Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

Page 65

Upon hearing Lin Li's words...

David nodded in agreement; the other party indeed had no reason to lie to him.

After saying that, Lin Li glanced somewhat guiltily at the DEMO file on his computer.

I thought to myself that what I did wasn't entirely a lie.

It depends on how you define "almost done".

Anyway, back in the day, when Lin Li was rushing to finish his homework during school holidays, he could tell his mom he was almost done after writing the first ten pages...

~~~

Let's get back to the topic.

The plan was set in mid-July this year to use empty promises to pressure DEwoks into taking over the FATE copyright.

By the end of August, that's a full month and a half.

It's impossible to develop a game in such a short time.

At least we can't make the game shown in the promotional video.

Let alone games, the fact that a development team could create the demo shown in the promotional video in just a month and a half is something that probably few development teams in the world could do.

Lin Li was able to put together this demo entirely because he had a clear idea of ​​what he wanted from day one.

So before leaving Japan.

He presented all the requirements directly in the form of pictures and text.

Including the storyboard for today's promotional video.

In other words, all the content of Lin Li's DEMO was broken down, created, and then pieced together, following the order in which it appeared in the storyboard.

From the UI, character illustrations, modeling, battle animations, to even the order of attack sequences.

Lin Li wrote down all the requirements clearly, even drawing sketches for you. Besides these, when you're demonstrating, walk a little further out, and you'll see a completely blank white space with nothing there.

But that's scary enough already.

After Lin Li left.

When Yao Meng handed this document to Shiokawa and members of the Tokyo Spark Games.

They were still wondering.

Developing any demo requires signing a confidentiality agreement.

The question remained unanswered until everyone signed the agreement and received the DEMO development plan.

Everyone stood there stunned in the conference room for at least several minutes.

Everyone flipped through the development plan page by page.

No one spoke at all.

Everyone was completely bewildered.

They had never seen a game developed like this before.

My entire worldview was severely impacted.

This is like someone suddenly throwing the answers to the college entrance exam at you before the exam.

The amazing thing is that when you start the exam, you find that all the questions match up and the answers are true!

It's not that this is entirely impossible.

But upon closer examination, you'll be startled to find yourself grappling with the next question.

What kind of person can come up with the answers before the college entrance examination?

What kind of person could know what a game would look like before it was even developed?!

Is this really something a human can do?

It was precisely because of this incident that, although Lin Li had only stayed in Tokyo for a few days, almost everyone in the Tokyo studio was completely in awe of him.

The morale buff is also maxed out.

With such a great boss and such good benefits, how could the company not thrive?

Finally, after a detailed development plan was developed.

With the combined efforts of both Tokyo and Shanghai, who tackled the difficulties encountered during development one by one, this demo was completed in just one and a half months.

Chapter 85 Killing Two Birds with One Stone

The final product of this demo can be said to have been made entirely for promotional purposes.

There is only one scene and one cutscene. Everything in the demo is in high-poly model form, including Jeanne d'Arc and Saber. They even used AMD Head & Shoulders technology to make their hair. The lighting and shadows in the scene were also adjusted again and again.

what?

You asked about the copywriting with the mosaic blurred out?

I'm sorry, but Lin Li did indeed find Gen Urobuchi and signed a game writing contract with him.

This is not difficult.

Gen Urobuchi is, after all, a commercial writer. As long as you have the money and the other party has the time, it's not difficult to hire him.

However, in a month and a half, Gen Urobuchi only managed to finish the first chapter of the story according to the requirements.

However, Lin Li could never materialize this plot.

Because in Gen Urobuchi's storyline, there is no dialogue between Joan of Arc and King Arthur at all.

Lin Li also felt that he couldn't come up with dialogue that had a Fate feel to it.

So they simply used mosaics in the promotional video.

And a sentence was written in front of the mosaic.

[During game development, at the request of the script supervisor, Mr. Nasu, the game's story will not be released at this time.]

As it turned out, Lin Li's approach was very successful.

This mosaic has successfully fueled the anticipation of countless people: what exactly did Kinoko Nasu write, and what did Joan of Arc and King Arthur say?

Some players went even further, analyzing the lip movements of the models in the promotional video frame by frame, trying to figure out what Kinoko Nasu had written!

However in fact.

Let's not talk about this place.

Throughout the entire game, Kinoko Nasu didn't write a single word.

After all, the game's worldview is so similar to that of Type-Moon.

Mushroom isn't stupid; it's not a problem for her to just take money and act as a copywriter/producer.

But you want him to write copy for a specific type of month?

Isn't that like hitting yourself?

So after paying Nasu Kinoko to supervise the copywriting, Spark Games didn't even actually give him the role of "supervisor" for the copywriting.

This time, Nasu Kinoko truly received a salary without actually working.

But this is not bad for him either.

Why not take the money that's free?

Conversely, even if he takes the money but doesn't do anything, Nasu Kinoko wouldn't feel at ease.

When interviewed by reporters, he said that he had a very pleasant collaboration with Spark Games.

...

All I can say is that Kinoko Nasu does have some integrity, but not much.

And so, in the end.

The most authentic part of the entire demo was actually the music composed by Joe Hisaishi.

Although, he has only made one song since signing the contract.

Anyway.

Ultimately, this demo was indeed completed within the required timeframe, and it was done very well.

The entire demo looked very impressive, and the promotional effect made everyone think that this was just the tip of the iceberg, but in fact, it was already the whole iceberg.

Of course, it wouldn't be entirely accurate to say that the entire demo was just empty promises.

Despite working overtime for a month and a half, Xinghuo Games and Lin Li still gained a lot.

First, Spark Games has fully mastered Lugus's game engine and optimized the game plugins, turning it into a game engine capable of producing at least Honkai Impact 3rd-level games.

Although there are still many areas where this game engine needs optimization.

But at least it can run now.

Moreover, it uses Spark Games' own engine.

From this perspective, the potential for future optimization is much greater than that of miHoYo, which has been heavily modifying Unity at different times.

Many optimization issues in Honkai Impact 3rd ultimately stem from the fundamental incompatibility caused by using a heavily modified Unity engine.

This situation continued until Genshin Impact, when miHoYo had the money and technology to completely change most of Unity.

Aside from the engine still being called Unity, the kernel has been completely changed beyond recognition, and only then has the optimization problem been solved.

As for Spark Games, because it is implemented with its own engine, although it seems to have many problems now, even running a demo can report a bunch of bugs.

But Lugus stays at Starfire Games, so you can contact him for any engine-related issues.

And as the founder of the engine.

No one in the entire world understands this engine better than him.

In simpler terms, if Spark Games encounters problems during game development, they can directly contact Lugus. The problem-solving rate, while not 100%, is at least 90%.

miHoYo faced the same problem: could they bring in the founder of Unity?

That's obviously impossible!

Since I can't do it myself, I'll just have to figure it out myself.

Ultimately, the solution to the problem may not be the optimal choice, which naturally leads to optimization problems.

Besides the engine.

This demo also helped both Spark Games' Shanghai and Tokyo studios cultivate a group of employees who are proficient in using their own 3D game engine.

The emergence of this group of people has given Spark Games a certain capacity for 3D game development.

This production capacity certainly cannot compare with that of major companies like miHoYo, NetEase, and others.

But at least it has achieved a qualitative change from nothing to something, from 0 to 1.

With this batch of seeds, it will be much easier for Spark Games to recruit and train more people and expand production capacity.

Give us another six months to a year.

With Lin Li's development plan essentially copying others' work, creating a truly playable demo is just around the corner.

Finally, there is one obvious problem with the entire promotional video: the image quality in the demo.

It's impossible to display the footage from the promotional video on a mobile phone, since the promotional video was produced using the highest-spec computer currently available.

With some optimization and scaling, it can still run on mobile phones.

At the very least, don't forget that Lugus's engine was originally designed to be used with computers.

At worst, we can implement cross-platform compatibility.

If you want better graphics, play on PC; if you want portability, play on your phone.

Of course, those are all backup plans.

The only purpose of this demo right now is strategic deception.

Lin Li didn't actually plan to launch the game in October.