaders" combined the strengths of many schools of thought to gain extreme popularity; "Pac-Man" was the first application-based exploration of artificial intelligence in the field of science and technology, which not only opened the eyes of the public, but also made the academic community take it seriously; and "Northern Cube"...

It has neither benefited from the times nor

Because before it appeared, puzzle video games already existed.

It didn’t get the ultimate heat either—

The movie that can subvert an entire industry like "Star Wars" is called "Avatar".

It also does not have any topics that can make the academic community happy to talk about -

Well, actually there is, but the research effects it produced only happened many years after the game became popular. It was not like "Pac-Man", which attracted much attention as soon as it was released.

The point is, it also has a background that is not easy to publicize——

The nationality of the game's inventor and the place where the game was born have always been resisted by the West.

But even so, it still conquered the world with overwhelming force!
This kind of success is really harder to come by than any other games!
As for why it succeeds...

To be honest, Ethan actually didn't know.

In Ethan's memory, he should have seen the game "Northern Cube" in elementary school. His first reaction when he saw the game was to speak simple words with his young mouth -

"Dang! What kind of game is this?"

As many years had passed, he could no longer remember the people and events at that time, but he could still recall the feeling when he first saw the game. The blocks jumping on the screen seemed to have a different kind of magic that could firmly attract his attention. The control and elimination game method did not seem as refreshing as the fighting and killing method, but it always made him feel itchy.

When playing the game, he will be happy when he successfully eliminates an obstacle, will rack his brains when a gap appears, will be excited when he overcomes difficulties, and will be disappointed when the Game is Over.

Even though he has lived two lives, Ethan cannot explain the real charm of the game. However, the fact that it has been popular year after year has continuously proved one thing to the world -

"MFxxk!!! Ethan! - Is this a new game you came up with???"

When Ethan spent two hours to come up with the extremely simple game overview and game interface concept map of "Northern Cube", Evelyn, seeing the inspiration, almost threw the drawing in her hand!
The girl raised her head suddenly, her beautiful eyes widened like bells.

The astonished gaze was like a sharp blade, as if it wanted to dissect the boy in front of it.

Ethan, who was sitting in the reception chair in front of the desk, rubbed his hands with a smile, then crossed them and shook them, saying, "Yeah~ This is the new game I wanted~"

"So, am I a genius?" He blinked his eyes and asked cheerfully.

"Genius? Is this something a genius can come up with?" The girl shook the draft paper in her hand and said loudly: "Oh! Sxxt! Why do you have such inspiration?"

"Do not--"

“You can have such inspiration!”

"But how can you come up with such inspiration continuously?"

The girl was very confused at this moment!

She was very curious about what the guy's brain looked like!

Although in the past few years, she only doubted the source of his inspiration when she first made a game with Ethan. At that time, Ethan had just been fired by Milohua, so she was worried that "Snake" was Milohua's existing idea. After Milohua would rather use the patent nuclear bomb to blow up these mosquitoes than claim that "Snake" was their idea, the girl completely dispelled her doubts about plagiarism. However, this does not mean that she can endlessly accept Ethan's imagination...

In the past three years, she was really going crazy!

She sees Snake as the product of Ethan’s flash of inspiration;

She considered Pac-Man to be a variation of Snake and an extension of its gameplay, although she herself was not sure why a game like Snake could become Pac-Man.
She also had a clear idea of ​​the inspiration for Star Wars, because they watched the filming of Close Encounters of the Third Kind together, and the movie Star Wars actually existed.

But even so, when she saw the game labeled "Destiny Cube"...

She still found that she could no longer come up with a reasonable excuse for Ethan!

Now she feels that Ethan’s brain is a black hole!
Pick it up and shake it, maybe you can shake out countless gold!

When the girl stared at Ethan in surprise, almost holding a knife in her hand and wanting to dissect him, the boy shrugged his shoulders.

"No way, Evelyn."

“There are many things in this world that mortals cannot accomplish in their entire lives.”

"Among them is looking at God with equal eyes."

He pointed to himself.

Then he said, "Many times, I have to squat down and communicate with you at eye level, but doing so not only makes me feel physically tired, but also mentally tired."

"So at certain moments I would relax a little, stand up and look down for a while."

"Like right now."

He pointed to the draft of inspiration in Evelin's hand.

That snotty look made Evelin’s face darken.

After looking at Ethan for a moment, the girl suddenly raised the corners of her mouth and smiled sweetly.

She threw the manuscript on the table, folded her arms and leaned back.

"Then it's your show time."

"What?" Ethan didn't understand and frowned slightly with a puzzled look on his face.

Evelin raised her chin and tapped the table a few times, “Don’t you claim to be a god?”

“How to turn inspiration into reality is up to you.”

"In the past few years, if you didn't make games yourself, I would just assume you were too lazy to make games."

"Now that you've stopped pretending and revealed your true identity, then..."

"Just do it yourself."

"Oh, and you should design the home console yourself, too."

"I quit!"

As she said that, the girl smiled, stood up and walked out of the desk.

He bowed slightly and made a gesture of invitation.

Seeing that Ethan's mouth was twitching but he was still motionless, she walked up to him and took his arm.

I just wanted to take Ethan behind the desk.

"Hey hey hey——don't pull me, don't pull me——I'm just kidding——"

"Really? I don't believe it."

"No - why shouldn't you believe this? I'm obviously bragging -"

"I think you can."

"Oh Evelyn—oh my dear sister—I was wrong—don't push me—"

"Who pushed you? I am inviting you to take the position of chairman of the board in a friendly way! From now on, you are the chairman, CEO and president of the company, and I... quit~"

When Ethan sat in the seat that belonged to her after being half-pushed by the girl, the view blocked by the information drawings allowed Ethan to feel the girl's working perspective for the first time.

Turning his head, the girl was leaning on the table with her left hand on her waist and her right hand on the table, signaling him to hurry up, which made the boy laugh and cry.

"Okay, okay, I got this inspiration yesterday."

Ethan surrendered and said, "Didn't we go to see the farmland we own yesterday? When you told me that the land we own stretches from Los Gatos to Cupertino, a huge map popped up in my mind, a long map..."

"On that map, there are areas of different colors, white, red, and black."

"The white ones are our lands, the red ones are the government's public lands, and the black ones are other plots that can be traded..."

"At the time, I was thinking, how great would it be if I could buy all that land?"

"So, I had a dream last night. With our purchases, the land continued to spread and eventually filled the entire map."

"When I woke up, I was shocked by my great idea. I decided to make a map-filling game, but after thinking about it, I realized that just filling the map didn't make much sense, so I decided to change the way the game was played, and then..." "And so "Destiny Cube" appeared..."

Although Ethan had not thought about what kind of shock the game "Northern Cube" would bring to Evelyn before coming, he even thought that Evelyn should have accepted her Doraemon attributes long ago, so he didn't even find a source for his inspiration. But when Evelyn was eager to know how he designed this game, he was still able to make up a story in a short time.

Eh--

no way!
Who made him make a living by talking in his previous life? If he didn't please those investors, how could they be willing to open their pockets to him?
And his words made the girl's mouth twitch.

"Too fake." She gave her evaluation with a look of disgust.

"You might as well say it was God who told you this in a dream," said the girl.

"That means he told me in my dream!" Ethan knelt down quickly.

“……”Such shameless behavior almost choked the girl to death.

Staring at the serious guy who was talking nonsense, Evelyn gasped and shook her head, raised her hand and punched Ethan twice, then sat directly on the desk, picked up the idea and continued to read.

Although she was still a little breathless, Ethan knew that the girl was no longer entangled in the source of inspiration, and after Evelin looked through it carefully, solemnity continued to gather on that pretty face.

"What's wrong? Is there a problem?" Ethan's heart skipped a beat.

"Yes." The girl stopped joking and slid down from the table.

He spread the blueprint on the table, pointed at the seven blocks Ethan had drawn and asked, "Ethan, in your imagination, this game is an elimination game, right? There will be seven kinds of blocks appearing from top to bottom in the game interface, and the player needs to manipulate the blocks and place them in the appropriate position. When a row in the interface is filled, the filled row will be automatically eliminated, right?"

"Yes. What's wrong?" Ethan was puzzled.

The gameplay of "Northern Cube" is so simple.

It is easy to use and is popular among people of all ages.

This minimalism is actually the real reason why something can become popular so quickly.

When a game can transcend language, race, and even civilization barriers to bring the simplest joy to the world, it is bound to become a classic.

Of course, this kind of thing is easier said than done.

And as Ethan nodded, Evelyn also bent down and opened her desk drawer.

He took out a MOS 6502 chip and threw it on the table.

“The game can be done, but it can’t be sustained.”

"What do you mean?"

"It's very simple."

Evelyn, who had entered the working state, spoke very quickly. She pointed to the printed words on the MOS 6502 chip and said, "The chip we are using now can no longer support your inspiration. The MOS 6502 we are currently using is 1.79MHz. 1 megahertz is equivalent to 1000 kilohertz, which is equivalent to 1.79 to the sixth power of hertz. 179 megahertz means that it can complete million computing cycles per second."

"When I got it two years ago, I found that its performance could not compare with Intel and Motorola, but because it was cheap and the games we made at that time were relatively... simple? So I didn't care." When saying the word 'simple', the girl almost bit her tongue.

Because she knows that whether it's Pac-Man or Star Wars, it's not easy.

But this is not important. After quickly exposing this, she continued: "In fact, when developing Pac-Man and Star Wars, I already felt that 6502 was almost reaching its limit."

"If the 6502 didn't use microcode for sequencing, but instead used programmable logic devices to decode and sequence instructions, allowing the chip to have some overlap in fetching and execution, I dare say that this chip couldn't even make the game "Star Wars."

"Pac-Man is just a four-thread search, with four power balls at the corners at most. Star Wars uses spaceships to attack players continuously through dynamic searches. Now, you want me to do a random calculation on seven blocks... This... I think it will take at least 4MHz..."

"1.79MHz... You are making things difficult for the chip..."

Ethan understood what the girl meant.

After personally experiencing the GTX690 tactical core graphics card being eliminated by the leather jacket yellow overnight, he certainly understands how important computing power is in the gaming industry.

In other words, without electronic games, the computer industry would never have developed wildly, because the gaming industry has an endless demand for performance. Before the metaverse really arrives, or before Liu Cixin's digital life is truly realized, all industrial performance output will be quickly consumed by games.

Although society has always had a certain prejudice against people who "badly play games", if there are no gamers paying, Huang will not be able to wait for the day when he can slaughter the world with computing power. After all, Nvidia's money for artificial intelligence...

That's all contributed by gamers all over the world!

The results of it?
Are graphics cards getting more expensive?

Special code!
However, hardware issues are not a problem for Ethan.

There's no way around it, since he is now a hardware manufacturer of varying sizes.
Hehe ~
"Oh, is that so? Then I'll give Chuck Petrus a call."

Ethan said, "Let him customize a chip for us. That should be enough, right?"

Ethan thought that this problem could be solved with a touch of his mouth, but Evelin shook her head and said, "Customized chips can indeed solve the problem, but they will also breed more problems."

"The first question is, how do you want to release this game?"

"If it's still an arcade machine, then there's no problem with custom chips, because they can be designed individually. But if it's a home game console, then all my previous drawings were in vain."

"I designed the machine for 1.79 MHz, and now you suddenly change the machine standard to 4 MHz, then everything has to be redesigned."

"Then the second question is, although you have shares in Chuck Pete Chip Manufacturing Company and MOS has a good relationship with us, the increase in chip computing power will definitely increase costs. All settings for home game consoles will have to be redone, including pricing."

Evelyn leaned on the table with both hands and looked at Ethan.

A few strands of golden hair escaped from the rubber band and swayed in front of the two people.

‘Fuck! ’

Ethan cursed in his heart.

'How could I have forgotten this?'

His sister's reminder made him frown slightly.

Making a home console game is different from making an arcade game.

The former is a propositional essay with conditions.

The latter is a divergent novel that allows for unlimited imagination.

When machines have performance limitations, all games have to be made under limited conditions. Otherwise, there would be no concept of next-generation games in the world.

No one can break this threshold, unless——

The host manufacturers themselves have to upgrade.

Although Ethan can arbitrarily ask his sister to redesign the machine, and Evelyn will most likely just beat him up and let the matter go, the increase in cost will cause trouble for the pricing of the machine.

“Our current price is $199.99?”

Ethan asked, "One machine with two joysticks and two games?"

“I designed it according to this standard.”

Evelyn replied, "Two games, each costing thirty dollars, so the cost here is sixty dollars. I calculated the sales cost as thirty dollars, which leaves me with only $109.99. If we continue to use the 6502 at twelve dollars a piece, I can keep the cost down to around eighty dollars, which means that our profit for the first machine is fifteen percent."

"The profit margin is already very low, much lower than that of arcade machines."

"Although we can make it back by selling games later, but——"

"If we raise the price of chips, we may sell them at a loss."

“Unless they raise the price or reduce the number of games.”

This fact made Ethan purse his lips.

He thought for a while and said, "We can't raise the price."

“$199.99 is the limit.”

"We can't reduce the number of games any more. Even if our games are fun, people will feel they are losing out if we sell one game on a machine for $199.99."

"So?" Evelyn tilted her head and looked at Ethan.

At the same time, she also gave her own ideas.

"So should we still make this game in an arcade style?"

This suggestion made Ethan lean back, a little conflicted.

Note: ① The scientific community has studied "Northern Cube", but the formal research was in 1994, and its influence in the academic community is indeed not as great as "Pac-Man". ② Atari once used the oldest version of 6502 to make "Bee" and "Pac-Man", but "Northern Cube" was really not made. I found that the worst chip equipped with "Northern Cube" is Zilog Z80 used by ZX Spectrum, which is also an 8-bit chip, but its computing power is 3.5MHz. And I looked it up and found that the performance of "Northern Cube" on it is relatively poor. When Nintendo, the most stingy in the industry, launched "Northern Cube", the Game Boy was equipped with a 4.19MHz chip. This kind of almost real infinite type of game is different from the level-breaking type of game.

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(End of this chapter)