Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 238 Super Pac-Man!!!

In Ethan's memory, there was indeed a game called "Super Pac-Man" in his previous life.

It was a legitimate sequel to Pac-Man published by Namco, but was outsold by Ms. Pac-Man and was a short-lived success.

As for the reason, it is actually that the designer has run out of ideas.

In the original "Pac-Man" and in the pirated "Ms. Pac-Man", the goal of the yellow Pac-Man is very clear. He needs to eat all the beans on the map while avoiding ghosts. Those beans scattered on the map are actually the path-finding guides in major online games in later generations. It can give people a very clear sense of route, allowing players to know how to move forward.

But Super Pac-Man is different.

Compared with the previous game, this game cancels the setting of small beans and adds some secret doors. Players do not need to eat beans, but need to eat keys scattered on the map, because only in this way can the secret doors in the maze be opened. Inside the secret doors are the clearance rewards from the previous game.

High-value fruit.

Players can only enter the next level after eating all the fruits. During this process, there is a super prop on the map. When Pac-Man eats the super beans, his body will expand to be larger than the aisle of the map. If I have to describe it, it is like Deadpool breaking the third wall and communicating with the readers. In this state, Pac-Man will become invincible. He is like a dump truck, and whoever he hits will die.

On the surface, the setting of "Super Pac-Man" is quite interesting, but in reality, after playing a few rounds, you will find it very boring.

After losing the route guidance of Little Bean, "Super Pac-Man" has actually lost the feeling of adventure and puzzle solving. The high score rewards of the previous game have become the current map garbage, which will also make players who love the previous game very disappointed. More importantly, the size enlargement function of Super Bean will make players feel a sense of separation. When Pac-Man can become bigger than the map, the pursuit of the little ghost is actually meaningless, because it can no longer bring a sense of oppression to the player. Even if they are killed, the player will not feel happy.

So, before, when Ethan found out that the R&D staff in the company added the dancing shoes prop to Ms. Pac-Man, and set it up so that both the ghost and Ms. Pac-Man could pick it up but with different feedback, the dual setting of Debuff and Buff coexisting really made him very happy.

Because this dual setting will give players multiple options when playing the game. They can try to control monsters with Debuff, or they can do something with the gains brought by Buff.

If they succeed, players will feel happy, and if they fail, they will be upset.

When a prop can arouse the player's emotions and make the player feel satisfied that he is the smartest and the best in the world, then this prop must be perfect.

After all, what video games sell to players is a sense of satisfaction that is difficult to obtain in real life.

So, when the lesson of the past is right in front of him, the "Super Pac-Man" that Ethan wants to make will not be the Namco version of Super Pac-Man, but the Master Ma version of the level-breaking game.

And since we want to make Pac-Man into a big universe, then...

Ethan thought about it again and again, turned the paper, and wrote on the second page -

"Mr. Pac-Man was once a human. One day, he got a magical apple and fell into a coma after taking a bite. When he woke up again, he found himself in a mysterious maze and lost his human form, becoming a round and cute character."

"After some exploration, Mr. Pac-Man discovered that if he wanted to leave the maze, he had to collect all the mysterious beans scattered in the maze. So from that day on, he continued to fight for freedom, and in the process, he needed to avoid the strange ghosts wandering in the maze."

"Perhaps it was God's blessing, or perhaps it was Mr. Pac-Man's strong will. After some efforts, he finally left the strange maze. When the first ray of sunlight after escaping from the dead shone on his face, he was surprised to find that he did not return to his original state, nor did he return to his original world. Instead, he came to a place called the Apple Kingdom."

"There are countless apple trees here, and the apples on each tree have different abilities. Some apples can make people bigger, some can make people smaller, some can make people full of energy, and some are harmful to people. Among them, there are some more magical apples. When people eat them, they can throw fireballs, fly into the sky, jump very high, and run super fast."

"It's just that each person can only have one superpower, and every time people eat a new apple, their previous superpower disappears."

"This situation aroused Mr. Pac-Man's curiosity. After he carefully tasted an apple, he was surprised to find that the apples in the Apple Kingdom tasted almost exactly the same as the apple that turned him into a yellow man! This fact surprised him very much, because he thought that as long as he ate another apple that was the same as the previous one, he might be able to return to his original world, so he embarked on a new journey."

"However, Mr. Pac-Man didn't know that when he appeared in the Apple Kingdom, he was stared at by a pair of cold eyes, because in addition to apples, the Apple Kingdom also has a ruler——"

"Snake Tyrant, Jack!"

When Ethan finished reading the manuscript in his hand with great emotion, Evelyn, who was leaning on the sofa watching TV ten minutes ago, burst into tears of laughter, "Oh - Ethan - are you trying to make me laugh to death?"

"Are you planning to enter the literary world and write a novel? Or are you planning to compete with Walt Disney and write a children's novel?"

The girl laughed so hard that her body shook, and the facial features on her pretty face were squeezed together.

"What? Mr. Pac-Man was once a human? What? The apples in the Apple Kingdom have all kinds of super powers? What? The ruler of the Apple Kingdom is the snake king Jack?"

"Why is the background of your game the same as a collection of fairy tales?"

"Oh yeah! And apples!"

"Ethan~ Are you having a problem with Apple? It's fine that you invested in a company called Apple in real life, but you also use a lot of Apple in the game?"

"If those two Steves knew that Snake King Jack likes to eat apples and Mr. Pac-Man's biggest dream is to eat all the apples, they would definitely be speechless! Goose, goose, goose, goose—"

Evelin couldn't hold it back any longer and burst into laughter.

He relaxed and rolled over on the sofa, patting the armrests.

Ethan's face darkened at this situation, and he asked in a harsh tone: "Oh - Evelyn - isn't what I wrote good? I spent a lot of brain cells to connect these two different games, "Pac-Man" and "Snake", together!"

"And apples are the best bond!"

"In the first Snake arcade game we made, all Jack wanted to eat was apples!"

The stiff tone made Evelin put away her unbridled smile, but the smile on her face and the redness on her cheeks caused by her excitement could not be hidden in a short time.

The girl lay on the sofa and stared at Ethan. Seeing that he showed no sign of easing up, she pursed her lips and said, "Oh - Ethan - I just think what you wrote is so funny~"

"I didn't say your writing was bad. You wrote very well!"

Ethan ignored her.

He continued to look at Evelin with puffy cheeks.

The balloon-like appearance made Evelin want to continue laughing, but she knew that if she continued laughing, Ethan would probably be really angry. So, she blew her nose, patted the sofa, and said in a coaxing tone: "Okay, I was wrong, I shouldn't laugh so wildly."

"I apologize to you~ I'm sorry——"

"Come and sit down~ I want to continue reading the book~"

"real!"

“What you wrote is really interesting!”

While speaking, Evelin opened her eyes wide.

Blinking at Ethan.

Ethan rolled his eyes at the cute look, sat down hard on the sofa, and slapped the manuscript in front of Evelin. At this moment, he was too lazy to read it. Evelin smiled and glanced at Ethan.

Seeing that he had calmed down, he snorted, picked up the manuscript and continued reading.

Ethan wasn't lying.

He certainly put a lot of thought into combining Pac-Man and Snake.

Because according to the previous concept, the "Super Pac-Man" project is no different from "Super Mario", that is, Mr. Pac-Man saves Ms. Pac-Man who is captured by the Snake King.

But after thinking for a long time, Ethan gave up this plan.

The reason is very simple, that is, the plot of "Ms. Pac-Man gets caught" seems a bit strange no matter how you look at it.

After all, in the game "Ms. Pac-Man" that they launched, Ms. Pac-Man has demonstrated abilities that are no less than Mr. Pac-Man. In other words, with the help of some more powerful props, the fighting power displayed by Ms. Pac-Man is actually stronger than that of Mr. Pac-Man.

When Ms. Pac-Man has already appeared in front of the public as a strong woman, if she is captured by the Snake King and needs to be rescued by Mr. Pac-Man, then wouldn't her personality collapse?
Although in the era of rapid development of electronic games, character design is a small matter, because other games have no plot! Ethan can write a plot for the integrity of the game, which is a leading behavior in the industry. As for whether these plots have bugs?

Colleagues won’t care!

The media won’t care!

I won’t care about players who just want to play games and haven’t gotten tired of playing yet!

Only decades later will people punch them.

But since he has the idea of ​​creating a universe, Ethan naturally hopes to do things to the best of his ability. He cannot guarantee that he will not eat up the books in the future, but he can guarantee that when players come into contact with the game, the story content of the game plot they see must be logically coherent.

Therefore, under Ethan's modification, the character of Ms. Pac-Man will not appear in the current version of "Super Pac-Man" for the time being, and Mr. Pac-Man needs to fight against the snake king Jack.

After finishing the background, the next thing to determine is how the game will be played. This is actually very simple, just copy Master Ma, so Ethan drew a classic 1-1 map.

There's nothing I can do about it, it's a memory engraved in my bones.

Ethan had played this picture countless times when he was a child. When he grew up, he earned enough money to buy a Wii U, and he enjoyed playing Mario Maker, and he became an absolutely qualified tester of Classic World 1-1.

However, even if he could draw the classic 1-1 with his eyes closed, he did not completely copy Shigeru Miyamoto's design. He retained the hills, bushes, and white clouds on the map. Designs like question mark blocks and hidden blocks also existed, but he replaced all the mushrooms with apples. Red apples can make Pac-Man bigger, while green apples add lives.

Not only that, he also replaced the chestnuts on the map with other monsters. The small snakes were subordinates of the snake king Jack, and the turtle... because the setting that the turtle shell can be taken is too great, it still exists.

In addition, the green water pipe in Mario was also modified by Ethan and replaced with a tall altar. In the plot setting, this is used to worship the God of Apple. When players jump onto the altar, they can hold down the down button to worship. If the worship is successful, that is, there is a hidden passage under the altar, then they will be teleported to the other world in Super Mario, which is the underground world in the game.

Ethan also made some changes to this place. In Super Mario, the underground world is a shortcut to the finish line. At the same time, there are a lot of gold coins in it. In Ethan's "Super Pac-Man", the underground world is the maze world described in "Pac-Man".

However, inserting a two-dimensional adventure puzzle into a horizontal scrolling game seems out of place, so in this regard, Ethan made some adjustments, designed some obstacles for the underground world, and added some white ghosts, which are the subordinates of the four smart ghosts in the "Pac-Man" world.

After this modification, when players enter the game, they can reach the same destination from different routes. On the ground, players face the attacks of the Snake King, and underground...

The player will be surrounded by ghosts again.

Because when making "Starfield" before, Ethan encountered a situation where he had rich ideas and complete maps but they were castrated due to high costs, so this time, he did not draw the entire game in one breath, but just wrote a background, drew the first level, and then showed it to his sister.

But even so, the dual-thread design still surprised Evelin, and when she continued to flip down and saw Ethan's design on the game props...

The rudimentary abilities of various apples also appeared in front of her.

In addition to the red enlarged apple and the green life-giving apple that have already appeared in the first level, Ethan also conceived several other apples of different colors:

There are orange apples, which make Mr. Pac-Man fling bullets;
There are yellow apples, which allow Mr. Pac-Man to enter invincibility;
There are green apples, which make Mr. Pac-Man jump very high;
There are blue apples, which make Mr. Pac-Man smaller;
There are purple apples, which make Mr. Pac-Man run very fast;
In addition, there are colorful apples. When Mr. Pac-Man eats them, an object will fall from the sky. It may be the Supreme Light Saber or the DL-44 Heavy Blaster.

If Evelyn could understand the designs of jumping high, throwing bullets, becoming invincible, and running fast, because these ideas were very common, then when she saw the lightsaber and blaster...

She was stunned at first, then burst into laughter.

"Oh - Ethan - you really are -"

"I really don't know what to say now—"

"Lightsaber? DL-44?"

"Is this why you asked George for the rights to all the Star Wars games?"

Evelin put away the manuscript and looked at Ethan with surprise.

And this inquiry also made Ethan happy.

"Yeah~"

He twitched his eyebrows, clenched his hands, and cosplayed Skywalker, "Pac-Man picked up the lightsaber."

“That’s kind of cool to think about, right?”

Before he finished speaking, he waved his hands.

It seemed like he was explaining the game settings, but it also seemed more like he was chopping down the enemies.

That's right!

The reason why Ethan asked George Lucas for all the game copyrights of "Star Wars" and said that he wanted to incorporate "Star Wars" elements into other games was because he had a wild imagination! He wanted Pac-Man to wield a lightsaber to kill enemies!
Is Mario's creativity awesome?
Ah--

Master Ma is bragging, can he be as good as me, Pac-Man, swinging a lightsaber?

what? !

When my Pac-Man swung his lightsaber——

"I want to hit ten!"

Hehe ~
Note: ① As written in the article, in reality, Namco’s “Super Pac-Man” has sold more than 10,000 units in North America. There is no other way. The Pac-Man IP is also great, but it is not as long-lasting as Master Ma.

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(End of this chapter)