America: The Godfather of Game Development

Chapter 321 Pixel art and mosaic are two different things

Having established the basic division of development responsibilities, Lin Lixin still had an important matter to resolve.

Unlike previous projects, Metal Slug has a distinct difference in its art design.

It is a highly stylized pixel-art game.

Pixel art style?

In the conference room, Vivian was taken aback when she heard this request.

Because it involves using a new generation of processors, she, as the project leader, naturally had to participate in the development work.

"Lin, ATHENA's performance is sufficient to resolve even higher resolution images!"

This clearly indicates a doubt about the chip's potential.

Although the lack of a dedicated graphics card will inevitably limit its graphics output, this is not an insurmountable problem.

"We can assemble a SoC and integrate a Nova Radeon chip into it."

Sacrificing image detail for this reason is a very bad deal.

Although it is far from reaching the level of a film or television production, through various post-production processes, it has begun to show some signs of future potential.

If we were to reverse our technological progress now in order to save performance, that would be unacceptable and not in line with GAMENOVA's style.

"ATHENA is the culmination of our hard work; you should know better than anyone that she absolutely can do it!"

"Of course I know, but you don't need to rush."

Lin Lixin pressed down on Vivian, who was eager to deny the idea, his expression turning serious. "Although it's pixelated, it's definitely not the same as the 8-bit era."

"What's the difference?"

"The difference between being able to do it and not being able to do it."

Lin Lixin shrugged and said, "The graphics of Contra looked like that because that was the best we could do with the technology at the time."

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"But now we have the capability to create high-definition textures, yet we use that technology and performance to run pixelation. What difference do you think that would make?"

He turned on his computer, grabbed the keyboard, and quickly typed out a few lines of instructions.

Vivian leaned over to look at the screen, puzzled.

This is a very common drawing software that they use frequently during development.

Lin Lixin quickly typed in lines of instructions, causing the software to drop color blocks onto the canvas.

Before long, a pair of blue underwear appeared on the canvas.

Vivian also recognized what Lin Lixin was drawing.

This typical blue-shorts, shirtless tough guy is clearly a classic image from Contra.

"You see, we can create such a character with just 816 pixels."

"But this was due to the limited capabilities available at the time, and we could only use symbolic methods to construct characters."

"Why can we recognize him as 'Schwarzenegger,' or rather, why do we know he's a tough soldier?"

Lin Lixin tapped the area on its head.

"It is the inclusion of classic elements such as straps, guns, and ammunition belts, along with the pixel art on the cover, that allows players to visualize his image."

Putting all that aside, if you look at this character sprite again, it is indeed a complete mess of pixelated images.

Monotonous colors and low resolution are some of the problems with Contra.

Using the fewest pixels and the fewest colors to depict the most soulful image—this is the unique professional skill of developers in this era.

"And now, pixelation is an art style that we have actively chosen."

"The most important point is that whether it is pixelated or not has no direct relation to its resolution."

Even with high resolution, pixel art can still be achieved.

Minecraft and Terraria are prime examples.

"We don't use high-resolution textures, not because we can't, but because it's unnecessary."

"Unlike high-definition textures, pixel art has a unique advantage: it can be easily achieved, but high-definition textures are difficult to achieve."

Lin Lixin looked at Vivian, "We've already proven this. Guess what it is?"

Vivian blinked, and at that moment she finally realized what Lin Lixin wanted to say.

I've also figured out which work he was referring to.

"The King of Fighters!"

Nova Radeon had a brilliant debut match.

Using the most exaggerated and magical stretching movements, countless exaggerated movements that are simply impossible to do in real life have been achieved.

Rather than trying to recreate reality as much as possible, it's more accurate to say that it's inherently cartoonish.

"That's right, we don't need to simulate the character's skeletal movement or consider any realistic mechanical simulation."

"Everything was made according to the logic of animation, hand-drawn frame animation, rather than generated by software."

Lin Lixin nodded in satisfaction.

The King of Fighters and Metal Slug are indeed from the same lineage.

Not only are they from the same mother, but their hardware specifications are also basically the same.

Both of these highly stylized works are from SNK.

In the 90s, when arcade machines still reigned supreme, SNK created a terrifying arcade board that could be called the king of boards.

NEOGEO—MVS.

Back in the days when everyone was still using the shabby PPU graphics coprocessor on the Famicom, the NEOGEO-MVS, upon its release, possessed the incredible ability to process a full 380 sprites in a single frame.

Back in the FC era, if you wanted to process a large number of sprites, you had to divide the process into multiple frames to barely finish it.

This led to the most common image problem in the 8-bit era—fragmentation!

The motion in the scene is extremely choppy; the movement of a single texture often requires multiple loops to be transferred piece by piece.

In an era when processor clock speeds were already slow, such a gap was clearly visible to the naked eye.

It was precisely because of NEOGEO's incredible overall performance that SNK was able to create so many outstanding and wildly popular works.

Iori Yagami's ordinary special move, Yagami's Eight Maidens, can be broken down into nearly a hundred frames, which is almost 100 hand-drawn pixel paintings.

"With higher performance, we can create arcade-level graphics like in The King of Fighters, and use higher resolution to create pixel art with richer details."

"At the same time, we can also allow hundreds or thousands of projectiles to move on the screen in real time, without the naked eye noticing!"

Of course, talk is cheap, but when it comes to actual development, there are still many problems.

The biggest issue is that GAMENOVA simply doesn't have a suitable department to do this.

Although Lin Lixin also has connections with Industrial Light & Magic, in the past, many of their images were indeed outsourced to Industrial Light & Magic.

But this time, Industrial Light & Magic really can't do this job.

Pixel art has been professionalized and commercialized for the first time ever.

After all, everyone is currently racking their brains to create graphics and try to keep up with the times, so only GAMENOVA would suddenly go back to making pixel art.

Although Lin Lixin could learn to fill this hole in a few days, it was ultimately not a long-term solution.

There are so many frames of animation used in a whole project that even if he works non-stop, it will still take a long time to complete.

With all the other business involved, such as program development, hardware control, and policy management, he wouldn't have any extra energy left to do anything else.

It is essential to assemble a suitable professional team.

To solve this problem, Lin Lixin decided to look to the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

In Japan, there is a remarkable company that has received a cease and desist letter from IBM. It is considered the "breeding ground" of the Japanese game industry, nurturing many producers who have had a profound impact on the game world in later generations.

Its name is IREM.

Its founder was named Kenzo Tsujimoto.

After being sidelined by the office struggle led by Nanao Electric and Yoshihiko Kodo, Kenzo Tsujimoto resigned in anger in 83 and started a new game company.

The new company is called Capcom.

At the same time, Kenzo Tsujimoto also took several young people from IREM, the former arcade giant.

Takashi Nishiyama, the godfather of fighting games.

This young man brought Capcom a legendary IP that Capcom can live off for a lifetime.

Street Fighter

The name Nishiyama Takashi may be quite unfamiliar to players in later generations.

But anyone with even a basic understanding of the gaming world will be familiar with Ryu Ryu, the original Super Hadouken from Street Fighter who is known for his constant use of "Hadouken".

The character is based on this low-key young man who has a strong interest in martial arts.

In addition to Takashi Nishiyama, Kenzo Tsujimoto also took many outstanding developers with him, including Yoshiki Okamoto and Tokuro Fujiwara.

Both of them are heavyweights. Yoshiki Okamoto took over the assets left by Ryu and created Street Fighter II, truly ushering in the golden age of fighting games.

As for Fujiwara no Tokuro—

To put it another way, in 1994, he withstood the pressure from the entire company and handed over a stack of project proposals to a young junior who had just entered the industry.

This young junior's name is Shinji Mikami.

And that proposal was called — Sweet Home Remastered.

Fujiwara Tokuro was Shinji Mikami's mentor, senior, and teacher, the father of biochemistry.

In a sense, it was IREM that nurtured many of Capcom's star producers in later years.

But besides Capcom, the man in the IREM upper echelons who drove Tsujimoto Kenzo out through office politics was also no ordinary person.

Yoshihiko Takado was the president of SNK at the time.

The love-hate relationship between Capcom and SNK was also formed during this period.

Although IREM is indeed a legendary arcade company, what Lin Li-hsin really wanted was not these two problematic large companies.

For Lin Lixin, what truly interested him in IREM was a little-known group.

In early November.

Satoshi Tajiri suddenly received a new order from Lin Lixin.

He was already used to this kind of thing.

Even though Sega is now in the transition phase, Game Freak remains GAMENOVA's office in Japan.

Lin Li-hsin is the chairman of Sega, but Game Freak is the department that is truly responsible for the handover of Japanese business.

Therefore, many tasks that Lin Lixin was unable to handle personally were often delegated to him.

Take, for example, Illusion Entertainment, which is currently making waves in the arcade game industry.

Muranishi Toru has been having a blast lately and has completely accepted his new identity.

He was used to it, but today's instruction gave him a bit of a headache.

"Should we poach a few people from arcade giant IREM?"

Xiao Zhi carefully browsed through the detailed list.

This covers almost all roles in game development.

From planning and directing to art direction, composition, and programming—it has everything.

"Is this... taking their entire development team with them?"

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