After Murakami Kazuo obtained the qualification for advance game testing, he immediately shared this good news with his alternate account, Takayuki, on the forum.
Takayuki pretended to know nothing and congratulated him, then reminded Murakami Kazuo to maintain his neutrality and not easily waver, before logging off.
Takayuki had other matters to attend to and couldn't devote all his time to this child. However, he had intentionally guided the boy's gradual development towards having the ability to give awards and eventually establishing something like the Oscars for the electronic gaming industry.
Whether this could truly develop to that extent depended on the boy himself.
In the following days, apart from the first game development team, the other three were steadily working on their games.
Pac-Man was released on time. This game also carried significant meaning, as it was a classic casual game. In his previous life, Pac-Man had sparked a cultural craze.
However, it seemed that due to players in this world already experiencing a wide variety of games, the hype around Pac-Man wasn't as intense as in the past. It could only be considered a boutique game, with first-week sales reaching seventy thousand.
Compared to Pac-Man, players were clearly more eager for Dragon Quest III. They had already started clamoring for its release everywhere, with some even organizing small parades, hoping the game would come out soon.
Takayuki suggested that major stores try to persuade these people not to cause trouble. Only with enough patience could electronic games truly excel.
He didn't want such incidents to lead to any negative societal trends, which could be exploited by opportunistic individuals.
As for the sales of game consoles, they were also picking up speed.
Currently, they were selling at a rate of thirteen to fourteen thousand units per day.
If there were occasional promotional activities, sales would increase significantly.
...
"Miss Tsukino, I suggest you get regular sleep every day, even if you can't sleep, just lie down on the bed and don't do anything else."
In an office at Gamestar Electronics, Takayuki was leading a team in developing a new game.
Apart from the four game development teams, Takayuki would occasionally pull out a few people from each team to form temporary development teams, responsible for games he oversaw entirely.
Takayuki himself had become a prominent figure, and he naturally wanted to make the most of it. Besides, he enjoyed the process of game development himself.
This time, Takayuki assembled a team of around twenty people from the four game development teams, responsible for programming, art, music, and other aspects of development.
During the era of the NES, programmers were jacks-of-all-trades, able to switch roles almost at will. However, this changed with the Super NES era. At that time, more specialized individuals were needed for specific tasks.
Art, music, and animation effects all had to be addressed.
Takayuki had already instructed Matsuhashi to scout for talent, poaching from film studios and television stations.
During the morning meeting, Takayuki noticed Ayase Tsukino, with dark circles under her eyes like she was wearing smoky makeup, and couldn't help but comment.
"I'm not sleepy. There's no need to sleep so much," Ayase Tsukino rejected Takayuki's suggestion.
Takayuki shook his head. "This is for your health. If you continue like this, I'll worry you might suddenly collapse. It would be regrettable to lose such an excellent employee due to an accident."
Ayase Tsukino glanced at Takayuki and said softly, "I'm fine. I heard you also often stay up for days and nights. You seem fine too."
Takayuki pointed at his own face. "Look at me, robust and healthy. But you, with a bit of makeup, could play a vampire."
Takayuki didn't know why he had so much energy. Perhaps it was some kind of special benefit from transmigrating.
He didn't have a system or a grandfather's ring like the others. Having high energy and decent memory seemed to be the only perks of his transmigration.
But he dared not overdo it. What if this benefit came at the cost of lifespan, like staying up late now could mean losing years of life? So, he still needed to take care of his health.
Seeing Ayase Tsukino still wanting to say something in refusal, Takayuki simply said, "If you want to learn game development from me, you need to have good health. I don't want all the game development techniques I impart to go to waste."
Ayase Tsukino opened her mouth, then finally said softly, "I'll consider it."
"Well, that's good. Let's continue discussing the development of Midtrode today. Do you have any issues with the program data from the past few days?"
An employee raised his hand and said, "President, the level programming is almost done, but there are some flaws in the details of level design. We may need more time for continuous testing."
"Because this is a Metroidvania game, the level design determines the overall playability of the game."
"Speaking of which, President, why is it called a Metroidvania game?"
"Well, because I couldn't think of a better category name, so I just used our game's name."
In Takayuki's previous life, Metroidvania games were a collective term for two classic games: Star Wars and Castlevania.
Star Wars was officially named Metroid.
These two games were released around the same time and together pioneered the unique category of Metroidvania games.
These types of games also held an important position in the field of electronic games.
In later years, they became favorites of many independent game developers.
Games like Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, and Dark Souls were all examples of Metroidvania games in later years.
The focus was on puzzle solving in game maps, followed by action and role-playing.
The puzzle solving in these games was different from that in Super Mario. In Super Mario, puzzles were presented one after another, without leaving players stuck at the beginning with unsolvable problems.
But Metroidvania games were different.
Sometimes, players might encounter several unsolvable puzzles at the beginning of a level.
These puzzles often required players to obtain certain items or skills from later levels to solve them.
As players spent more time playing, they would gradually discover that they could use newly acquired items or skills to solve puzzles they had encountered earlier. This gave players a sense of satisfaction in discovering secrets and added depth to the game, making it more replayable.
This was a method of game development that saved time and effort but also required a lot of thinking.
Of course, the main point was that these games were indeed very popular.
Takayuki wanted to develop the gaming industry and naturally wouldn't miss out on these electronic games, which also contributed significantly to the gaming industry.