Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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Whether in the past life or in this timeline.

Minecraft became a huge hit in 09, but after being acquired by Microsoft in 14, its popularity has been declining.

Especially after being acquired by Microsoft, there is a feeling of being "abandoned". This "abandonment" does not mean that Microsoft no longer updates the game content.

Rather, it refers to the fact that after Microsoft acquired Minecraft, it didn't actually figure out why Minecraft became so popular.

When planning derivative works for this IP, I often just impulsively decide to develop Minecraft as a regular IP.

After releasing several derivative works and making some money from the IP, Microsoft quickly realized that the IP was not as profitable as it had imagined.

The sales of derivative works were also just average.

After confirming that it had no value, Microsoft simply abandoned the IP and ignored it.

In fact, Lin Li believes that although Minecraft has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide, it does not mean that the potential of this IP has been fully exploited.

The reason why the Minecraft games released by Microsoft were not accepted by players.

Fundamentally, it's because those games, apart from using the blocky art style of Minecraft, are no different from other games.

The most ridiculous thing is that the blocky art style of Minecraft is not a point that can attract players to play the game.

From the most fundamental logical perspective...

Minecraft, in essence, is like Lego; it provides basic building blocks to allow players to replay the game repeatedly and create multiple combinations, enabling them to "entertain themselves."

Its gameplay should be designed to be replayable.

Just like Lego, which has been selling better and better for decades, it's the same principle.

However, Minecraft is not Lego. Lego from over a decade ago can still be used today, but Minecraft, with its framework from over a decade ago, can still be used today.

Both the visuals and the underlying framework are somewhat outdated.

Admittedly, with texture packs, shaders, and expensive graphics cards, it's possible to turn Minecraft into "someone else's world."

But the phrase "someone else's world" comes out.

This explains why Minecraft gradually declined after its initial explosive popularity.

The answer is actually very simple, just two words: threshold.

Mods and plugins that offer features like graphics enhancement and ray tracing have a learning curve. These mods and plugins, along with the various versions of Minecraft itself, create a lot of confusion.

The barrier to entry is simply too high for newcomers, especially for the new generation of players.

When Xinghuo was being reset, Lin Li's requirement was a complete deconstruction, starting from scratch and completely rebuilding from the underlying framework.

Based on the Starfire engine, all blocks were reset, and materials such as fluids and metals were modernized and upgraded, incorporating basic physics such as gravity and friction.

Furthermore, through optimization, the algorithm is reduced while retaining its effectiveness.

For example, one of the most common effects in the new version of Minecraft is block shattering, which is widely used in Minecraft Remastered.

To optimize the shattering effect, the Spark production team directly adopted a previously proven method.

We created over a dozen different shattering animations for blocks of varying materials to achieve a pseudo-random effect, thus enabling better optimization.

Similar optimizations are actually seen in the mining gameplay of "Galaxy Paradise" and the scene destruction system of "Gundam Battlegrounds".

These previously accumulated technologies played a crucial role in optimizing the framework of the remastered version.

After defining these basic blocks and rules and completing the first round of optimization, the resulting demo is the one Microsoft has released.

To be honest, this demo is not very complete.

It only has the simplest world generation, character movement, block destruction and stacking, resource acquisition and consumption, and a system of crops, animals, and monsters that is copied from the original game.

In addition, blueprints were introduced to lower the barrier to entry, allowing players to see how each item needs to be arranged when crafting.

It means that a "framework" has just been completed.

However, that's all.

This demo has already captivated many players since its release.

Just like when LEGO was reborn, many players don't dislike Minecraft anymore, but rather feel that Minecraft is outdated.

Now that the new version of Spark has been released, its graphics, lighting, and the newly added physics system have all impressed those who have played it before.

There are even a large number of players who have never played the game before, but became interested after seeing others play it on Bilibili or other social media platforms.

Plus, this is a free demo.

As a result, it exploded as soon as it went online.

Chapter 624 A Different World

The influence of the Minecraft IP is so vast, with 3 million official copies sold and countless pirated copies, not to mention those who have only seen it but never played it.

It's no exaggeration to say that the number of players it can reach globally is absolutely top-tier.

As a result, the demo was downloaded over ten million times on Microsoft's console platform in just one week, and then it was launched on the Spark platform for PC testing.

It even broke through five million in just a few hours.

Including Su Shanshan, she also became addicted to this game.

Last night, the two of them spent most of the day digging the earthen slope.

The biggest difference between the Spark version of Minecraft Remastered and the original is the introduction of the "gravity" attribute in standard mode.

Of course, this attribute can be adjusted in Creative Mode. In Creative Mode, players can not only set gravity to 0, but also to a negative number.

But that's a matter for creating modes.

In standard mode.

The gravity attribute is actually not complicated. Simply put, each block is marked with a weight.

However, directly labeling the weight would turn the entire game's blocks into a chaotic mess of "mahjong tiles."

Therefore, along with the introduction of gravity, the coefficient of friction was also introduced.

In short, this friction is like the plug-and-play mechanism in Lego, except that the circular plug-and-play mechanism is visible in Lego.

But in Minecraft Remastered.

The plug-in/plug-out model between blocks is invisible.

Simply put, the most noticeable change after the introduction of this system is that in the original Minecraft, players are now standing on the edge of a cliff.

You can easily build your way forward by throwing blocks at your feet, or construct towering buildings that reach into the clouds, or even build while suspended in the air, without having to consider the rules of physics.

But in the remastered standard mode of the Spark version, everything is different.

Because of the introduction of the "gravity" attribute, players must consider the weight of each block and the supporting structure when building.

If you're trying to build a tall tower, the base blocks must be sturdy enough, otherwise the upper blocks will collapse due to their weight. This mechanism makes building more realistic and challenging.

Secondly, if you stand on a cliff and build a structure forward, then when you build a certain length...

The portion that is spent will break off like a Lego set.

Not only in the horizontal direction, but also in the vertical direction, if a player builds a huge "Armstrong Cannon" that stands tall, then as long as a gust of wind blows by, if the "attack" exerted by the wind is greater than the "friction", then the building will be blown down.

Yes...

To mitigate optimization issues caused by extensive physics calculations, many things in games that appear to be physics systems are actually just "simulation mechanisms."

However, the logic of this simulation mechanism is self-consistent.

This is also relatively logical.

There will inevitably be a gust of wind, which is actually a bunch of invisible blocks moving. When these invisible blocks collide with buildings or other things...

It will attack other blocks, thereby reducing their friction. If the opponent's friction reaches zero, the block will be blown down.

Or it can be interpreted as an invisible hand breaking Lego bricks...

Spark Studio achieved a system and effect similar to wind erosion using this "clever" method.

In internal testing, they were even able to use strong winds to create canyon-like terrain.

Besides the wind in the game, many other systems in Minecraft Remastered are also based on this logic, such as the weather system.

Rain, lightning, and snow are all represented using "alternate" blocks.

Of course, in addition to these "physical" mechanisms, there are two other noticeable changes in the remastered version. One is the addition of a cutting system in the new version.

This cutting system is actually quite easy to understand. Players can now use a tool called a "cutting table" to cut a cube in half or into four smaller cubes.

In fact, the original version also had a similar function, such as players being able to craft half-bricks through crafting.

However, this function is not quite the same as the cutting system.

The introduction of the cutting system allows players to build structures with a higher degree of "granularity".

Besides cutting.

The fragmentation system mentioned earlier is also a very crucial system.

Simply put, when a block's durability drops to zero, it will break into 4 to 16 smaller blocks. These broken blocks can be collected, but cannot be used for building.

Take mining by players as an example.

When the pickaxe strikes, as the crack widens and the durability drops to zero, the player will see the mineral block shatter into blocks of various sizes. Normally, these blocks will go directly into the player's inventory.

But if you stand further away, these blocks will scatter on the ground.

Introducing these changes and systems is similar to adding more modules to Lego; it may seem like there are no major changes, but in reality, it has a huge impact on the game.

Give another example.

In the Minecraft Remastered demo, many players discovered that if they encountered a rainstorm during gameplay...

Due to the impact of cracks and rain, as well as the introduction of the "fluid" mechanic in Minecraft Remastered, you can even see riverbeds eroded by heavy rain in areas with earthen slopes.

Even in the optimized version of Minecraft Remastered, which only features rain, "simplified water physics" is used.

To elaborate a bit, this "simplified physical water" feature is a function that Spark Engine is developing.

As we all know, physical water, which is the function of simulating real water bodies, is very demanding in terms of optimization. Even in AAA games, physical water rarely appears.

However, the properties of physical water do indeed allow for many interesting ways to play.

For example, the water in Red Dead Redemption 2 is physical water.

In the Minecraft Remastered version, the use of physical water is definitely necessary for fluids, since the effects of physical water are incredibly satisfying to apply in the blocky world.

Moreover, players will have many more ways to play.

However, if current technology is used directly, then when players are playing the game, as long as it rains, with the current graphics card performance, even a 3090 will only be able to lag like a slideshow.

In other games, if you want to optimize, there's basically only one approach: reduce the realism of the water simulation.

It's not like water, it's more like slime, even more slime-like than slime itself.

Chapter 625 Water Body

And so, a new problem arose.

If you're going to turn the water into slime in the name of optimization, then you might as well not do it at all...

Many games get stuck at this point. Under normal circumstances, Spark cannot defy the laws of physics and solve this problem with the current performance of graphics cards.

However...

Don't forget what game this is.

This is Minecraft, where everything is made of blocks. This means that when water flows, there are only a very few possible scenarios.

One type of water is that the water remains stationary on flat ground; another type is that the water flows from higher blocks to lower blocks; and yet another type is that the water collidees with blocks.

Even if you include things like waterfalls.

There are fewer than a dozen fluid states in the game, and even including special fluids like lava, there are still fewer than thirty.

Thus, a combination of "animated water" and "physical water" emerged.

The water in the game is indeed physical water.

However, during the flow, the computational fluid is calculated one grid at a time. After the system calculates the flow direction, the visual effect is actually achieved by playing a pre-set "animation".