Building a Gaming Empire In 1984

"I think I understand what you mean now."

Sam picked up one of the pieces on the board and moved it forward two spaces.

"It's much easier to understand when you explain it using a chessboard."

"So, at its core, it's military chess style tactical simulation combined with RPG mechanics, right?"

He had to admit; it really was a brilliant idea. At its core, many elements of video games had evolved from traditional forms of entertainment. Just like the hugely popular digital adaptations of Dungeons & Dragons had grown out of tabletop games. The chessboard itself had always been the embodiment of strategy gaming.

By bringing it into a video game, however, the convenience offered by computers allowed what had once been a rigid set of board game rules to blossom into limitless possibilities.

Sam picked up another piece labeled "Lord" and placed it in front of Ethan's piece labeled "Fighter."

"Let's see... according to the rules, you're within my attack range, so I can attack you directly, right?"

After receiving Ethan's confirmation, he flipped through the notebook beside him.

"Then I'll have Roy equip a rapier and attack your fighter, Lot."

The weapon used by Ethan's Lot was a Steel Axe. According to the rules, when Sam attacked him with a sword-type weapon, he would benefit from the weapon triangle advantage, dealing double damage.

"Exactly. That's what I meant when I said we could reuse Pokémon's code."

Ethan casually tossed a d100 die and deducted a portion of Lot's HP in the notebook. Sam nodded thoughtfully.

"So, the weapon triangle between lances, axes, and swords is using the same type of advantage algorithm from Pokémon?"

His gaze swept across the board. After confirming he had no more pieces left to move this turn, he rang the little bell on the edge of the table.

"All right, your turn."

"That's right, but that's only part of it."

"The combat system is still fundamentally turn-based, so in reality we can reuse the vast majority of our existing code."

Ethan had been thinking about this for quite some time. He simply hadn't had the opportunity to implement it because of hardware limitations and the lack of unified interface standards.

"Sam, imagine this. As we develop more and more games in the future, we'll eventually have ready-made modules for almost every gameplay mechanic, along with existing implementations of various systems."

Sam's attention shifted away from the board as he considered the scenario Ethan was describing.

"So... you're talking about building a resource library, turning game development into something more like assembling puzzle pieces?"

If they could really accomplish that, it would be wonderful.

Need an HP bar? Just plug in the HP bar module.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Need an inventory? Just add the inventory module.

"Exactly, but I'd rather call it a game engine."

In this era, before the concept of game engines had truly emerged, game development involved an enormous amount of completely unnecessary repetitive work.

Take the startup sequence every NovaBox game required, for example. Every time they developed a new game, they had to rewrite that exact same section all over again, even the title screens, which barely differed from game to game, consumed a surprising amount of development time.

"But we've got too much on our hands right now, but once Carmack and the others finish OpenGL, we should be able to get started."

Ethan's eyes continued scanning the board. Finally, he picked up a piece sitting quietly in the corner.

Pegasus Knight.

"Although you reduced my Lot to critical health, you also exposed your own weakness."

Taking advantage of the Pegasus Knight's superior mobility, he flew straight across the battlefield and landed beside the nun, who had been left completely exposed after Roy moved away.

"No!!!"

Sam let out a miserable scream on the spot. The nun named Elen had completely turned the tide during the previous battle.

With her healing magic, she had rescued the thief from the brink of death. If he hadn't been blinded by his obsession with landing one hit on that smug Lot. Why would he ever have abandoned Elen's protection?

"How could you do this to my first love…" Sam trembled as he picked up the piece, cradling it carefully in his hands. "I'm sorry... My dear Elen!!!"

"There, this is exactly what I meant."

"We don't need an enormous amount of dialogue or text to create a memorable character."

Ethan shrugged. Without the slightest hesitation, he continued his turn.

Two cavalry units wielding Silver Lances charged in from opposite sides, surrounding Sam's ace, Roy, before beating him to death.

With both Roy and Elen gone, Sam's formation immediately collapsed. A lone archer stood helplessly in the open field. The thief was now only a single move away from Ethan's main force.

"It's over."

Sam helplessly knocked over all of his pieces, signaling his surrender. Although he had lost, after several games, Sam had completely understood just how brilliant this concept was. After all, simply simulating it on a chessboard was already this entertaining.

"Then let's start developing it as soon as possible."

"I can't wait anymore."

Because the board game simulation was limited by its complexity, there was no way to incorporate all the exciting mechanics Ethan had described. It left Sam itching with anticipation.

According to Ethan, the finished game would also feature a terrain system, something that would be crucial to combat. Every single tile on the map would possess completely different terrain characteristics.

On open plains, moving one tile would cost only one movement point. Forests would cost two, mountains would require even more.

That one mechanic alone would make every battlefield dramatically different. Planning movement routes, calculating pursuit distances and retreat paths, capturing villages, blocking strategic mountain passes, all of these would become integral parts of the game's strategy.

One careless mistake and the entire battle could be lost. Not to mention all the modifiers terrain itself would apply to combat statistics such as evasion and defense. Those were mechanics they simply couldn't reproduce on this plain, featureless board.

"Even if you can't wait, you'll have to."

"Unless you can finish porting the Japanese version of Pokémon today."

"Isn't that exactly what I'm working on?"

"Speaking of which... why don't we add multilingual support to our games?"

"Or move all the text into a separate resource index or something?"

Sam curled his lips as he revised the translated text submitted by Game Freak line by line while comparing it against the documentation.

"...Huh? Good idea."

"That job is yours now."

Ethan paused in the middle of organizing his documents. That really was something worth implementing.

As GAMENOVA continued to grow and firmly established itself in the American market, expanding overseas would become unavoidable, even if they never entered Japan, they would certainly have to enter Europe.

French, Italian, German, Spanish… if every new language required rewriting all of those hardcoded text strings from scratch, it would become an enormous waste of effort.

Previously, because they had no plans for overseas expansion, and to save development time, Ethan had never implemented such a system.

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