Building a Gaming Empire In 1984

"Ethan, look at this section. This 256-byte memory area is Sprite RAM. It can be used to…"

[Received guidance from professional, Graphics Experience +3 (modified to 2.5x due to skill effects)]

"Let's use the Ricoh 2C02, a 6502 PPU, as an example…"

[Received guidance from professional, Graphics Experience +3 (modified to 2.5x due to skill effects)]

[Ding!]

[Successfully Mastered]: Technical Art

[Skill Acquired]:

[Technical Art +10, Graphic Design +5]

Vivian didn't notice the brief moment of distraction that appeared on Ethan's face. She continued diligently explaining the material from the book.

"So we can use CPU memory to read from and write to the PPU in this way, but this is usually done during…"

Ethan, who had been listening attentively the entire time, suddenly spoke up and finished her sentence.

"During V-Blank, because it affects the addresses used during rendering."

Vivian froze for a moment and looked at Ethan in surprise.

What he said was completely correct.

But she hadn't even gotten to V-Blank yet. How did he know?

"I get it now. So that's how it works."

Ethan suddenly slapped his forehead as all the previously tangled threads of thought instantly connected together.

Immediately afterward, he grabbed a pen and began scribbling rapidly across the notebook he used for class, hand-writing a rough section of code.

Although most of it consisted of abbreviations and pseudocode that only Ethan himself could understand, Vivian quickly recognized what he was trying to create.

It was scrolling technology.

The core concept was to treat the entire game world as one gigantic background image, while the screen acted as a fixed observation window.

Every frame, during V-Blank, the CPU would tell the graphics chip which coordinates of the image the window should point to in the next frame.

By refreshing rapidly, it created the illusion of a smoothly moving scene.

Vivian was completely dumbfounded.

The knowledge required for this wasn't something even students in their major could easily grasp without serious study.

Yet the newcomer in front of her, who had been completely clueless just half an hour ago, had merely read a few pages of a related magazine and was already independently designing a mature scrolling system?

"That's unbelievable…"

Vivian even started wondering whether this guy had been pretending not to understand things just to mess with her or was he some kind of genius.

She had planned on heading to Silicon Valley after graduation.

Now, all of a sudden, Vivian felt as if her future had become shrouded in darkness.

"Thank you very much, Vivian."

Ethan suddenly stood up and expressed his gratitude with utmost sincerity.

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"If you get the chance, come visit our arcade. Everything's free for you."

After throwing out those words, he gathered up several books and rushed toward the librarian's desk.

Once he hurriedly completed the borrowing procedures, he sprinted back toward his apartment at full speed.

...

Friday.

Ethan looked Sam up and down.

For some reason, it felt like the guy had lost several pounds.

Over the past few days, Sam had spent every waking moment either attending classes or running around handling paperwork.

The run down arcade that had once been covered in grease and grime, with only a single functioning light bulb remaining, had now been cleaned from top to bottom.

The Tetris prototype sat prominently in the center of the room, occupying the most eye catching position.

Leaning on a mop whose bristles were practically falling off, Sam stared at Ethan with a pale face.

"It's cleaned... everything's cleaned..."

Ethan nodded in satisfaction and waved a black chip with a row of pins on either side.

It was an EPROM containing the new game he had just finished debugging.

"Here. The new game I told you about."

The moment Sam saw the surprise he had been waiting for all week, he instantly seemed to come back to life.

Throwing aside the mop, he hurried over to a machine running a specific game.

"Just like you said, this Xevious cabinet has been repaired, so let's use it."

On Wednesday, Ethan had made a special trip over and selected several machines that were still in decent condition, then handed Sam a detailed repair checklist.

Ethan unscrewed the back panel, replaced the EPROM, plugged the machine in, and powered it up.

A flicker of scanlines flashed across the screen.

A large title appeared.

1942.

After careful consideration, Ethan had shifted development away from Salamander and toward 1942, a title better suited to the American market.

Or rather, he had combined the strengths of both games.

In the original timeline, this game had been released by Capcom on November 11, 1985, more than a year away from the present.

Unlike many of the new scrolling shooters of the same era, 1942 abandoned a fictional setting in favor of realism, taking place in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

Players assumed the role of an American pilot, flying a fighter aircraft against the Japanese air force.

There was no doubt that this game had been successful.

In fact, it had been critically important.

The reason was simple.

In 1983, the fledgling Capcom decided to enter the video game industry.

As president, Kenzo Tsujimoto recruited a young planner for the newly established company.

His name was Yoshiki Okamoto.

In later generations, he would become known as, The Father of Street Fighter.

And 1942 was the very first project under his leadership, as well as the blockbuster hit that firmly established Capcom's footing in the video game industry.

Sam excitedly threw himself in front of the machine.

Without waiting for Ethan to explain further, he immediately started the game.

But the moment it began, some of the excitement faded from his face.

This was basically Xevious.

The only difference was that the map had been changed to an ocean setting. Even the scrolling map technology had already been used in Xevious. At first glance, only one word appeared in Sam's mind, disappointment.

He had expected to see another phenomenon-level masterpiece like Tetris. Instead, Ethan had given him nothing more than a reskinned version of Xevious.

"Ethan, this is the new game you were talking about?"

He sighed.

It seemed that Ethan's success with Tetris had merely been a lucky accident.

How could miracles happen twice in a row?

Fortunately, there was still Tetris, a god-tier masterpiece.

Otherwise, this investment would have been a catastrophic loss. If his family found out, he would definitely be in serious trouble.

"Play it first. You're going to love it."

Ethan wasn't worried.

Xevious had indeed been enormously influential. Almost every scrolling shooter of the era carried traces of its design. That was perfectly normal. But those later games had all become massive hits not because they copied Xevious's appearance. Rather, it was because of a critically important new system.

First pioneered by Konami's Gradius, it would go on to become the true core gameplay mechanic of shoot-'em-ups for decades to come. The fighter upgrade system.

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